thinc! — Where bold students become the founders of tomorrow.

jobwall// open jobs in the ecosystem

Who we are

A community for students who'd rather build than wait.

We are thinc!, with over 3k members Germany's largest student initiative for startups and entrepreneurship, based at the University of Mannheim. We believe the students who build something today are the ones shaping industries tomorrow. Our vision is to turn ambitious students into Europe's next generation of founders and industry leaders. To get there, we open doors usually reserved for those already inside the room: building something of your own, joining the most ambitious startup teams, or getting in front of the right VCs.

Through a diverse range of events, we give our members hands-on experience in the startup world and the chance to connect directly with founders and investors.

Our ambitions and goals don't stop in Germany. Our Alumni are now spread across the globe and went on to study at excellent universities, or joined startups in London, San Francisco and beyond. Thanks to our alumni and our partners, our network keeps expanding internationally, opening doors that would otherwise stay closed. We welcome anyone with the ambition to build, the curiosity to learn, and the hunger to grow, regardless of academic background. If you're ready to be part of a community that pushes you forward, thinc! is where you belong.

Our partners

Projects & Events

Image placeholder Kick-Off Kick-Off The Kick-Off opens the semester, the first week where we welcome the new students and put the whole initiative on stage. Every year we fill the largest lecture hall at the University of Mannheim, over 800 seats with several hundred more we cannot let in, hand out goodie bags and drinks worth more than €60, and welcome a founder or other inspiring guest. Last year Nicolas Lecloux, founder of True Fruits, held the room with the story of how the company really began.

Image placeholder Hackathons Hackathons AI turns business minds into builders, and that is exactly what the thinc! Hack team brings together. The highlight was the Codex Community Hackathon, a 30-hour format in Munich hosted at Wemolo's office, with OpenAI, Google AI, Langdock and UVC on board and five applications for every single spot. Teams built side by side, business and tech, judged on what actually counts: impact, execution and pitch.

Image placeholder Journeys Journeys Every year thinc! takes small groups into the heart of Europe's most exciting startup ecosystems, from Munich and Berlin to London and beyond. We step inside the offices where the next big companies are being built, hear founding stories first-hand and work through real cases with names like Celonis, Trade Republic, Spotify and Google, alongside investors such as Point Nine, Cherry Ventures and Earlybird. What stays goes far beyond the visits: a feel for the pace of the scene, real startup connections, and friendships within thinc! that last long after the trip.

Image placeholder Female Founders Night Female Founders Night Only 19% of startups in Germany are founded by women, and all-female teams receive just 1% of total venture capital. We think that is not enough, and the Female Founders Night is thinc!'s answer to it. On March 6th the strongest female voices from VC, AI, startups and the influencer business came to Mannheim and met over 200 attendees for an evening of real stories, real struggles and real success.

Image placeholder Pitch Battle Pitch Battle At Thincubator and its Pitch Battle, 30 of the most motivated students at the University of Mannheim spent a week working directly inside ten young startups, many of them still pre-seed or in stealth. The week wrapped up in front of more than 400 spectators, where four startups competed on stage for €100,000 in Google Credits, with a keynote by math YouTuber Daniel Jung and a jury of founders and investors.

Image placeholder Matchup Matchup MATCHUP tackles one of the biggest pain points in Europe's startup ecosystem: connecting top talent with the best startups directly, instead of scrolling through endless job walls. 100+ talents from Oxford, Cambridge, Bocconi, ETH, TUM, St. Gallen, Mannheim and beyond met 10+ startups in one room, where founders pitched their vision directly to the talent bold enough to join them. The result was real energy, deep connections, and the start of something much bigger, just one of the projects we are building at thinc!