What Linden-Museum Stuttgart does

The Linden-Museum Stuttgart is a state ethnological museum in Stuttgart, Germany, operating as a non-profit organization under the supervision of the Ministry for Science, Research and the Arts Baden-Württemberg. It holds one of the largest ethnological collections in Europe — approximately 160,000 everyday objects, works of art, and sacred items from Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia, and Oceania — organized into seven regional curatorial departments and supported by a specialized library of roughly 65,000 volumes. The museum serves schools, families, adult cultural visitors, refugees, researchers, and external institutions, and runs an active program of special exhibitions, public and private guided tours, school workshops, children's birthday events, and cultural festivals including the co-founded INDIGENOUS North America Film Festival.

Its core technology infrastructure centers on Sammlung Digital, an online collection database providing virtual access to holdings and provenance research, supplemented by multilingual media guides (DE/EN/Kids), a child-friendly Kinder-Mediaguide, and the inclusive Fühlbar Hören experience combining auditory and tactile elements for blind and visually impaired visitors. The institution also operates the FreiRaum open-call program, which allocates temporary exhibition space to independent artists and civil society projects.

The museum's business model combines state appropriation with diversified earned revenue: paid admissions (€6 regular / €4 reduced, with broad free-entry categories), per-booking fees for guided tours (€45–€150), children's birthday packages (€120–€180), event hall rental for up to 270 guests, a photo and loan service (suspended for 2025–2026), and an independently operated on-site restaurant. Distribution is direct-to-consumer through on-site admission and an online booking flow, supplemented by community ecosystem channels including the GEV supporting association, social media, a blog, and a monthly newsletter.

Name

Linden-Museum Stuttgart

Legal name

Linden-Museum Stuttgart

Website

https://lindenmuseum.de

Company type

Private

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

The Linden-Museum Stuttgart is a state ethnological museum in Stuttgart, Germany, holding one of Europe's largest collections of approximately 160,000 non-European cultural objects. Non-profit under Baden-Württemberg state supervision, it serves schools, families, researchers, and the public through exhibitions, guided tours, and cultural events.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Ethnological Museum Services

NAICS

Museums (712110), Museums (71211)

SIC

Services-Amusement & Recreation Services (7900)

akta.pro primary industry

Art Galleries & Exhibition Spaces (Commercial & Nonprofit) (THAJADAH)

akta.pro secondary industries

Museum & Landmark Guided Tours (Skip-the-line/Docent-led) (THAJAAAC), History, Heritage & Museum-Focused Study Tours (THAKAGAN)

Keywords

• Ethnological museum exhibitions
• Cultural education programs
• Guided museum tours
• Museum collections management
• Provenance research services

Headquarters

HQ city

Stuttgart

HQ country

Germany

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure, Others

Revenue model

1. Admission Tickets: The museum charges paid admission for entry to exhibitions. Standard admission is €6 (regular) and €4 (reduced). Children and teenagers up to 18 years of age are admitted free of charge. Entry is free for all visitors every Saturday from 10:00 to 12:00. Income is generated per visit per visitor, making this a transactional, per-person revenue model.
2. Guided Tours and Educational Programs: Revenue generated from booked group tours, school tours, and private guided tours at various durations (1 hour, 1.5 hours, 2 hours). Pricing varies by group type (private, school, Stuttgart vs. out-of-town) and includes surcharges for exhibition entry for certain age groups.
3. Children's Birthday Parties: The museum offers birthday party programs for children in the age range 4–12 years (up to 18 for permanent exhibitions), with durations of 90, 120, or 150 minutes. Packages are priced at €120, €150, and €180 respectively.
4. Event Hall Rental: The museum rents out its event hall (capacity up to 270 people) for lectures, symposia, training courses, and cultural events. Income is generated through venue rental fees, with technical equipment and catering available as additional revenue-generating services.
5. Photography and Loan Services: The museum charges fees for providing publishable images to publishers, editors, and scientists (digital data up to 40 megapixels). Loan fees are charged for lending collection objects to external institutions for exhibitions. Note: new photo and loan requests are currently suspended for 2025–2026 due to staffing shortages.
6. Restaurant Hegel Eins: The on-site restaurant Hegel Eins is operated independently and serves museum visitors with coffee, cake, and alpine-Mediterranean cuisine. It offers daytime and evening service and can be booked exclusively for private events, generating ancillary revenue for the museum's visitor experience ecosystem.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels10 records

Core offering

The Linden-Museum Stuttgart operates a permanent and rotating ethnological exhibition program built on ~160,000 objects spanning Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia, and Oceania. It sells paid admission, multilingual guided tours, school and kindergarten educational programs, children's birthday parties, event-hall rental, and photography/object-loan services, supported by a Sammlung Digital database, Mediaguide audio guides, and a specialized research library.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• GEV (Gesellschaft für Erd- und Völkerkunde zu Stuttgart e. V.): Friends association supporting innovative museum projects, educational concepts, and anthropological research
• FreiRaum
• INDIGEN – Das Nordamerika-Filmfestival

Products and services

• Permanent Regional Exhibitions (Africa, America, Orient, East Asia, Oceania, South/Southeast Asia) Six permanent regional ethnological exhibitions presenting the museum's ~160,000-object collection across seven regional departments; included with standard admission.
• Special Exhibitions (e.g., Benin: Restitution als Prozess; Was ist deine Superkraft?) Rotating temporary special exhibitions on cultural, restitution, and children's themes; included with standard admission.
• Guided Tours (Public, Private, School, Refugee Groups) Booked guided tours in multiple languages at durations of 1, 1.5, or 2 hours; priced €45-€150 by group type and location, with free entries for refugees and Stuttgart school groups.
• Children's Birthday Party Packages Three birthday party packages of 90/120/150 minutes priced €120/€150/€180 for children aged 4-12 (up to 18 for permanent exhibitions), with free entry for the birthday child and up to two adults.
• Event Hall Rental Rental of the museum's event hall (capacity up to 270) for lectures, symposia, training courses, and cultural events; bookings via [email protected].
• Photography and Object Loan Services Publishable digital images up to 40 megapixels and object loans to external museums and publishers; new requests currently suspended for 2025-2026 due to staffing.
• Sammlung Digital (Digital Collection Database) Online virtual access platform to the museum's ~160,000-object collection with object information, provenance stories, and research outcomes.
• Fühlbar Hören (Tangible Hearing) Inclusive Experience An inclusive museum experience combining auditory and tactile elements in the Oceania exhibition, designed for blind and visually impaired visitors.
• Research Library Access Free access for registered researchers to a specialized ~65,000-volume library plus ~250 periodicals, with materials from 2000 onwards searchable via the SWB online catalog.
• FreiRaum Open-Call Program Open-call program awarding temporary exhibition space, infrastructure, and funding to 10 selected independent artists, collectives, and civil-society projects per cycle (October-December).
• INDIGENOUS North America Film Festival Annual film festival co-founded by the museum, now in its 10th edition, showcasing indigenous filmmakers from the USA and Canada in partnership with Dreamspeakers Edmonton and IAIA Santa Fé.
• Restaurant Hegel Eins On-site restaurant serving coffee, cake, and alpine-Mediterranean cuisine during the day and evening; available for exclusive private event bookings.

Quantifiable outcome

• Free admission for children and youth up to 18 years, every Saturday 10:00–12:00 free for all visitors, and ongoing free access programs for refugees.
• +1 more outcomes

Segments6 records

Ideal customer profiles6 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• GEV – Gesellschaft für Erd- und Völkerkunde zu Stuttgart e. V.coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe GEV is the museum's official supporting association. It is committed to innovative and contemporary museum projects, supports educational concepts and anthropological research, and aims to preserve world cultural heritage in Stuttgart and foster understanding for other cultures. The GEV runs an extensive public lecture program aligned with the museum's current exhibition focuses. It is listed as a partner on the museum's website and offers membership with associated free museum entry.
• Hubei Provincial Museum WuhanminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe museum partnered with the Hubei Provincial Museum in Wuhan, China for the exhibition 'Pfau und weißer Elefant' (Peacock and White Elephant), presenting people and their worlds between the Ayeyarwaddy and Mekong rivers. This represents a significant international exhibition exchange, with objects and scholarship flowing between the two institutions.
• AfroKids International e. V.minorImplementation/ SI/ Consulting PartnerThe museum collaborates with AfroKids International e. V., a nonprofit organization active since 1993 in youth participation, anti-racist education, sustainable development, psychosocial health, poverty reduction, and transcultural peace work. The partnership delivers the 'Alles Kopfkino?' workshop on diversity and the formation of stereotypes, targeting school groups (Gemeinschaftskunde, AES, Ethik, Schule ohne Rassismus).
• Dreamspeakers International Film Festival EdmontonminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerDreamspeakers International Film Festival in Edmonton, Canada is a longstanding partner of the INDIGENOUS North America Film Festival. As a renowned indigenous film festival in Canada, it contributes programming, curation, and audience connections to the joint festival.
• Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) Santa FéminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fé, New Mexico, is a longstanding partner of the INDIGENOUS North America Film Festival. Film department head James Lujan actively encourages his students to select films for the festival, contributing young indigenous filmmakers' work to the program.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Weltmuseum Wien: Vienna's ethnographic museum with globally distributed non-European collections. Comparable in collection breadth, exhibition programming, and post-colonial provenance work.
• Museum Fünf Kontinente (Five Continents Museum): Munich-based ethnological museum with global non-European collections. Most direct German peer: state-supervised, comparable scale, focused on non-European cultures, similar educational programming and family audiences.
• Ethnologisches Museum Berlin: Part of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, holds one of Europe's largest ethnological collections. Direct peer in collection scope, restitution debates, and academic research library.
• Übersee-Museum Bremen: Bremen's combined natural history, ethnology, and trade museum. Comparable as a German state museum with global non-European collections and similar school/educational programming.
• Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac: Paris's premier museum of non-European arts and civilizations. Comparable in collection scope, museum scale, and post-colonial repositioning; serves as a Western European reference institution.
• Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum: Cologne's ethnological museum covering cultures of Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia/Oceania. Closely comparable in scope, educational outreach, and post-colonial restitution positioning.

Regional players

• National Museum of Ethnology (Museum Volkenkunde): Leiden-based Dutch ethnological museum with global collections. Comparable in collection focus and academic depth, but operates primarily in the Dutch market rather than competing directly in Germany.

Broad incumbents

• Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology: Harvard-affiliated ethnological museum with large global collections and active provenance research. Comparable as a research-oriented incumbent, though U.S.-based and university-tied.
• Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian: U.S. Smithsonian museum focused on indigenous cultures of the Americas; comparable in restitution/repatriation leadership and indigenous cultural programming (overlaps with the Linden-Museum's INDIGENOUS Film Festival focus).
• British Museum: Global encyclopedic museum with significant ethnological holdings, including contested colonial-era collections. Comparable as a broader incumbent with extensive provenance-restitution activity, but at much larger scale and with broader scope.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• YouTubeyoutube.com/user/LiMuStuttgart?feature=watch
• Facebookfacebook.com/LindenMuseumStuttgart
• Instagraminstagram.com/lindenmuseum
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/linden-museum-stuttgart

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles16 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Linden-Museum Stuttgart