The paper is focused on the role of entrepreneurship in rural areas. This topic is becoming more urgent in Germany nowadays in the context of contemporary tendencies based on accelerating economic development, rethinking of social issues, implementing sustainable development goals in everyday practices, and new political frameworks. The research is based on the hypothesis that rural regions are very diverse; nevertheless, these regions generally have lower start-up rates than urban regions. Conducting the research we clarified that the sector structure of start-ups in rural areas is less focused on high-tech and more on start-ups in the area of the “Green Economy”. Venture capital-financed start-ups are rarely found in rural regions. The importance of Family Businesses and Hidden Champions is stronger in rural regions than in urban ones. There are large differences within the group of rural regions in terms of start-up activities and entrepreneurship in the form of Family Businesses and Hidden Champions.
 We concluded that Champions in rural areas can be explained by the strengths of rural regions. There is often a special long-term relationship between rural regions and their companies. Regionally rooted Family Businesses and Hidden Champions value the region’s solidarity with businesses as strength of rural regions.