Experience
Buying innovation instead of building it
Three days on a question that touches both sides of the table: why a large company prefers to buy a startup rather than build the same thing in-house, and what a startup weighs when it decides whether to sell.
On this page
Fact sheet
- Days
- 3
- City
- Berlin
- Recommended season
- all year, January included
- Group
- 12 to 15 participants
- Language of the visits
- German and English at the campus; English in the startup format
- Schengen days used
- 3 out of 90, counting the day of entry and the day of exit
- Price
- Quotation on request
→ Request a quotation · Download the itinerary in PDF
In the quotation we write which sites are confirmed and which are being confirmed, one by one.
Itinerary day by day
Day 1 — Arrival and preparation
In the afternoon, a two-hour opening session. An assessment matrix is handed out: what the buyer looks at, what the seller looks at, and what the person who works in the acquired startup and decides nothing looks at.
Day 2 — The campus
In the morning, EUREF-Campus: more than one hundred and fifty companies, institutions and startups in a single area, all of them around energy, mobility and sustainability. The visit lasts one or two hours and is done as a closed group of up to fifteen people.
A large part of the walk is outdoors, and we say so first: in January, two hours outdoors in Berlin are prepared for with the right clothing. It is the campus visitor service itself that recommends checking the weather, and we repeat it in the material we hand the group before departure.
In the afternoon, a three-hour working session.
Day 3 — The startups
A day in Startup SAFARI format: three to five startups chosen according to the subjects the group states when requesting a quotation, with a real conversation at each one. The format declares an ideal size of between six and fifteen people, and above that number the conversation part is lost: it is the reason this experience has the lowest capacity in the whole European catalog.
Closing with eight-minute presentations.
What you visit
| Place | What it is | Status |
|---|---|---|
| EUREF-Campus, Berlin | Campus with more than 150 companies, institutions and startups in energy, mobility and sustainability; 1-2 hour visit for groups of up to 15 people, in German or English | Bookable |
| Startup SAFARI | A day with 3-5 startups chosen according to the group's subjects, ideal size 6 to 15 people, quoted after a preparatory meeting | On request |
What this experience does not include today, and we write it ourselves
Berlin has dozens of accelerators, incubators and corporate venture programs, and one local operator lists eleven of them as possible stops on its own tour. None of those eleven organizations has confirmed a visit to us, so we do not name them and we do not promise them. This experience, today, is built on two real sites with a real channel, and that is better than a list of names that do not answer when the time comes to book.
What is included and what is not
Included: the visits to the confirmed sites, the booking and coordination with whoever receives the group, including the preparatory meeting that defines the startups' subjects, the guided working sessions totalling five hours, the materials, one person from the Istituto with the group throughout the experience and the certificate of participation in the experience.
Not included: flight, transfers to and from the airport, lodging, meals, urban transport, personal travel insurance.
The season, and why
It is sold all year, January included: Berlin is a city that works in winter, and with tourism at a standstill the people you want to talk to are more available.
The only warning is the one about the campus day, which takes place largely outdoors, and it is written above because it is something the group should know before packing, not on arrival.
Logistics and capacity
Both sites are inside Berlin and reached on urban transport.
The capacity is 15 people, and it is also the breaking point: it is set both by the capacity of the campus visit and by the ideal size of the startup format. It is the lowest capacity in the European catalog, and in this experience we treat it not as a limit but as the reason it works. The recommended group is 15 people: it is the size that reaches the group rates without going over the access limits of the visits, which at these sites stop at 15. Above 15 the itinerary splits into two slots, the day gets longer and the cost per person does not go down, and in the startup format you also lose the conversation, which is the content.
Cover
The program includes an accident and public liability policy for the whole stay. The sums insured, the insurer and the policy number are published once it is taken out and are attached to the contract; until then they can be requested in writing, with an answer within two working days.
Do you want it to count as training, with a certificate? This experience can be built into an Istituto program, with classroom hours, a piece of work to deliver and a certificate of attendance. → For groups
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Let us talk about this route
We answer within two working days with the dates, the day by day program and the quotation.