Information for participants
Competitions in detail
As a participant you can register online using our registration form. After filling out the form, you will receive all competition information and BayStartUP offers via e-mail.
For questions: info@baystartup.de
You will attend - optionally - our free business planning workshops for preparation.
All dates are available under www.baystartup.de/termine.
You create your business plan or pitchdeck. Implement what you have learned in the business planning workshops.
Upload the application documents in our competition tool. You received the application data via e-mail when you registered to participate.
Each participant receives individual written jury feedback from experts in the startup scene.
New chances of winning in each competition phase (total of 85,000 Euros)! Entering the competition in later phases is possible at any time.
Information for participants from Swabia and southeast Bavaria
The regional business plan competitions Schwaben and Ideenreich for Southeast Bavaria run parallel to competition phase 1.
Startups from Swabia and Southeast Bavaria who are still working on their business plans after the first phase or who would like to enter the competition only in phase 2 or 3, simply apply for the Munich Business Plan Competition. From phase 2 onwards, this competition is open to startups from all over southern Bavaria.
Take part anytime during the 3 phases
You don't have to take part from the beginning - a lateral entry is possible at any time, and there are new opportunities at every stage.
Important dates
- Deadline Phase 1: January 21, 2025
- Deadline Phase 2: April 8, 2025
- Deadline Phase 3: June 4, 2025
Receive all the latest information on the Bavarian Business Plan competitions via our newsletter (German only).
Live pitches of the finalists in front of top-class jury members from business, industry and the investor scene.
Phase 1:
- Munich Business Plan Competition: 13 March 2025
- Business Plan Competition North Bavaria: 27 February 2025
- Business Plan Competition Ideenreich: 18 March 2025
- Business Plan Competition Swabia: 27 March 2025
Phase 2:
- Munich Business Plan Competition: 26 May 2025
- Business Plan Competition North Bavaria: 27 May 2025
Phase 3:
- Munich Business Plan Competition: 22 July 2025
- Business Plan Competition North Bavaria: 24 July 2025
Business Plan Competition Ideenreich: 18 March 2025
Business Plan Competition Swabia: 27 March 2025
You will also receive all the latest information via our newsletters and www.baystartup.de/termine.
Phase 1: March 20, 2025
Phase 2: June 3, 2025
Phase 3: July 29, 2025
You will also receive all the latest information via our newsletters and www.baystartup.de/termine.
Phase 1: March 11, 2025
Phase 2: May 27, 2025
Phase 3: July 24, 2025
You will also receive all the latest information via our newsletters and www.baystartup.de/termine.
Evaluation criteria of the jury
The jury
In each of the three competition phases, all participants receive qualified written feedback from up to eight jurors, which the teams can use to further develop their concept in later phases. To this end, BayStartUP works together with volunteer jurors from all over Bavaria. The jurors include successful entrepreneurs, managers, technical experts, investors and experts in the start-up scene. Feedback also comes from successful founders from the early years of the competitions who are now involved as jurors.
In total, some 300 jurors from all over Bavaria evaluate over 5,000 business plans each competition season.
Expert feedback: this is what the jurors pay attention to
All participating teams - not just the winners - receive written, multi-page expert feedback on their business concept in the Bavarian Business Plan competitions.
The most important ones are:
Do you arouse interest and is your potential recognizable? Investors read the summary first.
Is the relevant customer benefit recognizable? Do you differentiate yourself from the competition?
Why are you the right team for this startup? How do you close possible competence gaps?
How big is your market and how do you want to address it? National? International?
How do you reach your customers? What are the challenges in sales? B2B or B2C?
How does your company work? How do you organize your processes?
Which milestones do you want to reach when?
Do you see the same opportunities and risks as the jurors? How do you deal with them?
Are all numbers consistent? Do you need external capital? How do you earn money? In financial planning, all plans are represented in hard figures.
Evaluation criteria
This is how the winners are selected
BayStartUP works with around 300 volunteer jurors throughout Bavaria to provide participants in the Bavarian Business Plan competitions with extensive written feedback on their business concepts.
An online tool is used to allocate the business plans as well as for objective evaluation. The submissions with the highest scores are nominated and these startups then present themselves personally to an expert jury in the final round. Participants will be informed via e-mail after the jury's evaluation period has expired whether they have made it to the pitch part or not.
At the jury meeting, all teams start at the same level, regardless of whether one team is nominated as the best team in the written ranking or last. The winners are determined according to pre-determined criteria and are awarded prizes at the respective award ceremony.
Participants restart after each phase. The phases build on each other in terms of content, but not organizationally. A team that was not nominated and not awarded a prize in phase 1, for example, benefits from feedback and can incorporate the experience gained into the business concept in the subsequent phase.
Conditions of participation
The Bavarian Business Plan Competitions are aimed at founders and entrepreneurs with innovative, growth-oriented business ideas, with a focus on the technology sector. There should be a need for financing to concretize and implement the business idea. It is irrelevant whether or not the company has already been founded.
At least one team member must live or study in Bavaria, alternatively the company's headquarters can be in Bavaria. Each participating team must designate one main contact as official representative.
If a participating team is awarded a prize, it may only participate in higher levels of the competition in the following years. Identical concept ideas may only be submitted in a maximum of two years of the competition.
The BayStartUP team reserves the right to disqualify submissions. Legal action is excluded.
All jurors commit themselves with a written declaration to secrecy with regard to confidential information they receive in the competition. No liability is assumed with regard to the statements of coaches, jurors and other persons involved in the competition.
The role as a juror results in a position of trust which obliges to secrecy. Confidential information and documents in this sense are all business, technical, financial or other information disclosed by teams or companies, in particular by submitting their business plan - in any way whatsoever. Not confidential is such information that is already generally known or becomes generally known without violation of the above points or is disclosed by third parties without violation of a confidentiality obligation.
All teams register at www.baystartup.de and receive two e-mails from us after successful registration: One e-mail with a first password and a second one with your ID. Afterwards, the teams can log into the web portal via browser. There it is necessary for a team to upload its plan as a PDF file in due time.
If you do not receive an e-mail with access data for the submission within 15 minutes after registration, please contact the BayStartUP team.
The submission is done online only. It will be communicated on the BayStartUP website and via the e-mail distribution list as soon as the registration and submission is activated and how it works.
The business plan should be written in German. English business plans are also accepted. All required chapters must be submitted. Chapters that are not relevant will not be evaluated. The sum of the page numbers should not be exceeded, whereby the page numbers given represent orientation values, not minimum or maximum values. If the business plan is clearly too long, the project management reserves the right to disqualify it.
Note: For technical reasons, the same e-mail address can only be used once per contest year for a contest registration. If you want to register a second team as team leader, please use a different e-mail address.
In case of a successful nomination in a competition phase, you agree to be personally present at the award ceremony or to send a representative. Nominated participant teams must also present in person before a presence jury to determine the winners. If these requirements are not met, BayStartUP reserves the right to exclude you from the nomination.
Regional allocation
The business plan competitions are divided regionally, you will be automatically forwarded to the correct competition when you register depending on your postal code. Depending on your exact place of residence or work/company headquarters in southern Bavaria, interested parties can participate in either the Munich Business Plan Competition, the Northern Bavaria Business Plan Competition, the Swabian Business Plan Competition or the Southeast Bavarian Business Plan Competition. The competitions in Schwaben and Ideenreich have only one regional phase - after that all interested parties are invited to the Munich Business Plan Competition Phase 2 and 3 for all of Southern Bavaria.
The same submission criteria and deadline apply to all. The best teams will receive separate prizes.
In the Munich Business Plan Competition, interested parties with this local reference take part: Stadt und Landkreis München, LKR Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen, LKR Berchtesgadener Land, LKR Dachau, Stadt Ingolstadt, LKR Ebersberg, LKR Erding, LKR Freising, LKR Fürstenfeldbruck, LKR Miesbach, LKR Pfaffenhofen a.d. Ilm, Stadt und LKR Rosenheim, LKR Starnberg, LKR Traunstein, LKR Weilheim-Schongau.
Interested parties from Lower Franconia, Upper Franconia, Middle Franconia and the Upper Palatinate take part in the Northern Bavaria Business Plan Competition.
After the awards in phase 1 of the Munich Business Plan Competition and the awards of the regional competitions Swabia and Idea Rich, all southern Bavarian participants will compete together in phases 2 and 3 of the Munich Business Plan Competition.
In the Northern Bavaria Business Plan Competition, all teams from the Upper Palatinate and Franconia compete against each other in all three phases without further regional differentiation.