I‘d have been eligible for EXIST, but that program is a bad joke. 100k for 3 persons for one year before tax? C‘mon. That is financial sucide, if you’re in tech these days.
It's not much money but absolutely sufficient to cover expenses and focus on building your startup. It paid 2500 € / month in income per person back in the day, and until recently the money was considered tax-free (as a scholarship) so it corresponded to a gross salary of about 50.000 € (without social security or retirement of course, so subtract 300 € per month for that). Now it's no longer considered tax-free but they increased the amount a bit in response, I'd say you will get 2.000 € in net income per month if you have a PhD (people with a Master or Bachelor degree get 500 € or 1000 € less, respectively). It's still not a tech salary but a living wage, and actually similar to what many people in non-tech jobs earn working full-time.
On top of that the program pays about 50k (?) for additional expenses, which you can use to e.g. rent an office, hire freelancers or cover legal costs.
For comparision, YC gives you 150k for a team of usually 2-3 people, and living expenses in SV are way higher than in Germany. So I wouldn't consider it a "bad joke" personally. Also, while the tutoring is not as good as YC some universities (especially TU Munich / LMU Munich and TU Berlin) provide really excellent mentoring, so I'd say overall it is a great program.
I'm just bummed out that nothing comparable exists for people with longer industry/work experience.
Consider, for a moment, you have a great idea and a couple of friends to start a company. You have no money. Is 100k to give it a shot "suicide"? Of course not. If you're at the right time in your life, this is an excellent opportunity. Not everywhere has $4k/mo rents and $10 coffees.
Yeah, and than you have to pass a panel deciding whether your "idea" is innovative enough. It reminded me more of a game of buzzword bingo than a viable investment procedure. As your not allowed to incorporate before enter EXIST it is just a waste of time. Not to mention that it all depends on how well you are connected at your university, and if government funds are available.
I'd say the chances of getting a grant are very good, back in the day the success rate was around 50 % and you could apply up to three times (to my knowledge), which made it highly likely that you'd get the money if you were persevering. It's true that you have to choose a good university as the quality of the provided coaching and mentorship varies wildly. I can recommend LMU & TU Munich as well as TU Berlin or one of the other well-known technical universities (e.g. RWTH Aachen), to my knowledge they have very good programs. You don't need connections at your university either, you just need to convince a professor to support your application, which they are often happy to do as it counts towards the amount of funding they raised, which is a relevant metric to them.
If you can get that money it's really an excellent opportunity and will help you to get further funding, as I said before I just find it sad that nothing comparable exists for experienced people from industry.
I tried a while back. Not being at one of the universities you mentioned ,I would have been an extension from TU Munich. Funds where hard to come by at that time (right after the elections, so no governmant, no government budget, no EXIST funds). In the end, I talked to all relevant profs at my university, they talked to the giys at TUM, and the feed-back was "no need to tey, your idea is not innovative enough. Try a bank or bet your house."
Also the expected time line was around 6 months to get into the program, so for me it would have just been a colosal waste of time.
EDIT: While coaching is anive thing, it is access to follow-up funding that matters. At let's be honest in that regard YC is different league all together. And if you don't need funding beyond 100k you really could have used bank in the first place.
Doing a startup is usually a financial mistake, that's why it's risky. I founded a startup in Germany and got a similar amount of seed funding of 150k for 2 founders and spread that money over a team of 5 living on a minimum salary. For me that was a risk i was willing to take to pursue my dream and I don't regret it despite not making it in the end.
On top of that the program pays about 50k (?) for additional expenses, which you can use to e.g. rent an office, hire freelancers or cover legal costs.
For comparision, YC gives you 150k for a team of usually 2-3 people, and living expenses in SV are way higher than in Germany. So I wouldn't consider it a "bad joke" personally. Also, while the tutoring is not as good as YC some universities (especially TU Munich / LMU Munich and TU Berlin) provide really excellent mentoring, so I'd say overall it is a great program.
I'm just bummed out that nothing comparable exists for people with longer industry/work experience.