Vienna opens Wiener Wachstum, equity for digital and health firms

Vienna opens Wiener Wachstum, equity for digital and health firms

22 October 2026: Vienna's business agency, the Wirtschaftsagentur Wien, has opened applications for Wiener Wachstum, a new equity fund for small and mid-sized companies, start-ups and scale-ups in the city's digital and health economies. It is run with Raiffeisenlandesbank Niederösterreich-Wien on behalf of the City of Vienna, and the agency's site now invites companies to apply straight away.

Not yet independently verified. The fund size, ticket range, 25% cap and seven to ten year horizon come from Trending Topics' report of 22 October, not from the agency, whose own page is undated and gives a holding period of five to ten years. The agency published a press release on the programme in April 2026, but we could not read its text. We will update this when it can be confirmed, and remove this note.

According to Trending Topics, which reported the launch on 22 October, the fund starts with EUR 7 million and takes stakes of EUR 100,000 to EUR 500,000 per financing round.

What the agency offers

On its own page the agency calls Wiener Wachstum "a completely new" form of equity financing for companies facing a large growth step in Vienna. It can invest through direct stakes, convertible loans and profit-participation rights, with a holding period of five to ten years and a clear exit strategy. Applicants must be limited companies based in Vienna, with a clear growth plan and finances that can be followed.

The agency places the fund in context with its own counts of the two sectors: 10,800 digital economy companies in Vienna employing 80,000 people with EUR 22 billion in turnover, and 646 life sciences companies employing 49,000 with EUR 22.7 billion.

Sizes, caps and who pays

Trending Topics gives the further terms. The money comes half from the Wirtschaftsagentur and half from Raiffeisen NÖ-Wien; citing ORF Wien, it says the city's EUR 3.5 million comes from the agency's portfolio rather than the municipal budget. Each stake is capped at 25%, the horizon is seven to ten years, and the target is companies that have been on the market for two to three years and need capital for staff, technology or new markets.

The model recycles money: the agreed sum is paid out in full, and companies that succeed later pay back an agreed share of their profits, which funds further investments. "Up to 500,000 euros are possible per entrepreneurial project," Dominic Weiss, the agency's managing director, is quoted as saying.

How to apply

The process has two phases. A company first registers its interest on the Wiener Wachstum online platform. Wiener Wachstum GmbH, the joint company of the agency and the bank, reviews the material and recommends selected companies against set criteria, and those companies then submit their full documents online. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis, with no deadline.

At EUR 7 million the fund is small; at the stated ticket sizes it covers between 14 and 70 investments before any money comes back. For a Viennese software or digital health company past its founding years, it is one more source of growth capital alongside private investors, and one that does not ask for a majority.

Sources

• Wirtschaftsagentur Wien: Wiener Wachstum, Finanzierung für Unternehmen aus der Gesundheits- und Digitalwirtschaft (read 2026-10-25), 25 October 2026
• Trending Topics: Wiener Wachstum, Stadt Wien und Raiffeisen öffnen Eigenkapital-Topf, 22 October 2026