Competition: Three phases - Five-figure prize money
A new business idea is born - but is it really ready for the market? How can I create a business plan that will convince financiers? What do I have to consider if I want to set up a business in Berlin or Brandenburg? By taking part in the Berlin-Brandenburg Business Plan Competition, you can find answers to these and other questions and win prize money.
You can participate in the competition in three phases and submit a business concept for evaluation.
Your business concept must be received by us 6 p.m. on the respective deadline and should contain the required chapters.
After the deadline, two members of the jury will receive your concept for evaluation. The concept will be examined on the basis of defined criteria and provided with hints, tips and comments.
Three phases - three chances to win prize money
Participation in the competition is independent of the other offers. You can take advantage of any BPW service as an option. The same applies to the phases.
Entry is possible in every phase.
Participation requirements
The first piece of good news: Participation in the BPW, including all services and offerings, is free of charge!
Participation entails no obligations of any kind for you; there is no legal entitlement to prize money.
Every idea is welcome with us, regardless of the industry your business idea belongs to and whether it is a new start-up or a business succession.
You simply register free of charge and can then sign up online for our seminars, workshops, forums, and networking events, as well as manage your appointments. You can take advantage of all offers regardless of whether you participate in the competition.
Minimum Requirements for Participation in the Competition:
- Participation in the competition is possible with a business plan written in German or English.
- The company’s founding is planned or has already taken place in Berlin and/or Brandenburg.
- If the company already exists, it must have been founded no longer than 12 months prior to the start of the BPW year (October 2025).
- Does the company already exist, but you are establishing an additional line of business, or was the company acquired as part of a business succession? In this case, participation is permitted.
- The business concept was prepared independently by the team members (not created by management consultancies, etc.).
- The concept was submitted on time by the respective deadline.
Additional Formal Minimum Requirements:
- Pitch decks are fundamentally not accepted for the competition.
- All chapters required for the respective phase must be submitted.
- Complete concepts are not permitted in Phase 1 and Phase 2.
- Business concepts must be submitted as continuous prose text; pure bulleted lists are not permitted (bullet points within the text are allowed).
- Maximum page limits must not be exceeded:
- Phase 1: max. 20 pages
- Phase 2: max. 35 pages
- Phase 3: max. 50 pages
BPW Call to Start
Your personal starting signal in the competition!
We want to get to know you and your idea personally from the very beginning with the BPW Call to Start!
What is the BPW Call to Start?
It's simple: a short 5-minute conversation with a BPW team member and a representative of our premium partners. We want to hear about your idea and find out what inspired you to pursue your start-up concept. The BPW Call to Start is a mandatory requirement for your first submission and therefore your official ticket into the competition. You can easily book an appointment on our website. You'll find the available slots in our calendar.
And then it really gets going! After your BPW Call to Start, you will receive feedback by email. If the feedback is positive, you can use the remaining time until the submission deadline to put the finishing touches on your concept and then submit it for final review. If you need guidance on how to do this, you'll find instructions in the upload help section.
Once you're in you're in for good! After receiving positive feedback, you are eligible to submit entries for all subsequent competition phases and do not need to have another conversation.
Didn't make it the first time? No problem! In every competition phase, there are calls scheduled before the submission deadlines, giving you new opportunities to enter. Common reasons for rejection include, for example, a description of the problem or target audience that is too vague, a missing unique selling proposition, or an unclear motivation for founding the company.
Keep this in mind:
After a successful BPW Call to Start, your concept must be submitted on time. The business plan requirements, the terms of participation, and the formal minimum requirements apply in full. Even after a successful BPW Call to Start, a submission may be rejected if these requirements are not met.
The BPW Call to Start is part of your entrepreneurial journey from the very beginning. We look forward to meeting you!
Conditions for Multiple Participation in the Competition
Participation is generally possible in all three phases of a competition year. You may enter the competition in any phase. However, it is recommended to start in Phase 1 to receive the most comprehensive feedback possible.
A repeated participation with the same idea is only permitted in the immediately following competition year and only in a higher phase than previously entered.
In the event of non-compliance with these participation restrictions, the BPW reserves the right to disqualify teams from the competition.
If an expansion of business activities is planned, the BPW team will review on a case-by-case basis whether re-participation in the competition is permitted.
Participants who register each year only for networking events will be reviewed by us, and we will decide on an individual basis whether continued participation is possible. In individual cases, the BPW team reserves the right to decline participation in the program.
And this is how it works:
Register on our platform
Register and schedule your appointments, register for the competition and use the marketplace.
Develop your business plan step by step
The Berlin-Brandenburg Business Plan Competition is divided into three stages, at the end of which you will have a completed business plan:
Stage 1: Executive Summary, Product/service and founding team
Stage 2: Market analysis and marketing
Stage 3: Company/Organisation and Financial Planning/Financing
In these three stages you will develop your individual business plan step by step. Each of these competition stages ends with a fixed deadline. When you submit your (partial) business plan for evaluation, you will receive two evaluations in the respective phase. This task is carried out by two independent jurors who will confidentially examine your concept on the basis of the specified evaluation criteria.
Sustainable Entrepreneurship in Berlin and Brandenburg
Sustainability is one of the most important tasks of our era and must be considered at all levels. At the entrepreneurial level, sustainability means doing business successfully and at the same time creating ecological and social benefits. In the business plan competition, these goals are stringently considered and taken into account in the evaluation. In addition, one team is awarded the Sustainability Prize at the end of the competition.
You do not have to apply for the Sustainability Award. Every entry in the third competition phase is automatically admitted.
Award-winning universities
There are many bright minds at the universities in Berlin and Brandenburg who have innovative and sustainable business models as solutions for the challenges of today and tomorrow. The start-up centres at the universities support this entrepreneurial spirit with a wide range of support and advisory services - and we think that's excellent.
That's why we select the most active universities in Berlin and Brandenburg every year as part of the Business Plan Competition. The "Ideenschmiede" prize is awarded to the Berlin or Brandenburg university that has produced the strongest start-ups in the competition in terms of quantity and quality.
The ‘Ideenschmiede Berlin 2026’ award was presented to the Berlin University of the Arts. Dr Stefan Franzke, Berlin Partner for Business and Technology, presented the award to Venessa Tanović, Head of the Career & Transfer Service Centre.
The ‘Ideenschmiede Brandenburg’ award was presented to the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg. The award was presented by Sebastian Saule, of the Brandenburg State Economic Development Agency (WFBB), to Kerstin Münzberg, a project officer at BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg.
The Top 4 Benefits for Start-ups in Berlin and Brandenburg
✓ Start up in a structured way: You will be given a framework with which you can gradually create your individual business plan.
✓Feedback: Whether you win one of the prizes or not, you will receive well-founded and detailed feedback from experts in all three phases of the competition.
✓ Sustainability: The competition encourages you to think about sustainability in your business idea from the very beginning.
✓ Prize money: The teams with the best concepts receive prize money that they can invest in the planning and implementation of their start-up idea.