The German Hub, Skydeck and Berkeley are fixed stops on the Überflieger start-up journey and, of course, also for us during our week in San Francisco.

We spoke to Sven Thorsten Potthoff from GACC West and Zahar Barth-Manzoori from DIWH San Francisco about the high level of innovation in the Bay Area, the strong links between science and research and business and the impressive spin-off rates of the University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University. Consul General Oliver Schramm took the time to give us an overview of the activities and connections of German companies in the Bay Area.

With Berkeley SkyDeck, Berkeley University has founded its own accelerator and combined it with a fund with which the university invests in its own spin-offs. Sanjay Velappan gave us an overview of the concept and the program, for which external start-ups can also apply.

We went on a tour of the Berkeley campus with Lukas Maschmann, who has also worked for Skydeck and voted for us in this year's Überflieger jury. Lukas himself is very active in the fast-moving and diverse SF start-up ecosystem and confirmed once again how important networks and contacts are.