The Digital Hub for Cybersecurity at ATHENE, the National Research Centre for Applied Cybersecurity, in Darmstadt is becoming an independent start-up hub within the Digital Hub Initiative (de:hub) of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate. This makes Darmstadt the only nationwide contact point for start-ups specialising in IT security and data protection.
According to the Startup Monitor 2024, Darmstadt ranks fourth among German start-up locations in terms of population after Berlin, Munich and Aachen. The ATHENE Digital Hub contributes to this: It has helped security start-ups receive over 15 million euros in funding over the past five years, awards various start-up prizes for cybersecurity every year and cooperates with cybersecurity institutions in the cyber nation of Israel and other global partners.
Previously, the Digital Hub in Darmstadt formed a twin hub together with the Tech Quartier in Frankfurt, which covered the two topics of fintech and cybersecurity. Now both locations are independent with their own topics. Since the start of the hub initiative in 2017, the ATHENE Digital Hub has worked with its partners to build the leading national ecosystem for cybersecurity start-ups. As a StartupSecure incubator, the ATHENE Digital Hub has supported more than 20 startups to date – the highest number in the Federal Ministry of Education and Research’s programme.
Together with the Hebrew University in Israel, the hub has already run an incubator programme with German and Israeli students on several occasions. The hub also awards several cash prizes, including the Pitch Award in the SpeedUpSecure Accelerator and the ATHENE Startup Award UP@it-sa, the only prize for the entire German-speaking region. As a result, promising cybersecurity ideas and their founding teams receive a high level of attention and annual prize money totalling over 30,000 euros. A key reason for this success is also the proximity to the five ATHENE research institutions – TU Darmstadt, Goethe University Frankfurt, Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences and the Fraunhofer Institutes SIT and IGD. ATHENE’s research activities have led to a particularly large number of spin-offs in the region, many of which actively involve ATHENE cybersecurity researchers and professors.
‘The de:hub initiative’s decision to make Darmstadt an independent digital hub for cybersecurity is a great honour for our work, and even more so for ATHENE’s start-up ecosystem. Without cybersecurity, there can be no responsible digitalisation, and the more than 100 startups in our ecosystem play an important role in this.’ says Prof. Dr Michael Waidner, Director of the National Centre for Applied Cybersecurity ATHENE. ‘We also see this as a confirmation and reinforcement of our impact-oriented research for the benefit of society, business and politics.’
Source: ATHENE (in German)