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AutorenbildJuan Diego Parra Castillo
19. Jan. 202116 Min. Lesezeit

This Month in German Startups — 2020 Review

Aktualisiert: 16. Aug.

This story was migrated from our old blog, originally published on January 19th, 2021.


New Blog


This blog post first appeared first on old medium publication (https://medium.com/startuprad-io), and was moved to this blog with the relaunch of our website in summer 2024.


This Month in German Startups — 2020 Review


Welcome to This Month in German Startups by Startuprad.io — in a transatlantic news recording with Chris in New York City. This is an annual tradition, where we look at the past year and forward to the coming one. Not to mention, we have been totally wrong last year with the outlook, so we are sticking to the review this year.

Today we bring you an overview of the German startup corona aid, an overview of the German startup scene, lists of top startup stories, a few outlooks on 2021, and a bit of wine :-)


The Video Interview is set to go live on January 19th, 2021 17.00 CET



Ecosystem

European Startup Scene 2020 — Snapshot


8 crucial takeaways from Atomico’s recently-launched The State of European Tech 2020 report | via Silicon Canals https://buff.ly/3m6MxVg

  1. ‘Megarounds’ helped European Tech ecosystem grow

  2. While many founders found it more challenging to get funding, 2020 is on track to be a record year, with potential to surpass $41B invested, driven by more $100M+ deals.

  3. Germany is projected 23 bn US$

  4. Low capital, pivoting the product, and sales decline hit founders hardest in 2020

  5. International investment hasn’t dried up

  6. France is the only one of Europe’s three largest markets to grow in 2020.

  7. London remains the biggest investment hub in 2020

  8. Travel sector gets notably low investments

  9. Investment in purpose-driven tech companies soars

  10. Gender and racial inequality still prevails in the European tech ecosystem

List: 10 biggest healthtech stories of 2020 https://buff.ly/3aQlnjv

  1. The guinea pigs of Germany’s new healthcare revolution

  2. BioNTech: the German biotech startup behind the coronavirus vaccine

Hot or not: Where European VC funding went in 2020 by Pitchbook https://buff.ly/3nMSzf7 — Difference to Atomico ⇒ Different source for data …

UK still has the largest VC market in total (13.7 bn $), but Germany (6.8 bn $) grew three times as fast with 10.9% vs UK’s +1.7% BUT this may also be due to Brexit. We will see what 2021 brings. According to Pitchbook France grew by an astonishing 25.4% to a total of 6.1 bn $. The other markets in Europe surpassing 1 bn $ are Sweden (3.2 bn$), Spain (1.4 bn$), and Finland (1.2 bn$).

These are the 10 largest funding rounds of Europe in 2020 https://buff.ly/2W1KGX8

including AUTO1 Group, Tier Scooters and Lilium from Germany

German Startup Scene 2020 — Snapshot

Deutscher Startup Monitor https://deutscherstartupmonitor.de/

  • This is an annual survey by the German startup association, this year more than 1.900 startups participated.

  • The largest share of the — participating startups — (note, there is a bias here) have been in

  • Berlin 17,7%

  • Rhein-Rhur (Cologne, Düsseldorf, …) 12.8%

  • Munich 6.5%

  • Hamburg 5.8%

  • This is one of the reasons we try to highlight so many startups from different areas, since not only every 5th startup is in Berlin. Please note that we try to have approx. 20% of our interviews from Berlin, to give these startups also a fair representation.

  • On average a startup in the survey employed 14.3 employees, up from 13.3 in 2019 and 12.3 in 2018. Despite Corona, 90% were planning to hire people.

  • 15.9% of founders are female in this survey, slightly up from the previous years (15.7% in ’19 and 15.1% ‘18)

  • Universities play a central role as a core for a startup cluster, especially Germany’s Technische Hochschule (technical universities aka TU) e.g. TU München, KIT, RWTH Aachen, LMU München, Universität Mannheim, Universität Bremen, WHU, TU Berlin, TU Darmstadt and FU Berlin.

  • ~ 20% of founders have a migration background

  • The most important technology is AI, more than 26.7% of startups had a SaaS business model

  • 68.8% of all startups focus on B2B, 26.5% on B2C, and 4.7% on B2G (Business to Government)

  • The most important funding sources are the founder’s own savings (used by 78.4%), government programs (used by 44.3%), and business angels (used by 31.6%). Actually, only 18.6% of participating startups have VC funding, while 42.3% want funding. DO YOU HEAR THIS INTERNATIONAL INVESTORS?

  • Startups in Berlin (39,0%), Munich (28,8%), and Hamburg (22,1%) are the most frequently funded by Venture Capital

Fintech Survey by Comdirect


Comdirect is an online bank with a small startup program. They are part of Commerzbank group and conduct an annual fintech survey in Germany. Some highlights here:

  • Volume of top 3 deals down by more than 50%

  • 12 fintechs with more than 100 m Euros funding

  • Top 20 funded fintechs get more money than the other 414 fintechs

  • The top fintech locations Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt and Hamburg raised 72% of all VC funding

comdirect Fintech-Studie 2020: Top 4-Standorte mit geringstem Anteil am deutsche | comdirect.de

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Venture Capital in Germany

A list of Germany’s largest Venture Capital Rounds in 2020 https://buff.ly/2JTtJM1


Germany’s Corona Aid for Startups

  • Germany extends it’s two billion (2,43 bn US$) startup corona aid program from spring 2020 until June 30th, 2021, since not all two billion Euros of the original program have been spent. The two billion have been equally divided into two pillars — called Pillar One and Pillar Two.

  • Pillar One (1 bn €, 1.2 bn US$) is direct aid for startups, who already have external investors. As of December 31st, 860 mn Euros (1 bn US$) have been committed by KfW, which administers all of the money. You can learn more here on their website about the program, unfortunately in German only (https://www.kfw.de/inlandsfoerderung/Unternehmen/KfW-Corona-Hilfe/Start-ups.html). KfW will also provide aid to startups and companies with a “strong relation to Germany”, which may also apply to your company? Check their website.

  • Pillar Two (1 bn €, 1.2 bn US$) is a matching facility, were on a 1:1 basis the government matches investments. As of December 31st, 2020 only 556 million Euros ( 676 mn US$) have been committed. This program is administered by KfW, the development banks of each state (yes, 16 different ones and you have to apply at the bank in your state) and the government’s ERP fund, if you are already receiving funds from the ERP fund. Learn more here (yes, German only) https://www.kfw.de/inlandsfoerderung/Unternehmen/KfW-Corona-Hilfe/Start-ups.html. Again, you don’t need to be a German company, but only have your economic focus on Germany. Check the website if you think that may apply to you. Important: Your company must have steered clear of economic problems in 2019.

Here is some more information, where you can also find more details:

How has Covid impacted Germany, Austria, and Switzerland’s startups? | Sifted https://buff.ly/3mLVgMM


Hubs

Frankfurt Rhine-Main

  • Look-back at 2020 in the Rhein Main Startup Ecosystem — Frankfurt Valley https://buff.ly/3nBVPcB

  • Frankfurt Rhein Main attracted multiple international companies in 2020 — Frankfurt Valley https://buff.ly/3nCU7HU

  • The most important startup exists in 2020 https://buff.ly/3pXop9Y including Emma, Bettzeit, Lizza and Mailtastic from the Rhine-Main Area

  • Rhinemain.vc (Joe’s project) tracks venture funding of any kind in the Rhine-Main Area. We tracked 28 deals, in total 894 m Euros (skewed towards large rounds with BioNTech’s fundraising due to the development of corona vaccine and placement of additional shares and convertibles). Official publication to follow soon …

Munich

  • Munich has a list of the Top 10 most important investments https://buff.ly/3bwig0k, headed by Lilium with 240 mn US$. Remember, we talked about it in the news.

Hamburg

  • Had a great wrap-up: VCs holding back, Corona aid did not always help and the mood was still overall positive. Thank you for this amazing wrap-up.https://buff.ly/39rqzbe

2021 Outlook(s)

We collected some outlooks, but they may be totally wrong, like last year. Only thing we can say for sure is that Germany is going to invest 10 bn € in VC funds, which in turn will invest in German startups. As said before, a few hundred millions from the corona aid for startups are also left. If we could beat corona soon, the second half of the year promises to be great for startups in Germany.

Detour

You guys know we like to end on a high note and sometimes take detours … :-) German wine consumption has risen during times of corona. On average a German has bought 20.7 Liters of wine (700 oz for the Americans here) in last year’s harvest season, roughly 2.5 bottles per month. https://www.deutscheweine.de/presse/pressemeldungen/details/news/detail/News/wein-pro-kopf-verbrauch-gestiegen/


Trasncript

Intro


[0:00] Music.


[0:08] That I owe you were podcast and YouTube blog covering the German startups.With News interviews and Live Events.Hello and welcome everybody this is Joe from startupradio Tayo welcome to another edition of thismonth in German startups today we are bringing you a very specialand your tradition we do a 20 20 review 2021 Outlook welcome to this month in German startups by startupradio and transatlantic use recording with Chris in New Yorkhow you doing my man you’re doing find there in Big Apple route we are counting the days I’m wearing my inauguration t-shirt that says.


[0:54] What if we tried someone else for a while so we’ll see about that and apart from that all good happy New Year.


[1:04] Yes totally forgot happy New Year guys really sorry about that Chris and I have been joking around and said Happy New Year and then forget it in the recordingdang it this is actually an annual tradition where we look at the past year and forward into the coming one not to mention we’ve been totally wrong last year.


[1:22] The Outlook so we almost thinking to review this year today we bring you an overview of the drum startup Corona ate an overview of the German and European startup scene of course a list of links where you can read a lotmore a list of top startups stories a few outlooks on 2021 and.Bit of wine I do believe Chris has a lot of information on the echo system right yeah so you already said it we are looking

Ecosystem

[1:49] into what 20/20 Broad and how the European startup scene and also the German startups in weather the storm one interesting report that we found there came from the Venture Capital companyAtomic or.


[2:05] And they have launched the state of European Tech in 2020 and we kind of summarized itand came up with eight of the most crucial takeaways that I would like to go through number one Mega rounds help EuropeanTech ecosystem grow so while many Founders found it more challenging to get funding 2020 is on track to be still record year with potential to surpass 41 billion dollars invested driven by more.Deals that were a hundred million and plus dollars and also number two Germany is projected to have.Gathered a 23 billion US dollar.


[2:52] Some of Investments that is for the Mega rounds second point of the of the aidthe low Capital pivoting the product and sales decline were what hit Founders the hardest in 2020 but International Investment but three hasn’t dried up so far.Number 4 Franz is the only one of Europe’s three largest markets to actually grow in 2020 number five London Remains the biggest investment up in 2020 we’ll see what brexit is going to do to that.Number six the travel sector got notably low Investments it’s probably one of the biggest industries and tore my right now.Number seven investment and Purpose Driven tech companies sores actually and number eight gender and racial inequalities.Prevails in the European tax system the black lives matter movement actually became an important topic of discussion here as well and a lot of these startup companies have to think more strongly about.


[3:54] Equity even in Europe and even though it’s not in the US where black lives matter.Came into being moving on from the atomic or report we have a list with the 10 biggest Health Tech stories of 2022 of them have a pretty strong I have a strong German connection number five the guinea.Pics of Germannew of the German of Germany’s new healthcare Revolution and number 10 bio and Tech the German biotech startup behind the coronavirus rexine probably one of the proudest stories of German engineering and science ofthe past year we have a report Hot or Not ver European VC funding went in 2020 by pitchbook they have different sources of data from the atomic oh report.And there it says that the UK still has the largest BC Market in total with more than 13.7 billion US dollars but Germany with 6.8.


[4:53] Billion US Dollars grew three times as fast with a growth rate of around 11 percent versus UK’s only one point seven percent so it’s even like four times but this may also be due to brexit.We will see what 2021 brings according to pitchbook Franz grow by an astonishing 25point four percent to a total of six point 1 billion US dollars so they are 3D closing the Gap and other markets in Europe surpassing 1 billion US dollars in investment are Sweden with 3.2Spain with 1.4 and Finland with 1.2 billion dollars.


[5:31] And my last idea for the ecosystem.My last recommendation would be a report about the ten largest founding rounds of Europe in 2023 of them are from Germany out of one group Tio scooters end.Lilium moving on from a more European perspective to a German one.


[5:58] Thank you Chris Let’s see we do have the German startup monitor an overview of the German startups in which is backed by the germsstartup Association this year more than 1,900 startups participated the largest share of the participatingnote there is a bias here have been in Berlin 70.7% kind where areaI think cologne Düsseldorf and to on 12.8% Munich 6.5 percent and Hamburg 5.8%this is one of the reasons we try to highlight so many startups from different areas since not only every fifthstartup East Berlin please note that we try to have approximately 20% of our interviews from Berlin to give these startups also a fair representation.On average a start-up in the survey employed 14.3 employees up from13.3 in 2019 and 12.3 in 2018 despite Corona 90% were planning to hire people15.9% of Founders are female in the cervix slightly up from the previous year 15.7 in.


[7:13] 19 and 15.1 in 18 universities play a central role as core for start-up clusters especially Germans technician who shul technical universities AKA T like T human chainkit.


[7:29] Lvt ha — LM you mention University of Mannheim University Tremont via who table in Tip-Top shape.If Pauline 20% of Founders have a migration background most important technology is AI more than.26.7 percent of startups have a server software as a service business model 68.8% of all startups focus on a B2Bbusiness and 26.5 percent of the b2c business so that means 2/3our B2B 1/3 is b2c and there’s less than 5% left which do have ab2g business to government business model most important funding source for the founders are their own savings used by almost 80%and government programs used by almost 45% business angels just 1/3.Actually 18.6% of participating startups have received funding while more than double 42.3% one funding International investors do you hear that.


[8:45] Startups in Berlin 39 percent unique 29 percent Hamburg 22% are the most frequentlyfunded by venture capital I do believe this was a lot of numbers go down here in the show knows you could click and findeverything dare again really sorry to bother you with some ID numbers I do believe Christian has a fin ticks away.More numbers awesome right yeah all journalism will always come up with numbers in audiopeople loved it but I mean what is interesting they addressed to highlight two of the numbers I think like three of the findings number one is I think it’s interesting that the the.Distribution of the companies are where the companies sit actually make for a pretty diverse.Picture and that it’s not just all berlin-based number two it’s interesting that the number of around the share of around twenty percent of Founders who have a migrant backgroundso it’s usually in Germany that means first or the second generation immigrant is.Close to what it is in society so it’s around 20 percent I think in the whole society it’s more like 25 26 so still a small Gap but.


[10:06] Probably one that.Can be considered closing whereas the number of female founders of course is astonishing and even though you said it slightly up from last year’s I mean we’re basically looking at 15 .12 15.7 15.9% and that’sit’s basically a statistical noise so.Obviously 15% is not a share of women in German Society moving moving on to the.Fintech survey even more numbers by German bank comdirect and online bank with a small startup program they’re part of combat spunk.And they conduct an annual fintech survey in Germany also here are some of the highlights that the volume of top three Deals down by more than 50% 12 Finn.12 fintechs.


[10:56] Twelve fintechs were able to attract more than hundred million euros and funding the top 20 founded funded fintechs got more money than the other 414.Fintechs and top locations here we’re breathing Munich Frankfurt and Hamburg where 72% of all VC funding was raised.We also have a list of Germany’s largest Venture Capital rounds in 2020 overall please find that in the show notes and that.

Corona Virus Impact On The German Startup Scene

[11:29] Let us move on to the number one topic of 2020 covid and the Coronavirus.


[11:36] Yes and again you will see differences between old largeVenture Capital rounds especially European perspective germ perspective because one we got from sifted which sits in Laden and is part of financial times and the other one is an independently runum block here from Germany it’s called torture startup so you’ll also have a difference in numbers here and don’t ask us because itreally really confusing inner you have like five sources and ten different outcomes it’s it’s always like that with startups hereum I do.


Germany’S Government Corona Aid For Startups


[12:15] I did take a lot into Germany’s Corona it for startups and I have a lot here at MIT idli I took most of the information from the drum business angels Association.


[12:27] As well as kfw which is the German government owned Development Bank which administrates lots of the money as well as the.Bundeswehr just ministerium which is the ministry of Economics for of the German federal government which basically handsout the money to all the entities that finally give out the eightokay so that said Germany extends its 2 billion.Euros it’s like 2.4 billion US Dollars startup Corona it program for spring.


[13:06] From Spring 2020 until June 30 is 20 21 it was pretty easy decision I assume since not all of the 2 billion euros of the original programhalf been spent the two buildings have been equally divided into two pillars called philosophically pillar one and pillow to pillow one isone building like 1.2 billion in u.s. dollars is directed.Direct 8 for startups who already have external investors as of December 31st 860 million 86 percent have been committed by KF W which administratesall the money you can learn more on the website about the program unfortunately in German only kfw also provideseight to startups and companieswhich they called a strong relation to Germany which may also apply to use company maybe you can check their website pillar toit’s a matching facility we’re on a one-on-one basis to government matches Investments as of December 31st on the 556 like.56% have been committed this program is administrated / kfw Development Bank.


[14:20] And the Development Bank of each state yes 16 different ones and you have to apply at the bank in your state and all thesixteen programs have slight differences and sizes the government Erp font if you already received Erp funds you can approach them and you can learn more on the website yes.German on the again you don’t need to be a German company but only have your economic Focusunder many check the website and if you think it may apply to you important your company must have stay clear of economic problems in 2019 in order to be illegibleyou can also find all of the information and more in the different articles we use to combine those highlights and we do have a nice article by sifted how covid impacted Germany Austria.Switzerland startups.Yeah I always do a lot of numbers Christian you don’t do too many numbers right I’m moving on to the hubs

Hubs

[15:25] um so first off the front for rhine-main region where we have a look back at 2020 in the ecosystem there.


Hubs — Frankfurt Rhine-Main


[15:34] From Frankford Valley then we have.


[15:38] Also from Frankfurt Valley reported that front foot landmine attracted multiple International companies in 2020 andthe most important startup exits in 2020 including Emma bet side lizza and mail tested from the right mind area rhine-main dot VC.Joe’s project tracks Venture funding of any kind in the region we track 28 deals in total 894 million euros.Which is good towards larger arms with bio and text fundraising due to the development of the covid vaccine and placement of additional shares and convertibles.The official publication will follow soon up until then you can check what’s already there at.Rhine-main. VC that’s our hiín EMA I.


[16:31] N dot we see

Hubs — Munich


[16:34] Munich we also have a list for Munich and Bavaria with the top 10 most important Investments headed by liliom with 240 million u.s. dollars and we talked about that in our news as well.

Hubs — Hamburg


[16:48] Jumping to the north Hamburg where we also found a great wrap up this is a holding back.Corona it did not always help and the mood was still overall positive just like an hour podcast thanks for that wrap up.


[17:06] Looking ahead.Looking ahead yes there is a saying I don’t know to whom it’s attributed but it goes like four girls I always difficult especially concerning the future so we collected some odd looks for you.They may be totally wrong like last year only thing we can say for sure is that Germany is going to invest10 building in VC funds which in turn will investin German startups as said before a few hundred million from the corona eight for startups are also left if.Beat Corona soon the second half of the Year promises to be great one for startups in Germany there is an article by sifted Germany launches 10 billion future fund for startups but will itgo far enough analyzing us from famine to Feast investments in European Tech startups Raw Back the world in 2021 5 stars to watch out forby The Economist wrong with recommended it’s a YouTube video by the way what will life be like after the pandemic interesting question andwhat’s coming for the fan kick in.Industry in 2021 by MC Grupo and then we finally found another one Top Fin Tech Trends and 2021 so you can read both and match them and from MIT Sloan management reviewed six strategy and Innovation insidefrom them as well and as always I usually have some detour here this time Chris is taking this with us right.


[18:36] Yes to wrap things up we like you know that we like to end things on a high note and then.What was more Topic in 2020 then our own alcohol consumption each night.So we got numbers for wine in Germany because the consumption there has risen during covid times on average a German.Citizen origin someone living in Germany has bought20 .7 liters of wine this is around 700 at fluid ounces for the Americans in last year’s harvest season so they are not reporting 2020 numbers but they looking at the wine harvest seasonnevertheless that leaves us with roughly 2.5 bottles per person per month which is actually quite a lot I think.


[19:29] Don’t you think every person so not.


[19:33] Two and a half bottles per person per month that’s quite a lot I don’t think even together with my wife I can drink two and a half bottles in a month.


[19:45] Yeah yeah then again there are people who probably drink a bottle a day so on that note.


[19:54] I mean it’s 1 1 p.m. here but 7 p.m. at your place so I’m not implying anythingI will get a glass of wine afterwards until then keep in mind this was no normal do trap up normal news wrap-up and January will follow at the end of the monthuntil then stay safe everybody and keep keep doing your stuff stay safe wear masks and don’t get sick Chris thank you very much it’s such a pleasure always work with you.


[20:29] Same vibe.


[20:33] Music.



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