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This Month in German Startups — June 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 — June 2021


Welcome to This Month in German Startups June 2021 by Startuprad.io — in a news recording with Chris (Back Home in New York) and me Joe, from Frankfurt am Main.


We are reporting live from Germany’s largest unicorn wave ever. We announce two new unicorns (Scalable Capital and Forto (formerly FreightHub)) and Germany’s first Decacorn Celonis, valued at more than 11 bn US$. The 2019 Unicorn Wefox raises large funding of 536 mn € (650 mn US$). About You IPOs for 23 €/share at 4 bn Euro (4.85 bn US$) AND Austria becomes a new most valuable startup with GoStudent (1.4 bn €, 1.67 bn US$), after they had their first unicorn only last month.


Plus SolarisBank is rumored to be in talks of a 100 mn Euro VC Deal, which would make them a unicorn as well, to buy up a competitor. Especially active in this frenzy of unicorn creation is Softbank from Japan and Tencent from China.

We have a special episode on the unparalleled unicorn creation, which is available on the same channels. If you want to know more about the new Decacorn and unicorns in Germany and Austria you want to listen to this episode as well. We keep here the coverage of unicorns to a minimum.

Note: This will be the last news recording before the summer break. There will be no regular news in July or August, but we will be back with news at the end of September, wrapping up the summer news.

We are soooooooooo looking forward to the summer that Joe even wears a Hawaii shirt. Be happy for your eyes if you are only listening to this podcast :-)

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The Video Interview is set to go live on July 1st, 2021, at 18.00 CET


Audio Podcast

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Housekeeping — Time to brag


We will go back to the weekly publication schedule. This means only one episode each week, starting in calendar week 27 (from July 5th on).

Stay safe everyone!

  • Argentina was the 53rd country to download us in their podcast charts! We even made it in the Top 100 of Apple Podcasts Entrepreneurship charts. Muchas Gracias!


Top News

Meet Germany’s First Decacorn!

Munich-based startup Celonis becomes Germany’s first Decacorn (valued at 11.1 bn US$) with a monster funding of 1 bn US$ for their Series D funding https://buff.ly/3it1Mti

This also means our bonus episode on Trade Republic being Germany’s most valuable startup is obe, but they remain the most valuable fintech for now.

Scalable Capital Reaches Unicorn Status

Yet another startup from Munich made it in the exclusive unicorn club, namely neobroker Scalable Capital. They first started out as a robo advisor, but now they turn increasingly to online brokerage. Their brokerage also offers a Trading Flatrate model, taking on Trade Republic (learn more here https://buff.ly/3dsPYnw).

They raised the most recent investment round, their Series E, of more than 150 m € (~ 180 mn US$), made them a unicorn at a 1.4 bn US$ valuation:

  • European neobroker Scalable Capital raises €150M ($180M+) at a $1.4B valuation — TechCrunch https://buff.ly/3csdpgc

Forto (formerly Freight Hub) Reaches Unicorn Status

Forto has been part of “This Month in German Startups” for quite some time. They underwent a re-branding from Freight Hub. The Berlin-based logistic startup raised 200 mn US$ from investors, led by Softbank, valuing them at 1 bn € (1.2 bn US$) https://buff.ly/3y136bx With this funding they also added Citi Ventures and G Squared as new investors.

Austria’s New Unicorn And Most Valuable Startup

We talked about Bitpanda becoming Austria’s most valuable startup in “This Month in German Startups March 2021,” but now there is GoStudent, which takes the title from them. Go student became the 2nd unicorn in the country with a 200 mn € (~240 mn US$) investment led by Softbank and Tencent. The investors value the company at 1.4 bn € (1,67 bn US$) https://buff.ly/3qokCDR

Germany’s Existing Unicorns Are Also Doing Good

  • Another fintech monster funding: #Berlin-based insurtech startup Wefox grabs $650 million at $3 billion valuation https://buff.ly/2S0RKVp

  • About You, the Hamburg-based online fashion retailer, IPOed in Frankfurt at a 4bn € valuation, raising 828 mn € https://buff.ly/3gvh6o9

Germany’s Rumor-Corns

  • German blank check firm 468 SPAC said it had entered exclusive negotiations to buy children’s entertainment firm Boxine from Düsseldorf for about 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) https://buff.ly/2UouBNF

  • Solarisbank is rumored to work on a 100 mn Euro VC deal, making them a unicorn as well. The blogpost from financefwd, a reputable fintech blog also states that the proceeds of the fundraising should be invested to take over a competitor, focusing on other geographies. The spokesperson refused to comment on that https://buff.ly/3d4BxWL. We already talked in our April 2021 news about a SPAC deal for Solarisbank, which was targeted at 2022 anyways. The SPAC deal appears to be not off the table

Wirecard

No changes to our last update here:

Keep in mind there is still an investigative committee ongoing, right now they have heard 104 witnesses and we assume they will wrap things up before the next federal election on September 26th 2021, so part of it will be in our summer wrap-up news. https://www.bundestag.de/ausschuesse/untersuchungsausschuesse/3untersuchungsausschuss

Related:

  • Philippines file criminal charges against former #Wirecard CFO Jan Marsalek, which is still on the run https://buff.ly/3g0wuZq This is small news, since Mr. Marsalek already faces charges in Germany and if ever found may end up serving a long time in German prison.


Ecosystem

General note on the ecosystem: Germany is approaching a scheduled general election on September 26th. This election is important because chancellor Merkel will retire. This may also imply changes to laws and regulations, touching startups as well. We will keep you updated here. Germany will have a new Government and a new chancellor before Christmas.

  • Related to the end of Chancellor Merkel’s term: Digital Association Bitkom analyzed Merkel’s promises to the German startup scene. The administration wanted to start 25 measures in 2018, which should have been fulfilled after two years. Now only 15 have been finished https://buff.ly/2SuHtRv

  • Related to that: We have already recorded another bonus episode on the upcoming 10 bn startup investment program from the German federal government, with the digital commissioner. The recording will be published during the summer.

  • Fintech DACH Trends: Funding Bounces Back in 2020 https://buff.ly/3irjhKs?utm_source=-custom-by-source-0-

  • European fintech startups with overseas ambitions fill war chests at record clip | PitchBook https://buff.ly/3uudUww


Hubs

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

Frankfurt

Munich

Offenburg

  • Offenburg is a lovely little town in the very south west of Germany. Actually the next largest city is Strasbourg in France, which is closer than Stuttgart.

  • Offenburg-based accounting software for freelancers and SMEs sevDesk raises 50 mn Euros from investors Arena Holdings and Hybris founder Carsten Thoma, who join existing investors https://buff.ly/3fOOLr4

Austria

Switzerland

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Section Companies

Trouble at Gorillas in Berlin, Plus Market Entry USA

High traffic, blocked roads, blocked pavements, and a steady stream of couriers sparks protests against #Gorillas warehouse in #Berlin https://buff.ly/3zeL86z. They also just entered the US market, starting in New York City.

Related

“The protests at Europe’s second-most valuable on-demand grocery startup are reminiscent of the labor battles waged by earlier generation gig economy giants “ https://buff.ly/3xdsOZN

  • Berlin authorities threaten instant delivery startup Gorillas with a fine for illegally opening a logistic center on the pavement https://buff.ly/3wLU9Th

Gorillas enters #NYC “A German e-commerce startup wants to disrupt the New York City grocery market with deliveries to customers’ apartments in 10 minutes or less” https://buff.ly/2Tr8qG8

Related:

Instant Delivery is still HOT

Flink (a #Berlin-based) instant supermarket and competitor of Gorillas has three takeover offers at hand reports Deutsche-Startups exclusively https://buff.ly/3uz4P5K

But they also raised 200 mn Euros #VentureCapital https://buff.ly/3w0oahz

  • Flink raised 240 mn US$ last week, now Deutsche-Startups found out they raised at a 900 mn US$ pre-money valuation https://buff.ly/3v34GYk

Pipe hype reaches Europe

In Germany alone, three teams are working on an alternative to venture capital funding https://buff.ly/3uCZ7zC, similar to Pipe, which aims to be the “NASDAQ for revenue.”

Other Noteworthy News

Stay ahead of the curve


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