Starting out in business: help from the Bremerhaven Innovation and Start-up Centre (BRIG)

Funding for the Bremerhaven Innovation and Start-up Centre (BRIG)

Creating ideal start-up conditions for small and medium-sized companies in the initial phase, offering organisational, commercial and technological assistance, acquiring new commercially viable start-up projects, renting out office and production space – these have been the main tasks of the Bremerhaven Innovation and Start-up Centre (BRIG) since 1990.

Support goes to start-ups which aim to modernise and diversify the regional business community. With a focus on IT/hardware/software/mobile solutions, regenerative energy/environment and business services, more than 200 companies and institutes have already been founded via the BRIG.

On average, around 25 companies are based in the BRIG. Seven to ten companies are accepted by the organisation each year, and the same number leave the centre in order to relocate successfully to another site. On average, all the tenant companies together employ 180 people. And if the figures from the last few years continue, the innovation and start-up centre will be creating up to 30 new jobs a year between 2018 and 2020.

To ensure that Bremerhaven will continue to benefit from this engine of growth, the BRIG is to continue to receive grants in the form of project funding from 2018-2020. In this period, the BRIG will address new infrastructure requirements like co-working spaces, business labs and mobile technologies and tackle current regional issues (automation, green economy, social media, creative economy, etc.).