KfW Research

Overview
KfW Research is the economics department of KfW Bankengruppe, the German promotional bank, based in Frankfurt am Main. This record covers the research division, not the bank itself, which is held separately at https://www.startuprad.io/entities/kfw . It produces survey-based statistics, indicators and analysis on German founding activity, the Mittelstand, corporate finance and innovation. Its best-known outputs are the KfW-Gründungsmonitor, the KfW-Mittelstandspanel, the KfW-ifo indicator family, the KfW-Kommunalpanel and quarterly venture-capital reporting with the BVK. It has been led since April 2025 by KfW Chief Economist Dr. Dirk Schumacher.

Why this entity matters
KfW Research supplies the reference numbers German founding and finance debates argue about, and its usefulness rests on method. First, definition: the Gründungsmonitor is a representative annual population survey, run since 2000 and answered by 50,000 people in the 2025 wave, that counts founders rather than trade-register entries, so it captures part-time, freelance and takeover activity registers classify differently; that is why its headline diverges from other German counts, and why it must be read as a weighted survey, not a census. Second, granularity: the KfW-ifo family cuts the quarterly ifo business survey of about 9,000 firms by size class to isolate Mittelstand credit access and skilled-labour constraints the aggregate business-climate index cannot show, and the Kredithürde asks only firms that actually conducted credit negotiations in the previous three months, so it reflects experience rather than sentiment. Third, transparency: the quarterly venture-capital work with the BVK, drawn from about 200 equity-capital firms, is one of the few German venture datasets with a published methodology.

Institutional history and mandate
KfW Bankengruppe was established in 1948 as a German promotional bank and is headquartered in Frankfurt am Main. KfW Research is its economics department, mandated to analyse developments relevant to KfW's promotional business and to publish the results openly. Dr. Dirk Schumacher took that role in April 2025, succeeding Dr. Fritzi Köhler-Geib, who left the bank in November 2024. The KfW-Gründungsmonitor has run since 2000; the 2025 wave polled 50,000 people by telephone and online on a dual-frame design, with mobile interviews held to roughly 35 to 40 percent of the net sample, covering full-time, part-time, freelance and commercial foundings as well as takeovers. The KfW-Mittelstandspanel has run since 2003 as a written repeat survey of German firms with annual turnover up to EUR 500 million, with a data base of up to 15,000 firms a year, excluding the public sector, banks and non-profits. The KfW-ifo family, built with the ifo Institute from size-class cuts of the quarterly ifo business survey, comprises the monthly Mittelstandsbarometer and the quarterly Kredithürde and Fachkräftebarometer. The KfW-Kommunalpanel, conducted for KfW by the Deutsches Institut für Urbanistik since 2009, surveys municipal treasurers by mail, as a full census of districts and municipalities above 20,000 inhabitants plus a stratified sample below. Venture-capital coverage pairs the quarterly German Private Equity and German Venture Capital Barometer, climate indices bounded at minus 100 and plus 100 built from about 200 BVK members, with a deal-volume dashboard.

Role in the DACH startup and technology ecosystem
KfW Research is German-mandated, but its output functions as the DACH baseline: Austrian and Swiss analyses benchmark against the German founding rate, Mittelstand credit conditions and venture-capital volumes, because no comparable annual founder survey exists at that scale in Austria or Switzerland. The Gründungsmonitor 2026 reported roughly 690,000 people entering self-employment in Germany during 2025. About 483,000 of those were part-time foundings, a record share of roughly 70 percent, against roughly 206,000 full-time foundings; the average founder age fell year on year to 34.2 from 34.4. KfW Research put German venture-capital investment at roughly EUR 7.2 billion in 2025, against EUR 7.4 billion in 2024, with the artificial-intelligence segment at about EUR 2.9 billion. Because one institution publishes both the founder survey and the venture data, DACH analysts can set founding volume and risk-capital volume side by side on consistent definitions.

Selected relationships and affiliations
Parent institution: KfW Bankengruppe, Frankfurt am Main, established 1948, held separately at https://www.startuprad.io/entities/kfw . Head: Dr. Dirk Schumacher, KfW Chief Economist since April 2025 and head of KfW Research, succeeding Dr. Fritzi Köhler-Geib. Survey and data partners: the ifo Institute in Munich for the KfW-ifo indicator family; the German Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVK) for the German Private Equity and German Venture Capital Barometer; the Deutsches Institut für Urbanistik for the KfW-Kommunalpanel; and the survey institute Verian as current fieldwork partner for the KfW-Gründungsmonitor.

Startuprad.io relevance
KfW Research is among the most used sources in Startuprad.io's German coverage and appears in five tagged posts. Four form a single 2026 series built on the Gründungsmonitor — the 690,000 headline and the part-time pivot, three years of founding-quality trends, the under-30 founding wave, and hybrid founding where people keep the day job — published weekly from 21 May to 11 June 2026. That is unusually deep coverage: most outlets treat the Gründungsmonitor as a one-day news item; Startuprad.io works through four cuts of the same dataset. The fifth post covers KfW findings on German venture investors and dual-use technology.

Public source context
Sources: KfW Research at https://www.kfw.de , covering the KfW-Gründungsmonitor 2026 and its tables-and-methods volume, the Gründungsmonitor, Mittelstandspanel and Kommunalpanel programme pages, the KfW-ifo Kredithürde, Mittelstandsbarometer and Fachkräftebarometer documentation, the venture-capital dossier; the federal Existenzgründungsportal at https://www.existenzgruendungsportal.de for the May 2026 summary of the Gründungsmonitor 2026; and the BVK at https://www.bvkap.de for the construction of the barometers. The approximately 18 percent year-on-year rise in foundings quoted in some chamber and trade summaries appears only in secondary summaries and is not restated here as a KfW figure.

Startuprad.io coverage of KfW Research

KfW Research appears in the following Startuprad.io interviews, analysis and long-form profiles.

Germany's 690,000 New Founders Are Mostly Side-Hustlers — What the KfW Gründungsmonitor 2026 Actually Says
Published: 21 May 2026
Last updated: 27 August 2026
Coverage type: Analysis
https://www.startuprad.io/post/kfw-gruendungsmonitor-2026-germany-nebenerwerb-pivot

Three Years of KfW Gründungsmonitor: Germany's Founding-Quality Problem Is Now a Pattern
Published: 28 May 2026
Last updated: 27 August 2026
Coverage type: Analysis
https://www.startuprad.io/post/kfw-gruendungsmonitor-2024-2026-germany-founding-quality-pattern

Germany's Under-30 Founding Wave: Real Signal or Statistical Mirage?
Published: 04 June 2026
Last updated: 27 August 2026
Coverage type: Analysis
https://www.startuprad.io/post/germany-under-30-founders-kfw-2026-generational-signal

The Hybrid Founder: When Founding in Germany Means Keeping the Day Job
Published: 11 June 2026
Last updated: 27 August 2026
Coverage type: Analysis
https://www.startuprad.io/post/hybrid-founder-germany-kfw-2026-day-job

KfW Research Defense Tech Germany: German VCs Open to Defense and Dual-Use Startups as ESG Barriers Fall
Published: 07 October 2025
Last updated: 27 August 2026
Coverage type: Analysis
https://www.startuprad.io/post/kfw-research-defense-tech-germany-octber-2025

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Canonical record: https://www.startuprad.io/entities/kfw-research