Hinterland of Things 2026: Germany does not have a knowledge problem, it has an execution problem

German version here.

Bielefeld, June 18, 2026. The economic situation in Germany is serious. The diagnosis has long been clear. What is missing is execution. This is exactly what the Hinterland of Things Conference on June 18, 2026 in Bielefeld is designed to address: around 2,500 family business owners and innovation leaders, founders and investors will come together, not to talk, but to act.

Hinterland of Things is the only conference in Germany that systematically brings together innovative B2B startups and the Mittelstand. This bridge-building role is rooted in the region’s economic DNA. Ostwestfalen-Lippe, home to family-owned companies, global market leaders and hidden champions such as Miele, Claas and Goldbeck, has also become one of the most dynamic startup ecosystems in Germany. It is supported by Founders Foundation, which has accompanied more than 185 startups since 2016. Together, these startups have raised over €130 million in investment capital.

“We do not have a knowledge problem in Germany. We finally need to move into action, and that is exactly what we are providing a stage for at the Hinterland of Things Conference: as a bridge between the startups that develop solutions and the Mittelstand that urgently needs them,” says Dominik Gross, Managing Director of Founders Foundation gGmbH.

And Action: The motto is to build, to act, and not to wait

The conference is not about problems. The conference is about solutions, about the future, about deals and about a network of doers and shapers. The conference motto “and ACTION” is the common denominator when entrepreneurs rethink industry, capital turns into growth, knowledge turns into value creation, the next generation of founders is empowered and policy makers become capable of acting again.

Speakers 2026: Four perspectives on an economy in transition

The full speaker line-up can be found here. A selection:

Transformation in established industries: leaders who have truly changed large organizations

• Thomas Rabe, CEO of Bertelsmann, has made the group more international and more digital and will hand over to the fifth generation of the family at the end of 2026
• Dr. Sigrid Nikutta, former Member of the Management Board for Freight Transport at Deutsche Bahn AG, and one of the best-known top managers in the infrastructure sector
• René Obermann, former CEO of Deutsche Telekom, Chairman of the Board of Directors at Airbus, and co-author of the defense tech initiative “SPARTA”
• Deepa Gautam-Nigge, VP Corporate Development & Investments at SAP, and member of the supervisory board of leading German AI startup Aleph Alpha
• Mona Neubaur, Minister for Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Action and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia

Family businesses and the heart of the German Mittelstand: entrepreneurs who prove every day that industrial strength and innovation are not contradictions

• Stefan Klebert, CEO of GEA Group, whose company was added to the DAX in 2025, replacing Sartorius (pharma) and Porsche (automotive)
• Isabel Knauf, member of the Knauf Partner Committee, who spent 20 years on the Executive Committee of the Knauf Group, serves on the supervisory board of Continental AG and lectures at TUM
• Eduard R. Dörrenberg, Managing Director of Dr. Wolff Group, who relies on AI to make the company more efficient and to develop new business models
• Wilhelm Böllhoff, shareholder of the Böllhoff Group, who bundles transformation activities in Archimedes New Ventures, with the current spin-off “GetSpecialFasteners”
• Pia Albers, third-generation leader of the family business Ela Container, responsible for the key areas of IT, sustainability and R&D

Capital as fuel for innovation: investors who actively shape and define Europe’s innovative strength

• Known from TV: Carsten Maschmeyer, CEO of Maschmeyer Group and investor in more than 150 startups, and Janna Ensthaler, founder and investor, both known from the TV show “Die Höhle der Löwen” (Germany’s equivalent of “Shark Tank”)
• Daria Saharova, General Partner at World Fund, Europe’s leading climate tech VC
• Christian Miele, General Partner at Headline, with investments including the French AI startup Mistral
• Florian Heinemann, Founding Partner at Project A, one of Germany’s most experienced scaling experts, with investments including About You and Spryker
• Additional international investors such as Agate Freimane, Founding Partner at Norrsken, one of Europe’s largest early-stage funds, and Dr. Christoph Klink, General Partner at Antler, with a focus on deep tech, AI and resilience

Founders bringing technology into the real economy: entrepreneurs building solutions that are transforming the economy, society and the Mittelstand

• Ulrich Prediger, founder and investor, who invented the company bike leasing model and turned JobRad into one of the rare German unicorns
• André Christ, Co-Founder and General Manager of SAP LeanIX, who was responsible for the largest German tech acquisition of 2023 with a purchase price of more than €1 billion
• Dr. Annika von Mutius, Co-Founder and CEO of Empion, and advisory board member to the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and the Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs
• Tushar Ahluwalia, founder and CEO of GeneralMind, who develops AI-powered systems that automate manual business processes outside of traditional ERP systems, and previously co-founded Razor Group where he played a key role in building the company into a unicorn
• Dr. Oliver Merkel, founder of Blocks, previously founder of Flink and Partner at BCG and Bain, and investor in more than 60 startups
• Tobias Kemkes, Co-Founder of Langdock, which has achieved more than €30 million in ARR in under three years
• Daniel Drabo, Co-Founder of PeecAI, which is building the AI answer to traditional SEO monitoring tools
• Matthias Lehna, VP Business Development at Quantum Systems, with NATO mission experience and expertise in technology sovereignty for unmanned systems
• Kevin Berghoff, CEO and Co-Founder of QuantumDiamonds, and a pioneer in quantum sensing for next-generation semiconductor testing

The program: Learn, network, execute

All program elements at a glance:

Startup Exhibition
80 selected B2B startups will present their solutions live on site. Their offerings span the entire industrial value chain. Examples include Circula (expense management), encentive (AI-supported energy management), Ommm (AI-based production planning), Global Changer (AI tool for emissions calculation), Manukai (CNC programs), Cerpro (quality assurance for the manufacturing industry) and Logistica OS (AI operating system for logistics).

Masterclasses
The conference day is also a professional development day. Participants leave Hinterland of Things with concrete, directly applicable know-how. Sixty-minute masterclasses, including sessions by companies such as OMR, Ninox, SAP and Dell, provide hands-on content with real use cases on topics such as AI in everyday work, agentic AI and innovation management in the Mittelstand.

Alliance Arena
The program is curated in close cooperation with the members of the Hinterland Alliance, an exclusive network of leading Mittelstand companies. They demonstrate how they do not just plan innovation but actually implement it. Member companies include Miele, Goldbeck, Dr. Wolff, Claas, GEA, Dr. Oetker, Böllhoff, Stockmeier Group, Schnellecke Logistik, Possehl Digital, Nobilia, Hagedorn, Winkelmann Group, Hellmann Worldwide Logistics, WAGO, Schüco and Phoenix Contact.

Hinterland app
Networking begins well before the conference day. With the official conference app, attendees can schedule meetings in advance, search specifically for contacts and plan their personal agenda. Masterclasses and other formats can only be booked via the app. The app is available for iOS and Android and is exclusively for ticket holders.

Facts & Figures

• Event: Hinterland of Things Conference 2026 (#Hinterland26)
• Date: June 18, 2026
• Location: Stadthalle Bielefeld
• Organizer: Founders Foundation gGmbH
• Expected attendees: Up to 2,500
• Speakers: 100 speakers from business, technology and the investment community
• Exhibiting startups: 80, with a focus on technologies for industry

About the Conference

Hinterland of Things is Germany’s leading B2B technology conference at the intersection of established industry and future-defining technologies. It is organized by Founders Foundation gGmbH, which was founded in 2016 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Bertelsmann Stiftung. At the conference, today’s decision-makers and tomorrow’s shapers come together with an entrepreneurial mindset and visionary plans in a trust-based, peer-to-peer exchange. They come from the startup ecosystem, international tech corporations, leading venture capital funds and the German Mittelstand.

“At Hinterland of Things, we see a trust-based dialogue between the Mittelstand and startups that could be a role model for many other regions in Germany,” says Dr. Brigitte Mohn, Chairwoman of the Executive Board of the Bertelsmann Stiftung

Press Contact

Anna-Luisa Korte
Director Brand & Content
Founders Foundation gGmbH
anna@foundersfoundation.de