10 years of FTGA and how it started

FTGA2025 is the 10th edition of a journey that started back in 2013 with just an email.

By hitting the SEND EMAIL button after returning from a series of business trips from Frankfurt to London in search of funding opportunities for an early German wealthtech finance startup. 

The term fintech had been coined but was not widely known yet, certainly not in the finance towers in Frankfurt.

An email to the top

The recipient of my email was no other than Dr. Lutz Raettig, “Mr Finanzplatz” himself, CEO of Morgan Stanley in Germany and founder and chairman of Frankfurt Main Finance, the lobby arm of Frankfurts financial market place. 

To him, I reported what I saw in London: a vibrant fintech ecosystem of hundreds of founders with their teams working from co-working spaces across London, daily fintech events from accelerators, a sector supported by banks, the watchdog, a cohort of investors, even the royal family having their own event format.

I was hoping to shed some light to Lutz Raettig on what was happening in the leading financial city in Europe, compared to what was not happening in Frankfurt at the same time: exactly zero. Also Berlin at that time was more of a fintech desert than an ecosystem. Germany was clearly behind.

The European fintech scene was small: some events in Zurich, Paris or Brussels. But it was clear to me that technology would do to the finance industry what it had done to commerce before. The only difference was the level of regulation and trust. The better the technology, the more the tables would turn from the incumbent banks with their ten thousands of brick branches towards digital players. And Germany had precedent: in the mid 90s, a few crazy young entrepreneurial bankers started online brokering cutting deep into the fees of the banks. The German market was big enough for a similar development in the modern fintech space and not only for brokering.

The reply

No reply to my email. For weeks. In the busy startup life, I had almost forgotten about the email when a short answer kicked in one afternoon. It read: “We should talk, Raettig.” 

This was the beginning. A few months later, his lobby arm organised a strategic dialogue forum for all interested parties in Frankfurt. Its results were presented to the Minister of Economy of the State of Hesse. Among the series of recommendations was to set up a startup incubation center for technology (Techquartier), as well as a signature event in Frankfurt.

The first ideas were floated as to what to call this event, since Frankfurt was not on any fintech map back then. The young British or US or Hongkong entrepreneurs who drove development knew Frankfurt maybe because of its airport, but not for fintech.

When I heard ideas for the event name that all included “Frankfurt”, I half jokingly said, why don‘t you call it Fintech Germany Award? This would get Frankfurt on European fintech maps if the award was driven out of Frankfurt. Also, I owned the twitter handle @FintechGermany so we already had a few thousand followers of an audience from the start. Initially, the people in Frankfurt were sceptical but turned around after a couple of months. This is how I became a Jury member at FTGA.

In the meantime, Lutz Raettig had travelled to London for a joint exploratory tour through London's fintech ecosystem, including Level39, which was the nucleus for so many fintech startups. I remember introducing Lutz Raettig to the founder of a small forex fintech company called Revolut, at a time when the whole Revolut team fitted around one table in Level39.  You could tell that Nik, the founder of Revolut, was not impressed by the big name from Frankfurt who I introduced him to. Obviously, these were the guys whose steak he wanted to have for dinner. Shortly, thereafter they rented a whole floor at Level39 and became a unicorn.

The outcome

It was fascinating to witness how interested Lutz Raettig was in what happened with these startups. He showed the greatest respect for the entrepreneurs, listened attentively to their pitches and asked spot on questions.

The first edition of FTGA took place in 2016 in the entry hall of the newly opened TQ. In the debriefing of the event, it became clear that the event organisers wanted to run it again. But I think nobody in this circle at that time had envisaged that this format would ever see the light of its 10th birthday!

Of course Lutz Raettig joined the FTGA Jury and is his honorary member today!

Thank you, Dr Lutz Raettig for being so open minded for the cause of fintech entrepreneurs in Germany!

We are looking forward to many applications for our 10th anniversary and a great event with an after party on the 4th of November 2025 in Berlin!

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