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This Month in German Startups — January 2021




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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 — January 2021

Welcome to This Month in German Startups by Startuprad.io — in a transatlantic news recording with Chris in New York City. This is the first news episode of 2021, but you can have a look at our 2020 review.

Today we are wrapping up January 2021 for you. There is great news in the German startup scene, from two new unicorns to a much anticipated IPO of Auto1 (will be raising at least 1.5 bn Euros), Delivery Hero goes VC and there may be Amazon TV/Radio in Germany.



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Housekeeping — Time to brag

Just a bit of bragging today: Listen Up! Here’s Your Guide To European Tech And Startup Podcasts In English https://buff.ly/39S3qyR


Top News


We have two new unicorns

  • Mambu — Germany’s newest Fintech Unicorn offers Banking Software as SaaS https://buff.ly/3oNEHC2 — Without them, no N26. They provide the software, which enables challenger banks like them.

  • Munich-based HR scaleup Personio lands €103.5 million Series D funding and a €1.4 billion valuation https://buff.ly/35QYn0p

  • Related: Start-Up Personio Joins Circle of Unicorns — Technical University of Munich — School of Management https://buff.ly/2YgKm7W


Delivery Hero raises 1.2 bn in fresh capital

  • Delivery Hero raises 1.2 bn Euros (1.47 bn US$) in new funding, selling “in hours” 9.44 mn new shares for 132 Euros each https://buff.ly/394ZFFQ

  • Related:

  • Delivery Hero starts their own Corporate Venture Fund called DX Ventures with 50 m Euros https://buff.ly/2MPUt11


Auto1 IPO

  • Auto1 IPO will be raising a minimum of 1.5 bn Euros (2.2 bn US$) https://buff.ly/3plC62n

  • Older articles related to this IPO — you can see the fundraising went up 500 million

  • More details of the planned IPO of Auto1 Group emerge. They want to list in 2021 Q1 in Frankfurt in Prime Standard. Out of 1 bn € to be raised 250 m will pay back convertibles, 750 m will be invested in further growth https://buff.ly/38Hq0uz

  • Used-car platform AUTO1 to float in Frankfurt, looking to raise 1 bn Euros from selling new shares, with a valuation of 6–8 bn Euros https://buff.ly/3bxbWWx


Amazon TV or Radio Station in Germany?

Amazon has filed paperwork in Germany to get a broadcast license. The filing dates to November 2020 https://buff.ly/3bW0Mur


Wirecard

We keep you updated, just a small selection of news here.

Keep in mind there is still an investigative committee ongoing.

  • Oliver Samwer from Rocket Internet gave a private loan to Markus Braun from Wirecard of 75 mn Euros (91 m US$), which he demanded back rather harshly, shortly before Wirecard filed for insolvency https://buff.ly/3bW2ITU

  • In Austria, an investigation against former Wirecard COO Marsalek is ongoing in potential bribery of an employee of Austrian constitution protection (like their NSA). He is supposed to have checked the solvency of porn site hosts for Mr. Marsalke https://buff.ly/39eVNDz


Ecosystem

  • Slack users in Germany were greeted in the new year with a big outage covering most of the first working day of the new year 2021 https://buff.ly/3972zd0 January 4th

  • Tech workers want to relocate to Germany more than any other country in the world https://buff.ly/2Jims8n

  • Germany starts with the test of a countrywide patient file, called “E-Patientenakte.” The users can carry around all their medical files (x-rays, reports …) on their smartphone and grant their physician access https://buff.ly/3hHb3M4

  • Berlin remains the capital of German Venture Capital in 2020. EY tracked 314 financing rounds, out of a total of 743 they found. according to their data, VC funding declined in #Germany in 2020 by 15% to 5.3 bn Euros (6.45 bn US$) https://buff.ly/3oMxaDE

  • In the most recent fintech ranking #Frankfurt is losing position No 3 to Hamburg and now only scores at No 4 https://buff.ly/3o5IeKU


Hubs

Note: The order of news and cities is only due to the time when we discovered the news.


Frankfurt


Darmstadt

  • We interviewed the Darmstadt-based robotics software startup Energy Robotics in June 2020, where they already talked about their intention to raise Venture Capital. Now they closed their 2 mn Euros VC round: Earlybird and several Business Angels like Paul Achleitner, Gerhard Roiss, Martin Klässner, and Andrej Henkler invest 2 m Euros Venture Capital in Energy Robotics https://buff.ly/3qhA43k

  • You can learn more about them in our interview here: https://buff.ly/3fgyUQ0

  • Merck KGaA snaps up German CDMO in a boost to mRNA portfolio — including for Covid-19 https://buff.ly/2KauK2q


Heidelberg/Walldorf


Munich

  • New unicorn Personio is from Munich

  • Munich-based Konux raises 80 m US$ #VentureCapital from Impact Investor Sanno Capital and Athos, The Family Office of Strüngmanns (Hexal), and existing investors (e.g. Alibaba). Konux builds intelligent sensors for Industry 4.0 https://buff.ly/3idMl6i

  • Munich fintech Fidor Bank (a German fintech pioneer) is split up and sold to two bidders, Ripplewood Advisors form New York and Steria Mummert from Paris https://buff.ly/2MFo6S

  • Pepsi backs #Munich-based scented air drinks startup “Air Up” https://buff.ly/3i9vTDT


Hamburg

  • tecHHub is the new 35 m Euro Entrepreneurship Center in Hamburg to keep founders in the city. Until the project is completed the city is thinking about a makeshift container solution https://buff.ly/3hL7If3


Freiburg

  • Insight Partners and existing investors invest 100 m US$ #VentureCapital in Freiburg-based Jedox, the company offers enterprise performance management software for company planning and analysis https://buff.ly/2MPUt11


Switzerland

  • Zurich-based Blue Horizon Ventures is a VC focused on sustainable food, now they close their first fund with 183 mn Euros (221 m US$) with more than 100 investors from 20 countries. https://buff.ly/3a7l69Z


Companies


Food — Always a good topic to talk about

  • Dish Order: German grocery wholesaler Metro is partnering with Google to offer a competing offer to Lieferando. The clue for restaurants: There is no fee https://buff.ly/35TEEgv

  • German food giant Dr. Oetker had their own beverage delivery service Durstexpress. Then they bought Flaschenpost, doing the same reportedly for 1 bn €. Now they merge Durstexpress in Flaschenpost https://buff.ly/3qB3Jov?utm_source=linkedin


Fintech / Finance


New VC Funds

  • Ant Financial plans to start a fintech Venture Capital fund in Berlin https://buff.ly/3qyAtic

  • 20 health insurer in Germany invest in Berlin-based VC Heal Capital’s 100 mn fund, to invest in health tech startups https://buff.ly/38XWmS3

  • Keep in mind the news of the Delivery Hero fund from before


Selection of investments


All Other News


Stay ahead of the curve


Transcript

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.Time around I have the honor.


[0:24] Welcome you to our this month in German startups show here on startupradio Tayo it’s the one for January 2021 one month is already overwho would have thunk as always it’s a transatlantic news recording with me Chris and New York Citywe will have you can still have a look obviously at our 2020 year in review and I as always I also have the pleasure to be here with yearn inFrankfurt hey guys how you doing.


[1:02] I’m relatively okay and I’m still the German who actually answers the question apparently today we are wrapping up January 2021 for you.There’s great news actually in the German startup scene we have two new unicorns we have a much-anticipated IPO from Auto one which will be raising at least one point five billion euros we have delivery hero which goes BC and there may be Amazon TV or radio in Germany with some livebroadcast going on but first of all I was keeping we as always have reason to be happy and a bittime to brag we have even more countries in which we are parts of thepodcast charts and we also found some resource for you guys in case you’re into broadcasting as well we found a resource saying listen up here’s your guide to European Tech and startup podcast in English we are in it but alsocouple of other podcast shows.


[2:10] Which lets us already start with the top news and I already hinted at it we have two new unicorns in Germany first of all there’s mum boo it’s Germany’s newest fintech unicorn and they offer banking software asa service with my boo you can really say without them there would be no end 26 because they provide the software which enables Challenger bangslike and 26.And we have a mini based HR scale up called Pez O’Neill which landed a hundred 3.5 million series defunding already and.A 1.4 billion Euro valuation.We have a related and added additional article about this in our show notes where startup hezonia.Join Circle if unicorns as the headline Technical University of Munich School of Management they offer more.Information there.


[3:12] Which lets us move on to delivery hero and you urine.Yes it does and I just realize you have the much easier job here let’s go to delivery hero delivery hero rate 1.2 billion.Euros in fresh Capital this is one point four seven billion US dollars in new funding there were selling as they say in hours nine point four four million new shares for 132 euros


Top News


[3:45] each related to this they use some of the proceeds to start their own corporate Venture fund called DXwhen teachers with50 million euros there is the much much much much much anticipated Auto One IPO and I think we talked about it like a zillion timesthey’ll be raising a minimum of 1.5 billion euros which is something like 2.2 billion US dollars they say it.Unless statement they’ve been a little bit older versions to this IPO and you see they increasethe fans they are going to race by 500 million and they’ll most likely be floating around starting ofFebruary so next up use we could talk about how successful they have been.


[4:36] As you guys know I’m going through a lot of blog posts each day and they may or may not be Amazon TV already stationed in Germany Amazon has filed the necessary paperwork to get a broadcasters license here in Germanythe filing dates to November 2020 but was just recently discovered why a card we keep you up-to-datejust a small selection of the news here keep in mind they’re still investigating.Investigative committee on going Oliver somewhere from rocket internet somewhere escape a private loan to Marco’s Brown the former sea.


[5:15] Of why cart of 75 million euros 91 million u.s. dollars which he demandedback rather harshly shortly before wycott fight for insolvency.And in Austria there is an investigation against former wire cut Co o young muscle ache of course we blocked about him you can find a link down here in the show notesisOngoing in potential bribery of an employee of the Austrian constitutional Protection Agency something like the NSA of Austria he supposed to have checked the solvency of.Porn sites for mr. Masala kind I’m not too sure how he was doing it maybe he had a lot of fun doing that.


[6:04] I didn’tI don’t have anything to add to wire card in case you lost track I guess it’s still worth remembering what is the big deal about wire card basically the issue is everyone was kind of in love with them as being thiscrazy cool payment facilitating companypolitics was in board because everyone is very keen that Germany finally has a huge startup success story but then it turned out that a lot ofthe a lot of the stuff in the balance sheets was actually invented and the number that’s always going around I think was that there was about two billion of Assets in the balance sheets weren’t actually theremaybe Chris we should do an another wrap up of why a card something like us starting end of summer you guys know we only do a start-up use until June and then we pick up in September and maybe we get together and do recording so during the summer breakwe give you a wrap up of the white card story wouldn’t that be cool The Story So Far.


[7:10] Yeah honestly let’s see how it develops there because right now it is I mean it seems like ait seems like a mix between a crime procedural and a soap opera so we will seebut we are moving on to the ecosystem and there was some news in which depending on your point of view German Workers in Germany either got an additional day off at the beginning of the year or they got a very stressedfor beginning to the new year because slack and Germany had at the start of the new year a big outage.Exactly on right on the first working day of 2021 we have some background on that what happened exactly on January 4th in our show notes.


[7:57] We found a new survey which basically said that.Tech workers one.


[8:09] To relocate to Germany more than to any other country in the world.Number two was the Netherlands and number three was Canadait’s based on relocate me aside for Tech workers looking for Wake they can seize abroad they basically looked at the number of applicants in the respective countries.


[8:34] Germany starts with a test of a country by patient file called the a patent nectar which means likehe patient folder the users can carry around all the medical files x-rays reports Etc on their smartphone and then Grand their physician or other respective doctors X’s so if you want to know more about the digitalization and that Health space relatedtopic you we have more and Berlin Remains the capital of German venture capital in 2020um consultant company ey track 314 financing rounds they’re out of a total of 743 they foundVC funding decline though in Germany in 2020 by 15% to 5.3 billion euros 6.45.Billion US dollars as always with those numbers take them with a grain of salt because all the stuff obviously is rather complicated to calculate and determineand the last news about the ecosystem in Germany and the surroundings of the startup world the basics of the startup world is thatin the most recent fintech ranking Frankfurt is losing one is losing ground they move from them but three to number four and number three is now.Helen Berg.


[9:59] It’s a it’s a German wide study and number one stays Berlin.


[10:11] Get right on talking about hops here as always the order of the news is rather how we found them as well as with the cities.There’s no other order let’s start with my home turf Frankfurt Frankfurt based provider of high performance Computing Northern data raisesfifty two point five million euros 64 million u.s. dollars in new funding then there’s Frankfurt basedintro take Clark they raise 85 million u.s. dollars 69 million euros Venture Capital with lead investor tencent from China owner of the famous app we chat we have an interview with the CEOyes of clock not of Ten Cent you can have a look here and Frankfurt Frankfurt Valley our partner rights developing towards an epicenter of the German games industryLil Bit South to Frankfort home to the operations control center of European Space Agency is city ofdarmstadt we interviewed the dumpster based robotics software startup energy robotics in tune 2020 where they already talked about their intention to raise venture capital.


[11:27] Now the close the 2 million euro VC round


Ecosystem


[11:31] early bird and several business angels like pole at Lightner head of the supervisory Board of Deutsche Bank for example got voice Martin class none Tre and Claire invest 2 million eurosaltogether not per person in energy robotics of course there’s also linked to our interview here.Marik can gr so meaning the German Merck company because there’s also one in North America snaps upGerman CDM oh in a boost to mRNA portfolio including for covid-19 going even more to theSouth dares the beautiful city of Heidelberg home to one of the oldest universities.In the world and there’s the small town of vial of there maybe you’ve heard about it because it’s the headquarter of sap sap unique Quality quality trickssorry heads frying po.


[12:30] Let’s talk a little bit about Munich new unicorn Persona is from Munich as Chris talked before munich-basedconics raises 80 million u.s. dollars venture capital from Impact investors so no capital and a toast to family office ofstrong bonds hexyl which is a former company and existing investors like Ali Babaconics builds intelligent sensors for industry 4.0Munich based fintech fedewa Bank German fintech Pioneer I do believe they have been around before there was even the word fintech


Hubs


[13:07] it’s split up and sold to two bidders Ripper would advisor from New York and stereo moment from Paris andPepsi backs munich-based sentenced are drinks startup hair up Chris you got something else.


[13:25] Yeah I already mentioned Hamburg and in Hamburg Des the tech hub.With a capital H H because that is usually the abbreviation for hands of shut Hamburg.And they get a lot of money out of the German coronavirus package.35 million euros to be exact are designated to be invested into an entrepreneurship Center in Hamburg to keep Founders in the city.It is part of the startup project science City there.You got some more information and at the city of Hamburg and in Tumble got blood in our oceansfrom Hamburg all the way to the Southwest cyborg we’re inside partners and existing investors invest 100 million u.s. dollars VC capital in fiber-based J docksthe company offers Enterprise performance management software for company planning and Analysis so quite a big.Deal there and a little look.


[14:35] Right over the border to Switzerland Zurich base Blue Horizon Ventures if you see focused on sustainable food now closed their first round with a 183 million euros 221 million u.s. dollars with more than 100 investors from20 countries.That’s it for the cities moving on to some company notes in a couple of different different Industries and at first it’s about.


[15:03] Yes it’s about food right we are in the company sectionand food is always a good topic to talk and disagree about dish order German grocery wholesaler meet who is partnering with Google to offer competingoffer to live or a condo the clue for restaurants there is no fee.German Food Giant dr. Edgar had their own beverage delivery service twist Express thirst Express.Then they bought Flash and post so Message in a Bottle doing the same report at leave for.1 billion euros now they merged with Express into Flash and post.I know complicated if you don’t speak German fintech and finance is another interesting topic investors value the berlin-based trait Republic.600 million euros is news we found 735 million u.s. dollars that is talking a little bit about an 26 and 26ice IPO with hiring of a new CFO is one of the Articles we found plus they are granted a banking license in Brazil.


[16:16] Also very well known company from Capital markets andAsset Management Vanguard they are the guys who came up with the idea of ETFs will be starting an investment portal in Germany they hired the head of clients for from market leader scalable capital for the berlin-based team headed by.Jesper.Fast and off formally read pay and Andreas Bittner formally would Solaris bank zbrush truck former CEO of berlin-based vidcon’s.Test.Contest sorry hired at Deutsche Bank as Chief growth growth often sell for business banking and berlin-based fin Tech incubator fin leap shifts Focus to test products for corporate clients thatdon’t want to be entrepreneurs anymore Chris I hear you got some more good news right.


[17:13] Yeah food fintech we spoke about now let’s talk about the industry making the other Industries possible sometimes we got some more news for VC funds and Financialplans to start a fintech venture capital Fund in Berlin then 20.German Health insurers invest in the berlin-based Venture Capital fund he’ll Capital with a hundred million euros to invest in health Tech startupsn keep in mind the news of delivery hero fund from before or this was one that we talked aboutwe got just some little spotlights about investments in Germany the digital road


Companies


[17:55] Freight forwarder Zenda raised a hundred sixty million dollar series and finds European expansion wrote TechCrunch we havesome news about Peta Tia who’s the Laughin joins other investors in a 21 million euro Venture Capital around for credit card fintech.Bus they were registered.In summer 2019 on are now valued at a hundred million euro and the global savings group raises 12 million euro in their mostrecent financing round for all of these stories again additional information in our show notes.


[18:33] All other news about German Workers new work and work-related.Stories not even half of the German employees would recommend Tesla as an employer reports German techno Rock ttinapplicants Post in forums and websites about chaos and arrogance which is kind of a big story because especially surrounding Berlin in the suburbs of Berlin with Tesla claims a huge new Factory.


[19:02] Tesla is a big story because of billions of expected investment money there.


[19:10] We have a pretty like.


[19:14] Original subset of investors in Germany making their rounds in.In the VC World which who are former soccer stars and we found one articlelooking at the question what are the actual startups that footballers or soccer players have their money invested in it’s a story on sifted.And it looks at Players like Mario Götze who invested in Franco base qualifies Philipp Lahm and much hummusJen Elliott’s take complicates rocket internet’s plan tod-list there’s some stuff going on there and Berlin grocery delivery service name Google has raised.Forty-four million u.s. dollars venture capital and it’s just they’re just taking care of the delivery is still buy from Supermarket there.


[20:13] Whichjust lets me Gallop to our staying ahead of the curve news where for example we are talking about.


[20:24] Digital banking opportunities of the future all the other stuff you can find in our show notes Famous Last Words urine urine.Yes Elliot Ellie Capital that is an activist hedge fund in there wanting to make they want to press out more money of Rocket internetT listing that was the story and yes of as always it was just a pleasure talking to you Chris my friend.


[20:51] Totally totes mcgoats have a good one you too bye bye.


[21:00] Music.




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