Record year for MBG Baden-Württemberg and Bürgschaftsbank

In 2021, Mittelständische Beteiligungsgesellschaft Baden-Württemberg and Bürgschaftsbank supported more start-ups than ever before. The reason for this is the coronavirus pandemic of all things.

Baden-Württemberg's Bürgschaftsbank and Mittelständische Beteiligungsgesellschaft Baden-Württemberg can look back on a record year. Last year, MBG supported 125 projects with over 68 million euros. The Bürgschaftsbank even supported 2126 projects with a volume of 665.3 million euros.

The large number of subsidies is mainly due to the coronavirus aid from the federal and state governments. These were repeatedly extended last year and will now end on April 30 this year. Compared to 2020, however, the number of approved liquidity financings at Bürgschaftsbank fell by 16.5%. The reason: shortly after the start of the pandemic, many companies needed short-term liquidity financing from the Bürgschaftsbank. Demand then fell with the introduction of bridging assistance.

Despite the pandemic, many new start-ups were founded last year. Together with L-Bank, Bürgschaftsbank supported almost 1,000 start-ups through the Startfinanzierung80 program. In total, the banks granted loans amounting to 80 million euros.

At Mittelständische Beteiligungsgesellschaft Baden-Württemberg, the volume of investments doubled from 33 million euros in 2020 to 68 million euros. 31 million of this was attributable to the BW mezzanine investment program. The program allows start-ups to receive investments and silent partnerships of up to a maximum of 1.8 million euros. This made it possible to absorb liquidity bottlenecks.

"Thanks to their outstanding commitment during the crisis, Bürgschaftsbank and MBG were able to cushion the burdens that many small and medium-sized companies faced due to the coronavirus-related restrictions. The quick and unbureaucratic help in providing companies with loans to secure liquidity helped and continues to help many companies decisively to overcome the crisis," summarizes Patrick Rapp, State Secretary in the Ministry of Economic Affairs.