Vice President for Entrepreneurship, LMU Munich
Germany’s largest university: 52,700 students, 860 professors, 72,000 people. My job is to remove what stands between a laboratory result and a company.
What we changed— LMU Munich
A new Mittelstand,
built out of science.
The German Mittelstand grew out of workshops. The next generation will be rooted in science. Since October 2025 I work on the conditions that let those companies start here — and stay here.
Under 3 months for IP transfer at LMU, down from 18
250 jobs built out of a laboratory
First donor of the LMU Entrepreneurship Foundation
The work
I make the
invisible visible
For seventeen years, that meant instruments — making molecular interactions measurable so scientists can turn them into therapies. Since October 2025 it also means making a university’s machine room visible, so research becomes companies without losing eighteen months on the way.
The logic
Occupy the niche. Sovereignty and prosperity follow.
First
Occupy the niche
A Mittelstand out of research holds high-tech niches — before anyone else does.
Then
Sovereignty
The strategic goal. Build and sustain critical capabilities in Europe. So we can act with confidence and collaborate globally from a position of strength.
As a result
Prosperity
What sovereignty achieves — and defends. Jobs and taxes, created where these companies stand.
Proof, not theory
Sovereignty is not built by shutting the world out. It is built by creating high-tech companies whose products the world relies on.
2008
NanoTemper founded as an LMU spin-out, without venture capital
Profitable after two years
250
Jobs created by the end of 2024 — people from 34 nations, in Munich, Boston, San Francisco, Tokyo and Shanghai
Status: end of 2024
364m
Euro in cumulative revenue, through end of 2024
Since 2008
44.7m
Euro in taxes paid in Germany, through end of 2024 — for schools, clinics, universities
And more every year
One Europe
A single market on paper. A new start at every border in practice.
Internal EU barriers to trade may be equivalent to tariffs of around 44 percent on goods and 110 percent on services, according to the IMF. A company from Munich should be able to find its next customer in Paris or Warsaw — and a company from Ljubljana its next partner in Munich.
The second barrierWho is Philipp Baaske?
An honorable entrepreneur — made possible by a system he now owes something to.
Kirchleus, a village of 250+ in Upper Franconia. Free state education, a PhD at LMU, a biotech company built without venture capital — and a book about what a founder owes the society that made them possible. Four roles, one mission.
Founder & Executive Chairman of NanoTemper
Co-founded in 2008 with Stefan Duhr as an LMU spin-out. Today a global leader in biophysical instruments — and still 100% founder-owned.
The companyBusiness Angel
A business angel once believed in two physicists with no capital and no network. For years I passed that on as a lead investor in research-based startups.
PortfolioSpeaker, author, podcast
Keynotes on the new Mittelstand and technology transfer, the book The Honorable Entrepreneur, and the founder journal. A position, not a pep talk.
TopicsBuild with me
Let’s build the next
Mittelstand.
No one builds it alone. Read the mission, or find your way in — depending on where you stand.