WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management has been proven to be the most fertile ground for future start-up founders in Germany. The secret of the private business school’s success is that it not only offers high-quality entrepreneurial education with a strong practical orientation but also provides a very effective entrepreneurial ecosystem. The latter thrives on a lively exchange between the WHU faculty, students, and the school’s most active alumni network In Praxi, where many of Germany’s most successful founders hold memberships. In Praxi further expands its collaboration by a generous donation of 100.000 euro.
Recent studies have again demonstrated the huge success of the entrepreneurship ecosystem of WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management. In an entrepreneurship benchmark, which was executed by the Technical University of Munich and several corporate partners, WHU was positioned as the German university that produced the highest number of high-profile startups in relative numbers. In another study, the company Antler mapped a unicorn founder roadmap for the DACH startup ecosystem. This study identified 10 WHU unicorns and 17 WHU unicorn founders, putting WHU at the number one spot for unicorn-generating universities in Germany.
An important explanation of this huge entrepreneurial success is the commitment and involvement of WHU alumni in the teaching and networking activities that are organized at the WHU campuses in Vallendar and Düsseldorf. In the WHU master program, for instance, a group of extremely successful alumni is responsible for teaching the course “Building & Scaling Successful Companies”, in which they share their experiences on how they brought their company from 1 to 100 million Euros in revenue. In addition, the alumni are intensively involved as guest speakers and mentors in the yearly “IdeaLab! WHU Founder’s Conference”, Europe’s premier student-led startup conference designed to connect young founders with top-tier investors.
WHU is also continuously investing in supporting their students on their journey to become successful entrepreneurs. Activities are coordinated by the WHU Entrepreneurship Center, whose main goal is to promote collaboration between core stakeholders in the WHU entrepreneurship ecosystem and to expand WHU students’ entrepreneurial competencies in the classroom and beyond. To do so, the WHU Entrepreneurship Center has recently launched several new initiatives such as the “WHU Most Awesome Founder Podcast”, the “WHU StartUp School”, and the “WHU Summer Accelerator”.
WHU is happy to announce that the WHU alumni association In Praxi has decided to structurally support the activities of the WHU Entrepreneurship Center by providing a donation of 100.000 euros. This donation highlights the strong commitment of the alumni in supporting the entrepreneurial spirit at WHU. It also highlights the ambition of In Praxi and the WHU Entrepreneurship Center to further expand their collaboration in helping to create the next generation of extremely successful WHU founders, who are integral to generating future wealth in Germany.