departure, the City of Vienna’s agency for the creative industries, was established in 2003 as Austria’s first independent business promotion agency and service center for companies of the creative industries. Today it is considered a successful example of innovation funding on a competitive basis in Europe. departure is a subsidiary company of the Vienna Business Agency and part of the department for economic affairs of the City of Vienna.

departure addresses those creative professionals who consider themselves active participants in business life. With the aim to create an economically sustainable basis for Vienna’s creative professionals departure offers various funding programs for entrepreneurs and company founders and supports outstanding achievements in the following fields of the creative industries: fashion, music, audio-vision, multimedia, design, publishing, art market and architecture.

Besides departure’s funding activities there is a strong focus on network activities to improve the infrastructure of the different creative scenes. Initiatives such as curated by_vienna, which coincides with the VIENNAFAIR, are meant to strengthen Vienna’s position as a location for the creative industries.