Personal advisory services: your local advice service

Local contacts are indispensable for confidential discussions and individual start-up advice. An overview of what’s on offer in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Numerous institutions are dedicated to business founders in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia so that their business idea can see the light of day. The local advisors are happy to help.

They make business founders great: STARTERCENTER NRW

At over 70 locations across the state, the Startercenters NRW advise start-ups on their path to self-sufficiency. Those interested in founding a company can not only obtain initial information, but also specific advice and support locally, for example when drawing up a business plan or checking the business idea. Later on, the Startercenter NRW will help with checking the plan or with formal questions.

Further information can be found here.

The growth accelerators: DWNRW-Hubs

The five DWNRW Hubs in Aachen, Bonn, Düsseldorf, the Ruhr region (Essen) and Münster are the ideal contact points for start-ups with data-driven, digital business models. The hubs support the introduction of digital products on the market, for example with accelerator programmes. To this end, start-ups are networked with mentors, established companies and investors. Established companies in turn have access to start-ups and digital products.

Further information can be found here.

Research-based reasons: Exzellenz Start-up Center.NRW

The higher education sector is a key factor in innovation and business foundations in the state. The state of North Rhine-Westphalia therefore promotes the further development of university start-up initiatives into centres of start-up excellence.

The winners of the competition are:

  • RWTH Aachen University,
  • Ruhr University Bochum,
  • TU Dortmund University,
  • the University of Cologne,
  • the University of Münster
  • und the University of Paderborn.

In addition to these six centres of start-up excellence in NRW, projects at the following universities are being funded:

  • State-wide initiative for businesses founded by women: Women Entrepreneurs in Science at the University of Wuppertal
  • HHU start-up funding at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf

They are all designed to promote the potential of business founders more intensively, make start-ups in a university context more attractive, and thereby strengthen their regional start-up networks.

Further information can be found here (in German only).