One Mission, an initiative founded in 2019 to promote gender diversity in the German start-up ecosystem, will become part of the InsurTech Hub Munich (ITHM). The ITHM will support One Mission in increasing the proportion of start-ups founded by women. One Mission aims for a quarter of all start-ups in Germany to be founded by women by 2025 (#25to25). The Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs is funding the ITHM project in 2023 through its Gründerland Bayern initiative.
Since its foundation more than five years ago, the InsurTech Hub Munich has built up a diverse community of over 600 start-ups. The Munich-based and globally active innovation platform for the insurance industry is now further developing its diversity strategy with the integration of One Mission. Together with One Mission, the ITHM will specifically promote female founders, network various projects to increase the proportion of women in start-ups in Munich and Bavaria, give successful female founders a platform to make them visible as role models and raise awareness of the attractiveness of start-ups in the insurance and insurance-related sectors.
"The InsurTech Hub Munich has attached great importance to gender diversity and the promotion of female company founders from the very beginning. Now, with the integration of One Mission, we have once again taken this topic to a new level. As a cross-sector with strategic links to a wide variety of industries, the insurance sector and the ITHM's innovation ecosystem are suitable for promoting a wide range of business models. We are convinced that many female founders and their start-ups will benefit from the ITHM's formats and programs," comments Kathrin Schwidder, member of the ITHM Board of Directors and Head of Strategy and Lifetime Partner Transformation at Generali Deutschland AG.
"In ITHM, One Mission has found the perfect partner to achieve greater gender diversity in the German start-up ecosystem. On average, almost 20 percent of the founders in ITHM's start-up programs have already been female. We want to significantly increase this percentage again and thus send a signal for more female entrepreneurship," says Marlene Eder, who founded One Mission together with Vanessa Provenzano and Maike Wursthorn three years ago.
"More women as founders and entrepreneurs: We are happy to support this goal of the InsurTech Hub Munich. That is why we are also supporting the OneMission initiative this year. The project is the right addition to our umbrella campaign Gründerland Bayern. I am convinced that Bavaria will become an even better location if we succeed in inspiring more women to become entrepreneurs," says Hubert Aiwanger, Bavarian State Minister for Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy.
You can download the full press release here.
Text: Dr. Reinhard Saller
