© Michael Stabentheiner
Small yet big:
Welcome to the startup ecosystem in Carinthia
Carinthia loves people with innovative ideas and courageous founders with visions for the world of tomorrow.
That is why the province of Carinthia supports startups and young entrepreneurs from their first steps
to their launch with funding and personal support. Uncomplicated and unbureaucratic.
Good reasons for young companies
Knowledge-based and technology-oriented startups are particularly at home in Austria’s southernmost province. Why are they successful here and why do they feel so at home? There are several reasons for this:
1. Consulting the uncomplicated way
You have an idea, but how do you turn it into a business model and a success? The “Carinthia Startup Network” offers up-to-date insights into Carinthia’s innovative startup projects and provides access to resources from key stakeholders. Professional coaches of the build! startup centre accompany motivated founders step by step.
© Johannes Puch
2. Funding opportunities: financial support
No matter how good a business idea is, it is difficult to implement it without capital. Whether it be crowdfunding, business angels and venture capital or subsidies: there are diverse opportunities and Austria’s funding landscape is impressive by European standards. The most important funding agency in Carinthia is the Carinthian Economic Promotion Fund (KWF). One example: the “vor.GRÜNDEN” programme supports young founders for nine months so that they can concentrate fully on their “baby”.
© Johannes Puch
3. Business opportunities: in a good neighbourhood
In Carinthia, startups can count on a good neighbourhood. The startup ecosystem includes international industrial groups such as Infineon, the top research centre Silicon Austria Labs and the technology centre of Lakeside Park. The location is also ideal: fast connections to the entire Alps-Adriatic region enable optimal market access and international work.
© Michael Stabentheiner
4. Work-lake balance: inspiration always and everywhere
New ideas need an inspiring environment. In coworking spaces, founders not only share space, they also get to talk to each other. At Makerspace Carinthia, a mix of workshop and workspace, prototypes, collaborations and sometimes even friendships are formed. And if you need fresh air and nice scenery to work: the Businessbeach directly on Lake Wörthersee has Wi-Fi, a power socket and your own locker – the only thing you have to do yourself is take the dive!
Johannes Puch (de)/Amt der Kärntner Landesregierung - Standortmarketing Kärnten (Abt. 15) (de)
Interview with Jürgen Kopeinig, CEO of build! Gründerzentrum
“We have to think in broader dimensions.”
Founding a business in Carinthia has become a trend – around 2,500 startups are founded every year in Austria’s southernmost province. Jürgen Kopeinig, Managing Director of the build! startup centre, reveals what epitomises the framework conditions here, how the network is developing and which startups to keep an eye on in the future.
Jürgen Kopeinig, CEO of build! Gründerzentrum
“Here, founding a company is not so complex and complicated.”
Carinthia.com: When it comes to locations for startups, hot spots such as Berlin, London or Barcelona spring to mind in Europe. Why should you also consider Carinthia?
Jürgen Kopeinig: At first glance, we are at a bit of a disadvantage in Carinthia because we don’t have a technical university, for example. This means that you are simply fishing in a different pond when you compare yourself with Vienna, for example, where the Technical University has around 26,000 students. But relatively speaking, we produce quite a lot. This is also due to the fact that we have been thinking in larger dimensions since 2012 and have coined the term “trilateral startup ecosystem”. We therefore make use of the three-country location that we have in Carinthia and have strong connections to Italy, for example to the Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Veneto and South Tyrol regions, and to Slovenia as a whole.
What does that mean in concrete terms?
Kopeinig: We are in very close personal communication with regard to working on projects. In this way, we want to transfer the idea of the Alps-Adriatic region, which has also grown historically, to the startup sector. For example: if a Slovenian startup wants to enter the market of Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Carinthia can then be the place that makes this possible with a coworking space and with very low-threshold offers. Or vice versa, I can create a link between a Carinthian startup that is developing a new technology for washing machines and a company like Gorenje in Slovenia. This can lead to cooperation or even collaboration.
That’s something we can use to position ourselves against hot spots like London. Nowadays, in our remote working worlds, I don’t necessarily have to live in an expensive metropolis to be successful with a startup. I can also sit by Lake Wörthersee, where there is the Businessbeach with Wi-Fi and everything I need, and I can work wonderfully there in the most beautiful surroundings. This is an opportunity for this region.
What other conditions are particularly good in Carinthia?
Kopeinig: There are definitely short cuts worth mentioning. Here, founding a company is not so complex and complicated. We don’t have 25 incubator structures like perhaps Vienna or Munich, but we have one incubator that is responsible for technology-oriented startups and a startup linked with the Chamber of Commerce. You can save yourself a lot of bother. So it’s all a bit smaller and I think there’s also less competitiveness than in big hot spots, where you’re more exposed to competition. The stability of people responsible for startup issues is also very good. Many people have been doing this for a very long time and so we know each other and have contacts. This means that you can often coordinate things quickly and some processes are faster. That certainly sets the location apart. And it must be said: the funding opportunities are very good.
A functioning network is also important for a startup ecosystem. What is the situation in Carinthia?
Kopeinig: We have several levels, if we may put it like that. There is the Carinthian system in the immediate vicinity, which is moving ever closer together. This began with the “StartNet Carinthia” platform in 2015, with which we wanted to offer a comprehensive point of contact for people interested in starting a business. To this end, all public institutions that offer startup services have joined forces and begun a stronger exchange and coordination at an operational level. Two things have currently developed from this: firstly, we are holding our “90 seconds” ideas competition again after a break of a few years, involving all stakeholders in the startup process. Secondly, we are introducing a new platform solution, the “Kärnten Gründungsnetzwerk“ (Carinthia Startup Network) via the Acterio platform. The idea is to provide a clear and up-to-date overview of the startup network and thus generate added value for every user.
If we then step out of the Carinthian environment and take in the bigger picture, the trilateral startup ecosystem that I mentioned at the beginning comes into play. We are also part of “AplusB” at the Austrian level with build! This stands for “Academia Plus Business” and is an Austrian incubator network. Carinthia makes up “AplusB South-West” along with organisations and institutions from Vorarlberg, Tyrol and Salzburg. Together, we want to be perceived as a central place in the respective Austrian provinces for research and technology-oriented startup projects, and to position ourselves as an essential player for growth-oriented startups in Austria and neighbouring regions. We exchange ideas on the basis of specific topics. It works very well and is already gaining much more attention in other provinces – I find that highly exciting.
With the build! startup centre you have already supported a large number of founders. Which ones stand out for you?
Kopeinig: The most successful startup that has ever emerged from build! is Bitmovin with Stefan Lederer, Christopher Müller and Christian Timmerer, as you probably know. I was on the advisory board when we started the project in build! and I can still well remember how we considered whether the team would have enough time in addition to their jobs as university assistants. We advisory board members were probably a little naïve, but fortunately we were persuaded by the idea. The development was very exciting and today it is a great company. I was also impressed by Augmensys, which used augmented reality at a very early stage and developed software for industry that shows exactly what is needed, for example when maintaining an industrial plant. Jutta Isopp from Messfeld is also very innovative, offering solutions in the field of maintenance and servicing for industrial plants and is very involved in many projects. I could go on and on, there are many more I could mention here.
Which Carinthian startups are currently worth knowing and following?
Kopeinig: LoconIQ comes to mind, that’s super exciting. The founder Daniel Neuhold is an extremely smart guy, works day and night and already has a very good small team and is completely on the right track. He’s the next Bitmovin, I’m sure of it. Another interesting example is Trastic. By using 100% recycled materials in the production of their sustainable design furniture, they rely on an energy-efficient zero-waste production process and were recently awarded the “KWF.nachhaltig 2023” prize. NeedNect, a tourism solution that queries guests’ wishes in advance, thereby reducing costs and increasing customer satisfaction, and Solution Zero, an innovative roof tile to combat global warming, are also making good progress. There are a few more that are also exciting. I can think of Swircle, the travelling book box, and PiktID, which has a solution for sensitive image data and also works with AI. However, that is by no means all of them. So you can see there is a lot going on in Carinthia. I like being here because it has incredible development potential, you can shape and move quite a bit and supporting founders is a lot of fun.