Under the motto “Building Bridges”, Frankfurt Forward invited startups, industrial companies and investors to the Coworking Space CoWorkPlay to match startups with established companies in Frankfurt and to establish connections between Frankfurt and the international markets.
Markus Frank, Director of Economic Affairs and at the same time patron of the project, opened the event: “Frankfurt Forward is a strong project that sustainably promotes the Frankfurt startup scene and strengthens the entire ecosystem through the networking of startups, companies and investors,” Frank explained, after a keynote speech by Daniel Röder, co-founder of Pulse of Europe, on the topic “Europe needs us because we need Europe!”.
Eric-Jan Krausch, founder of Acomodeo, and Christina Kraus, founder of Meshcloud, explained from the point of view of young startups the special features of the city of Frankfurt as a business location as well as their expansion plans and experience values of their expansion. Thorsten Pötter from Samson and Rainer Hetzer from Continental gave insights into the challenges and opportunities that expansion brings to young and fast-growing companies from an industry perspective. In addition, they reported on how established companies can successfully assert themselves in the market with the innovations of young start-ups and create competitive advantages. “A successful round of talks with first-class representatives of our project’s stakeholders,” says City Councillor Frank. During the subsequent networking sessions, founders and people interested in founding a company met experienced decision-makers from the business world – including representatives of the Frankfurt Forward Jury. “Events like today’s set the right impulses for a strong ecosystem in which young people learn from their elders – and vice versa,” says Oliver Schwebel, Managing Director of Wirtschaftsförderung.
