Munich Startup: Where do you see the CDTM within the Munich ecosystem – are you a bridge builder, a talent factory, or rather an innovation driver?
Samuel Valenzuela, CDTM: Our mission at CDTM is to connect, educate and empower students from different disciplines as innovators. CDTM both a bridge builder between students, a talent factory where students can try out new things, and with over 260 startups founded and over 7,000 jobs created in Europe, an innovation driver from Munich.
Munich Startup: What makes the CDTM indispensable for the Munich scene, and why might a crucial component be missing without you?
Samuel Valenzuela: The CDTM promotes both academic and entrepreneurial exchange between young talent and industry. We ensure that new ideas can be quickly translated into practice and provide students with the tools and networks they need to drive innovation and achieve entrepreneurial success in the future. In a city like Munich, considered a center for technology and startups, such a link between theory, practice, and industry would be indispensable. Within the vibrant offerings in Munich (for example, through UnternehmerTUM), we see ourselves as providing top-level support (including through the small cohort size per semester), whereas other programs focus more on supporting the largest possible number of students.
New technologies, political innovation and deep tech
Munich Startup: What current developments or topics are you particularly concerned about at the moment?
Samuel Valenzuela: We see that the introduction of GenAI tools is fundamentally changing the value creation of the type of software that many startups have built in the past. Distribution and problem understanding are becoming increasingly important for software, while digital or technological implementation is becoming an easily substituted resource in many cases. We are considering what this means for our curriculum. Many of our teams are now applying proven methods with the support of AI tools.
We are also interested in areas beyond traditional software topics where innovation expertise can make a decisive contribution. This includes political innovation to structurally enable the issues of tomorrow. But hardware and deep tech are also part of this for us. We spend a lot of time thinking about what the CDTM's contribution can and should be to these topics.
Munich Startup: You've had your own fund since spring 2025. What was the decisive impetus for taking this step now? What strategic role should the fund play for CDTM alumni, startups, and the ecosystem?
Samuel Valenzuela: The Fund set up by the alumni community, has been in existence since December 2024. The decisive impetus ultimately came in 2022, when CDTM alumni found a way to enable investments of less than €100,000 per investor. This is very difficult to achieve in the venture capital sector in Germany due to legal regulations.
“The idea of giving back plays […] a big role in the alumni community.”
Munich Startup: Which startups has the fund already invested in? Is there a particularly good example of how the fund supports the next generation of entrepreneurs?
Samuel Valenzuela: The fund has been actively discussing with startups since March 2024. As of today, a dozen deals have already been closed. Some companies kept a spot in their financing rounds open for the CDTM Community Fund for months until we were finally able to invest starting in December 2024. A good example of this is Kuro, run by Lea Scherer and Jonas Minkler.
The great thing about the fund is that a significant portion of the profits goes back to the CDTM's support association. This way, not only does the CDTM support the founders, but the founders also support the CDTM in turn. The idea of giving back definitely plays a big role in the alumni community.
Munich Startup: What visions and goals does the CDTM have for the coming years?
Samuel Valenzuela: Our vision for the future also applies: We want to empower, train, and connect the innovators of tomorrow. We are committed to continuing to provide these people with the best possible support so they can implement their ideas and shape the world around them. We are optimists and believe that together we can contribute to a positive future.
This interview is the third part of a series of articles on the CDTM. Read the first part here, here the second part.
