Here's how the startup world looks at the Triell

The Triell was also eagerly awaited by the start-up scene; one day later, the outcome for many representatives can be summed up in one word: disappointing.

The word "start-up" will probably remain in the memory of most viewers of the Triell, the three-way TV battle for the chancellorship between Annalena Baerbock (Greens), Armin Laschet (CDU) and Olaf Scholz (SPD) on Sunday evening, if at all, because Armin Laschet stated that he drives an e-car from an Aachen-based start-up. Privately of course, his company car is a diesel car from Audi. Otherwise, start-ups did not play a role in the discussion round, topics such as innovation or digitalization were not addressed. "So much talk about the future. But who is building the future?", Christian Miele, head of the German Start-ups Association, therefore asked afterwards on Twitter. The question of what role start-ups could play was left out. The lack of venture capital was also not a topic. Only Laschet spoke once of the land of inventors and tinkerers, but he did not get specific.

Investor and entrepreneur Carsten Maschmeyer also took stock: "105 minutes of discussion - and no mention of digitalisation, #startups and founders," he wrote on Twitter. And calls it "shocking that such important topics are not on the agenda at all." However, the criticism is not only directed at Annalena Baerbock, Olaf Scholz and Armin Laschet by, but also at the topic setting by presenter Pinar Atalay and presenter Peter Kloeppel. Maschmeyer is not the only one who sees omissions here. Miele also writes: "Digitalization did not play a role in #Triell. In my eyes, journalistically negligent." Investor Frank Thelen sees it similarly: "That was weak, even from the moderators, who otherwise did a good job," he writes on Twitter.

For the investor, who is anyway a self-confessed CDU fan, Armin Laschet emerges as the clear winner from the Triell, as he underlines with #Arministback, he writes: "I find @ArminLaschet finally strong again. " Others also see Laschet ahead, as Getyourguide founder Tao Tao and Stefan Groß-Selbeck of BCG Digital Ventures told the Handelsblatt stated. For Maschmeyer, there is no winner in the Triell: "That was not even possible, because he was not present. For me, it was the @fdp and @c_lindner." That the FDP is missing the entrepreneurs and investors, comes as no surprise. Only a few weeks ago, some among them, including Thelen and Tao announced a donation of half a million euros to the Free Democrats to have given, also investor Georg Kofler donated already in April.

On Linkedin and Instagram, Maschmeyer becomes more specific in his criticism. What was missing in the Triell were topics such as "Tax-attractive employee shareholdings, future funds, broad access to venture capital, taming bureaucracy monsters" or summarized "start-up-friendly policies". In the career network, co-founder Hans Uszkoreit of Giance Technologies also complains that the topics were much about details, but not about "increasing backlog in technological innovation and digital transformation", although this is "crucial for economic success, lasting prosperity, successful energy transition and effective pandemic control". He asks, "Is there no real interest in finding a solution among the three major parties?" Aidien Assefi, CEO of Mainz-based Circl Link, also expresses disappointment, tweeting, "We've now heard everything (and nothing) but StartUps and digitalisation didn't feature.”

Scholz, Baerbock and Laschet still have two chances to convince the startup world as well: on September 12, they will meet on public television, and on September 19 on ProSieben, Kabel Eins and Sat 1.