TT49’s founding team (left to right): Matthias Keckl, Johann Siemes, Jörg Wamser, Liane Beckmann, and Tobias Schwind. Photo: TT49.
Fraunhofer Society has achieved a first close of its new venture fund, TT49, raising €72 million from limited partners that include the European Investment Fund and the German Aerospace Center (DLR).
Several family offices and private investors have also backed the fund, which has a €90 million target.
The fund will – like its predecessor, the Fraunhofer Technology Transfer Fund (FTTF) – make early-stage investments in spinouts from Fraunhofer Society’s applied research units.
But TT49 will also back spinouts from the DLR, the Helmholtz Association, the Leibniz Association, the Max Planck Society, and their partner universities, bringing 275 individual research units into the fund’s remit.
It can back startups based throughout Europe, but will focus on Germany.
The fund will be almost entirely technology agnostic, though it will avoid investing in drug research to avoid its resources being drained by these more capital-intensive endeavours and long time-scales.
“Close collaboration between incubators, founders and TT49 makes it possible to quickly translate innovative research results into marketable, sustainable and scalable solutions through startups.
“In this way, we are strengthening the innovation hub of Germany and Europe and offering fund investors attractive, impact-oriented return opportunities with strategic added value.”
Tobias Schwind, general partner of TT49
TT49 is named for “technology transfer” and Germany’s phone code, 49.
The FTTF has backed 39 spinouts, deploying its capital between 2019 and 2023.
