Dr. Thomas Funke heads the entrepreneurship department of a think tank of the German Federal Ministry for Economics since August 2013. Additionally he is co-founder of www.daslaufrad.at, www.iamstudent.at and www.sitzengel.de.

Before that he was Assistant Professor and founder of the Entrepreneurship Center Network at Vienna University of Business and Economics. In addition he was founder and head of operations of the Research Studio eSPARK, a studio that aims at supporting entrepreneurs in the very early stages. In his academic career he was based in the US, Hong Kong and Austria.

He just recently published a book on entrepreneurship ecosystems with FAZ Buchverlag with the title: „Beyond Silicon Valley: Examples of Successful Entrepreneurship Ecosystems. He also serves as academic contributor for the renown Global Startup Ecosystem Report by Silicon Valley based company Compass, which just recently published the top 20 startup ecosystems ranking.