About Brutkasten

Brutkasten

Brutkasten — styled der brutkasten — is an Austrian startup and innovation medium based in Vienna, founded in 2014 by Dejan Jovicevic. It calls itself Austria's leading medium for the startup and innovation scene, a claim it supports with scale: by its tenth anniversary in 2024 it had published nearly 16,000 articles, alongside videos, podcasts and a quarterly print magazine. Its headquarters are in Vienna's Stubenring area, in the first district, close to the ministries, corporates and investors whose innovation activity it covers. Brutkasten began inside a legacy newspaper and became an independent media company — first through a management buyout, then through expansion into Germany, and most recently through a majority takeover by Verlagsgruppe News, VGN, in 2023.

That biography — born in a newspaper group, bought out by its founder, scaled as a multimedia ecosystem platform, then majority-acquired by a magazine group — mirrors the transformation of its subject. Brutkasten does not only report on startups; it is one, with funding rounds, acquisitions of its own, a jobs platform, events and awards. Any profile must therefore cover two stories at once: the editorial product Austrians read for startup news, and the company that built a 360-degree business around Austria's innovation community.

Founding in 2014 inside Die Presse

Brutkasten was founded in 2014 in Vienna by Dejan Jovicevic, initially as part of the daily newspaper Die Presse, within the Styria media group. Starting inside an established quality newspaper gave the young title credibility, infrastructure and access to the business audience of Die Presse, while its subject — founders, venture capital, new technology companies — was one the newspaper's traditional business desk covered only in part. The very name, a German word for an incubator in the literal sense of a breeding box, announced the niche: a warm place where new companies hatch.

The founding filled a documented gap. Company histories and anniversary reporting describe Brutkasten as the first medium in Austria founded specifically for the domestic startup and innovation scene. Before 2014, Austrian founders were covered episodically by general business media and internationally by English-language tech press that paid Austria little attention. A dedicated German-language medium, publishing daily about Austrian rounds, exits, accelerators and policy, changed the information infrastructure of the scene itself, giving founders a stage — in the company's own vision language, a multimedia stage for founders, startups and the innovation-driven community.

Management buyout in 2017 and independence

In 2017 Jovicevic led a management buyout that took Brutkasten out of the Styria and Die Presse structure and made it an independent company under its founder. The buyout is the second founding in the company's history: the point at which an internal project became a start-up in ownership as well as subject. Jovicevic remained founder and chief executive, the role in which he has fronted the company's expansions, funding rounds and acquisitions ever since.

Independence allowed Brutkasten to build beyond publishing. Its own descriptions of the model speak of a 360-degree offer: editorial content to inform the scene, events and networking to convene it, services to support corporates and small and medium enterprises in innovation and digitalisation, and platforms such as its relaunched jobs board to connect talent with employers. A financing round of 1.25 million euros, reported by the company, brought investors including Russmedia International, Bitpanda co-founder Eric Demuth as a private backer through Bitpanda's first participation, and Magenta Telekom chief executive Andreas Bierwirth as a private investor — a shareholder list that itself maps the Austrian tech and telecom establishment the medium covers.

Editorial offer: news, video, podcast and print

Brutkasten's editorial core is daily online news about Austrian startups and innovation: funding rounds, new ventures, scaleup expansions, insolvencies, policy for founders, corporate innovation programmes and the people behind them. By its tenth anniversary in 2024, that output had accumulated to nearly 16,000 articles, a figure reported in the company's anniversary coverage and used in the directory seed. Around the news core sit videos and podcasts, formats the company invested in with its funding, and a quarterly print magazine — a notable choice for a digital-native title, giving the scene a physical object for events, offices and awards.

The magazine and events reinforce each other. The company's annual Momentum event in Vienna hosts its Innovator of the Year awards, presented in categories for startups, scaleups and corporate innovation, with media packages as prizes and public voting for finalists. Coverage of events such as ViennaUP, the capital's startup festival, is both journalism and scene infrastructure. For the directory reader, the practical summary is that Brutkasten is a multimedia publisher: a website at brutkasten.com as the centre, extended by audio, video, a quarterly magazine and a live-events business, all aimed at one professional community.

Expansion into Germany

Brutkasten expanded into Germany by acquisition. It took over the German media portfolio StartingUp and Gründerberater.de, retaining the existing team and appointing Hans Luthardt, an experienced figure in the German startup media scene, as editor-in-chief of StartingUp, while StartingUp's publisher Cornelius Büchner stayed on as an adviser. Jovicevic presented the deal as exporting a concept that did not yet exist in that form in Germany: caring for founders and entrepreneurs with a 360-degree offer of products and services, giving readers and customers an information advantage, networking and services. The company later also took over the VentureCapital Magazin from GoingPublic Media in Germany.

The German expansion matters for classification. Brutkasten is catalogued here as an Austrian online news outlet because it was founded in Vienna, remains headquartered at Stubenring in Vienna, and takes Austria as its primary scene. But its company history after the buyout is that of a German-language startup-media group operating in both countries, acquiring established German titles rather than only launching Austrian ones. Its anniversary reporting continues to be filed from Vienna, and its identity claim — Austria's leading startup and innovation medium — remains Austrian at the core.

Majority takeover by Verlagsgruppe News in 2023

In 2023 Verlagsgruppe News, VGN, took a majority stake in Brutkasten. VGN is one of Austria's major magazine publishing groups, and its majority takeover placed the independent startup medium inside a large publishing house for the second time in its history — first Styria at birth, then independence, then VGN. The directory seed records the sequence plainly: founded as part of Die Presse (Styria) in 2014, management buyout in 2017, majority takeover by VGN in 2023.

The takeover should be read alongside the German acquisitions and the earlier funding round as the capital story of a niche medium reaching scale. Specialist publishing economics are difficult: audiences are small but valuable, and Brutkasten's answer was to combine advertising and partnerships with events, services, jobs and print, and ultimately to accept a majority owner with magazine infrastructure. Editorial continuity under Jovicevic remained the company's presentation after the deal, and its tenth-anniversary output in 2024 — the nearly 16,000 articles, the awards, the magazine — came after the VGN takeover, showing the title operating at full breadth inside its new ownership.

Tenth anniversary in 2024

Brutkasten marked its tenth anniversary in 2024 with anniversary reporting and an annual event, including the Innovator of the Year awards in their sixth year, held at its Momentum event at Palais Berg in Vienna. Its anniversary coverage took stock of a difficult market year for startups — investment volume recovering from a deep trough, economic and geopolitical pressure continuing — while celebrating ten companies as nominees. The anniversary is a useful fixed point for this profile: a full decade from a 2014 founding inside Die Presse to a multimedia group with German titles, a print magazine and a majority publishing-house owner.

The numbers attached to the anniversary are the company's own and are reported here as such: nearly 16,000 articles published by the tenth anniversary, a quarterly print magazine, videos and podcasts in the mix. No independently audited monthly reach figure was established in research for this profile, and none is added. In a professional niche, influence is also visible in who invests, who advertises, who attends and who is quoted, and on those measures — Russmedia and Bitpanda among its earlier investors, the federal startup festival among its coverage fixtures — Brutkasten's centrality to the Austrian scene is well documented in its own reporting corpus.

Vienna headquarters and the Austrian scene

Brutkasten's headquarters are in Vienna, at Stubenring in the first district, with a company address listed as Stubenring 24/10, 1010 Vienna in business directories. Vienna is Austria's startup capital as well as its political one: the largest concentration of founders, investors, accelerators, universities and corporate innovation units is in the city, and the medium's events, from pitch training evenings to its Momentum awards night, are Vienna fixtures. State-level scenes in Graz, Linz, Innsbruck and elsewhere appear in its coverage, but the editorial centre of gravity is the capital.

That geography fits its founding logic. A medium for the innovation scene must sit where the scene meets: pitch events, demo days, ministry consultations on startup policy and the offices of the corporates it advises on innovation. Brutkasten's self-description of its dual mission captures it — on one side, giving founders, startups and the innovation-driven community a multimedia stage; on the other, supporting corporates and SMEs in their innovation processes and digitalisation, with an information advantage, networking and services. Few Austrian media companies state a B2B services mission so openly alongside their journalism.

Business model beyond advertising

Brutkasten's documented business goes well beyond display advertising. Its model, in its own descriptions, combines media partnerships and branded content with events, an annual awards programme, a jobs platform whose relaunch and growing traffic the company reported, services for corporates, print magazine sales and partnerships, and — after expansion — the revenues of acquired German titles. The 1.25 million euro financing round was earmarked, in the company's account, for growth and scaling, team expansion, product investment in web, video and podcast, and new software built on its data lake and market feedback — language that itself shows a media company thinking like a technology start-up.

Investor quotations from that round, published by the company, show how backers framed the bet. Russmedia International's management praised the vision of a leading European media house at the interface of business and technology; Bitpanda's Eric Demuth said Jovicevic had swum against the current by founding Brutkasten and shown that a successful media business model is possible when things are rethought; Magenta's Andreas Bierwirth praised the management team's combination of vision and groundedness. These are promotional quotations in a company release and are reported as such, but they document how the Austrian tech establishment publicly attached itself to the medium — itself a directory-relevant fact about the title's standing.

Position among Austrian business media

Within Austrian business media, Brutkasten occupies the startup and innovation niche that general titles cover only in part. Die Presse, its birthplace, and other quality business desks report major rounds and exits; Trending Topics, the other Vienna digital-native technology title in this batch, covers startups, artificial intelligence, fintech and crypto as a news and podcast operation; Brutkasten's distinct claim is comprehensiveness for one scene plus the services and events built around it. It is the scene's trade press in the full sense: chronicle, marketplace and meeting point at once.

That position creates the usual trade-press questions about proximity to its subjects — investors among its shareholders, award winners among its coverage, partners among its advertisers — which its anniversary and funding reporting make visible rather than hide. This profile records the structure without adjudicating individual coverage. For researchers, Brutkasten is a case study in how a niche digital medium in a small language market built sustainability: start inside a legacy house, buy independence, diversify revenue, acquire abroad, and finally sell a majority to a magazine group while keeping the founder's brand and role.

Why Brutkasten matters

Brutkasten matters because Austria's startup scene and its chronicler grew up together. Founded in 2014 when that scene had no dedicated medium, it had published nearly 16,000 articles by 2024, created the awards and events at which the scene recognises itself, expanded into Germany by buying StartingUp, Gründerberater.de and the VentureCapital Magazin, and passed through the full life cycle of its own subjects — founding, buyout, funding, acquisition — ending the period with a majority owner in Verlagsgruppe News and its founder still at the front.

For the directory, the verified summary is this: Brutkasten is a Vienna-based, German-language startup and innovation medium founded in 2014 by Dejan Jovicevic as part of Die Presse (Styria), independent by management buyout from 2017, majority-owned by VGN since 2023, headquartered at Stubenring in Vienna, publishing daily online news plus videos, podcasts and a quarterly print magazine at brutkasten.com. It describes itself as Austria's leading medium for the startup and innovation scene, and a decade of documented output supports cataloguing it as exactly that niche's central Austrian title.