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Venture Clienting

  • Organizer: KIT FORGE
  • Audience: Startups, Companies
  • Language: German, English
  • Cost: Free of charge

Venture Clienting – Turning Innovation into Business 

Startups need customers. Companies need innovation. We bring them together. Great technologies create real impact when they solve real business challenges. KIT FORGE Venture Clienting connects ambitious deep-tech startups with established companies to turn innovative solutions into commercial opportunities. Through targeted matchmaking and structured pilot collaborations, we help companies discover and test emerging technologies while enabling startups to gain valuable customer feedback, commercial traction, and their first paying customers.

Unlike traditional corporate venture capital, Venture Clienting focuses on business partnerships rather than equity investments. Companies become early customers of innovative solutions, while startups gain the opportunity to validate their technologies in real-world environments and accelerate their path to market.

How we support you

  • Strategic matchmaking: We connect corporate challenges with promising technologies and startup solutions, identifying opportunities where innovation can deliver real business value. 

  • Pilot projects & proof of concept: We support the development of clearly defined pilot projects, ideally through paid collaborations, to test innovative solutions in real operational environments. 

  • From first contact to collaboration: We facilitate connections, help define project objectives, and support partners throughout the collaboration process – from initial discussions to pilot evaluation and potential follow-up projects.

  • Value for both sides: Companies gain early access to emerging technologies and innovative solutions. Startups benefit from customer insights, commercial validation, potential revenue, and valuable market references.

Let's build business together

For companies: Discover innovative solutions to your business challenges and become an early customer of tomorrow's technologies. 

For startups: Connect with potential customers, validate your solution in real-world applications, and take the next step towards commercial success. 

Connect with KIT FORGE and turn innovation into business.

Our experts support you

Have questions or interested? Get in touch!

Thomas Neumann

Your contact person

Thomas Neumann
Spokesman of KIT FORGE, Head of Entrepreneurship Services & Sharholdings (IRM-ESS)
t.neumann@kit.edu LinkedIn

Ready to build
what’s next?

Whether you have a vague idea, a breakthrough research paper, or an active startup – let’s talk.

Consulting inquiry

* Required field

I agree that my personal data submitted via the contact form may be processed by KIT FORGE for the following purposes: contacting me and providing startup consulting services. The processing of the data entered in the contact form is based solely on my consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR). The information I provide in the contact form, including my contact details, will be stored by KIT FORGE for the purpose of processing my inquiry. KIT FORGE will not share this data with third parties without my consent. The data I enter in the contact form will remain with KIT FORGE until I request its deletion, withdraw my consent to its storage (which I may do informally by email to info@kit-forge.de), or the purpose for which the data was collected no longer applies (e.g. once my inquiry has been fully processed). Mandatory statutory provisions, in particular statutory retention periods, remain unaffected. For information on data protection relating to startup consulting, including applications for public funding programmes for spin-offs, please refer to https://www.kit-forge.de/en/privacy/.

Contact form

For consulting inquiries, please use our separate consulting inquiry form.

* Required field

I agree that my personal data submitted via the contact form may be processed by KIT FORGE for the following purposes: contacting me and providing startup consulting services. The processing of the data entered in the contact form is based solely on my consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR). The information I provide in the contact form, including my contact details, will be stored by KIT FORGE for the purpose of processing my inquiry. KIT FORGE will not share this data with third parties without my consent. The data I enter in the contact form will remain with KIT FORGE until I request its deletion, withdraw my consent to its storage (which I may do informally by email to info@kit-forge.de), or the purpose for which the data was collected no longer applies (e.g. once my inquiry has been fully processed). Mandatory statutory provisions, in particular statutory retention periods, remain unaffected. For information on data protection relating to startup consulting, including applications for public funding programmes for spin-offs, please refer to https://www.kit-forge.de/en/privacy/.