2025 German Entrepreneur Award Winners
Achievements in quantum computing and robotics set the tone at this year’s edition of Germany’s leading prize for entrepreneurial excellence. Here are the 2025 honorees.
Sep 11, 2025
StartUp: Top honors in this category for one-to-three-year-old companies went to PlanQC from Garching near Munich. This fledgling firm envisions quantum computers based on neutral atoms at room temperature. It offers an alternative to systems that need resource-intensive cooling. PlanQC is a spin-off of the Narx Planck Institute.
Rising Star: The prize for four-to-nine-year-old companies was awarded to NEURA Robotics from Metzingen in southwestern Germany. It makes cognitive robots that can perceive and understand their environment and act independently. The system replaces strictly programed processes with integrated and unified sensors, artificial intelligence and steering.The
Lifetime Achievement: 93-year-old Hans Peter Stihl, whose namesake company is known worldwide for its saws and other machinery, was recognized for his life’s work. Stihl was an “example of a generation of entrepreneurs who combined globalization, responsibility and tradition” and “wrote one of the great stories of German medium-sized enterprise.”
The German Entrepreneur Awards are given annually by the Sparkassen banks, German broadcaster ZDF, carmaker Porsche and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper. It nis supported by the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.
