2026-07-09
How to read a German program listing
Read a German listing in this order: equity, cost, time, and corporate pull. Haus marks 307 of 310 active programs as equity-free, which answers one question. It does not tell you whether you pay a fee, how many months they expect, or whether the partner is a future customer who will steer the roadmap. If the official page is vague on those three points, treat that vagueness as information. Then open the current cycle page, not last year’s announcement. The open applications list is a starting point; the operator’s site is the source of truth.
What the equity-free badge covers
Open a Haus program card and you will usually see an equity-free mark. That matches how a lot of German support is paid for: EXIST and state money, university rooms, and corporate tracks that want a pilot. Grace Berlin is the clean public-money version. Its FAQ says there are no shares because ESF+ and Land Berlin pay a €2,500 monthly stipend. German Accelerator uses the same sentence without the stipend: fully funded, no equity taken.
Then look at the cheque language on the operator’s own page. Climate Founders describes a remote program that invests 200k to 2.5 million euros at pre-seed. Haus still tags that listing equity-free, while the operator does not describe it that way. A 0% filter is a first cut, and the equity-free directory is useful for that cut. If the funding model is a stipend or cash, read the amount. If it is none or in-kind, you are buying access with weeks.
Cost, duration, and application status
Haus prints cost as free or a number, plus duration and format (in-person, hybrid, or remote). A free hybrid that wants two on-site weeks is still a travel budget. DOaccelerate is the honest version of that: no published fee, mandatory attendance on 14-15 April 2026 in Dortmund, then online through 13 July. Grace Berlin is free and full-time, and you must live in the city. Price the months you will actually spend, including rent and travel, before you treat the listing as free.
Application status on Haus is Open, Closing soon, Closed, Rolling, or Not specified. Rolling inside a window is still a deadline. Grace reviews files as they arrive and lists Selection Day as 5 October. If duration is blank and the official site says the dates are still to be announced, you do not yet have a program you can plan around. Confirm the live window on the open applications hub and on the provider page before you block a week to apply.
Who sits on the other side of the program
Ask who sits on the other side of demo day. STARTUP AUTOBAHN and DB mindbox publish the answer: a partner votes you into a pilot on their infrastructure. Wayra publishes venture clienting into TelefĂłnica Germany. That can be the whole company if o2 is the buyer you wanted. It is a problem if you needed a generalist seed process and the remaining roadmap is their procurement cycle. Read those pages as sales cycles with a calendar, then decide whether that buyer is worth the weeks.
Use Best for / Not for and the institution city when Haus prints them. A Hamburg aerospace logo is a local industrial door, which you can check on the accelerator list. How we verify listings explains what a card can and cannot promise. If you cannot name the milestone the weeks buy, a prototype, a first hire, or a reference you can walk away from, close the tab. The listing has already done its job.