Going International - Opportunities from India and Germany

Prof. Brem followed the invitation by the DWIH   New Delhi and the German Indian Startup Exchange Program (GINSEP ) to participate at a panel discussion  on opportunities for research-based startups in India and Germany. This discussion was part of a four days event called Indo German Startup Week  focusing on startup collaboration between India and Germany.

The session consisted of an entrepreneur, Varinder Singh, and a representative from an Indian University, Arun Shanbagh from Manipal University, moderated by Katja Lasch from DWIH. Varinder also took part in the Innovation Week at the beginning of November, organized by DAAD, TU9, RWTH Aachen University, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and the University of Stuttgart. Throughout this week, the start-up team of the University of Stuttgart supported Varinder. Therefore, Varinder and Prof. Brem were no strangers to each other. The same is true for the team of DWIH New Delhi, where he participated at an event in Bangalore before.

During the session, Prof. Brem highlighted the role of internationality for startups, especially when they have an international scope. Since it has never been so easy to start globally with some clicks only, this is a key aspect. Such startups are also called “born globals ”, so internationalization is not part of a growth strategy, but is part of the business idea.

However, just starting internationally because somebody states that this is useful is not a good strategy as well. A lot of resources are needed to make such an approach happen, which is usually a problem for startups having resource constraints by default.

The lively discussion ended in a joint statement how important collaboration is not only for startups, but also for universities. In any case, it is always recommended to gain international experience, which was common sense among the panelists.