Welcome to our summer 2023 wrap-up with vital news from the startup scenes in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland in around 30 minutes sometimes less 🙂.

This time we wrap up July and August. We came up with the summer news because the September news has always been very long, overcrowded, and covered 3 months. That was a bit too much of a break and too much news in one piece. So we looked to wrap up summer and since the US is an important market and Labor Day is the unofficial end of summer it seems like a good fit.

This summer has been a bit different and there has been a lot of news, so we focus more on the most recent ones and we have cut a lot of news here.

For everybody in the US who celebrates it: Happy Labor Day!

Find all links to the quoted news on our Medium blog: https://medium.com/startuprad-io/this-month-in-german-swiss-and-austrian-gsa-startups-summer-2023-july-august-episode-fdb709d89fbd

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Our Highlights:

Binance has not - yet - gotten permission to operate in Germany from BaFin, Nextwind raises 750 m US$, Bitpanda surpasses 1 M customers in Germany and Germany sets a new record in new founders. We also shared that SAP wants to invest in Aleph Alpha, they confirmed this and two more.

Germany's law for legalizing cannabis falls short of the expectations of cannabis entrepreneurs. Europe dominates climate fintech funding and the overall fintech funding shows a sign of life. Bafin also stopped mini VC investments - trashing the business model of some fintechs - AND we found newly closed VC funds in excess of 2.8 bn US$ that are open to European founders.

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Top News

Du kommst hier ned rein 🙂 Is the usual saying in Frankfurt if a Bouncer won't let you in a Club

Fintech blog Finance Forward reports German finance oversight BaFin signals no license for Binance for Germany. So they can neither advertise nor expand in Germany. To be clear, this is not a final NO, but rather a "Binance keeps trying, but BaFin signaled a No"

750 M US$ for Wind Energy

Wind Energy in Germany: StartUp Nextwind raises 750 M US$ Venture Capital investors include Sandbrook Capital, Canadian funds Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments), and Imco

Bitpanda - The Austrian Unicorn

Surpasses 1 million customers in Germany alone https://buff.ly/44mMyKP it is not sure how many of them are really active, but that is always a tough question, even for the startups. But the question is important since one only makes money with active users.

Germany Sets a New Record in Founders

Despite the current economic situation, Germany has the highest share of founders in 24 years!!! According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Germany had a larger than 9% founder quota, meaning people from 18–64 who (co) founded a new business within the last 3,5 years (Young Entrepreneurs). The highest value since 1999 when the monitoring started.

Immigrants are especially willing to start new businesses. The founder quota of immigrants in Germany is 20% compared to 1,7% of non-immigrants.

The founder quota of women (7,1%) is overall lower than the one for men (11%).

SAP Invests in AI Startups

We have shared before that German software giant SAP is rumored to be interested in investing in Aleph Alpha, now they confirmed the investment in three AI startups https://buff.ly/45OC6Nb This is quite a new strategy for SAP, in the past, they wrote their own code. Now they intend to work with partnerships

Find all options to follow us and subscribe here: https://linktr.ee/startupradio

Chapters:

00:00:00 Introducing Startup Red Dot IO, your go-to for German tech

00:00:18 Introduction and Recap of Summer News

00:02:53 Highlights: NEN's Cryptocurrency Platform, Bit Panda Milestone, NextWind Funding

00:03:18 Exploring the challenges and success stories ...

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.

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 NewsWe have two new unicornsMambu - 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/35QYn0pRelated: 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 capitalDelivery 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/394ZFFQRelated:Delivery Hero starts their own Corporate Venture Fund called DX Ventures with 50 m Euros https://buff.ly/2MPUt11

Auto1 IPOAuto1 IPO will be raising a minimum of 1.5 bn Euros (2.2 bn US$) https://buff.ly/3plC62nOlder 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/3bW2ITUIn 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 4thTech 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/3hHb3M4Berlin 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/3oMxaDEIn 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.

FrankfurtFrankfurt-based provider of high performance computing Northern Data raises 52.5 mn Euro...

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Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/blockchaingermany/message

Originally published on April 11th, 2019 on www.startuprad.io

CashLink wants to digitalize Venture Capital by putting it on BlockchainIn our legal framework ... you can sell your startup shares basically at any time at very low transaction costs, because it is now digital.

Michael Duttlinger, CEO and Co-Founder CashLink

The startupCashLink is a tokenization platform based in Frankfurt. The startup helps other startups to issue securities in the form of security tokes. Their idea comes from their own experience in raising venture capital, they still remember the pain of raising venture capital in an all paper-based environment. They also lower the transaction cost for each VC round, based on their platform.

So they decided to take on that minor challenge of digitizing the German venture capital scene. CashLink is currently offering its service for startups in Germany and investors from the European Union, but they are working on extending their service to startups all over the European Union.

In the near future we will see more hybrid (financed) startups, wo have tokenized and non-tokenized shares.

Michael Duttlinger, CEO and Co-Founder CashLink

The IntervieweeIn this interview, we talk to Michael Duttlinger (https://www.linkedin.com/in/duttlinger/), CEO and Co-Founder of CASHLINK (https://cashlink.de/).

Joe interviewed Michael at the Fintech Hub of Deutsche Börse https://www.venture-network.com/dbvn-de/fintech-hub (here is the view (or parts of it) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bno9mWQBRp0/, which is located in the borough of Bornheim https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bornheim_(Frankfurt_am_Main) in Frankfurt.

With us you can onboard investors very easily, on the go.

Michael Duttlinger, CEO and Co-Founder CashLink

Further ReadingsDuring the interview Michael and Joe talk about:

GmbH (German Version of an LTD) https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gmbh.asp, which is currently the standard legal form for startups in Germany.Stock Options: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/stockoption.aspPhantom Shares / Virtual Stock Options:o https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_stock

o https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/phantomstock.asp

Primary Market: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/primarymarket.aspJoe talks about the German Commercial Registry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Trade_Register

The interview was conducted in February 2019 (that’s where the snow references come from).

Originally this interview was intended as a video interview, but the autofocus did not work.

© Startuprad.io - All right reserved / Picture courtesy of CASHLINK

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Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/blockchaingermany/message

Our highlights:

Germany is preparing for a potentially rough winter, in many ways. Now Environmental Action Germany (Deutsche Umwelthilfe): Asked Germans not to put up any Christmas lights this season. Startups in GSA keep laying off staff, but also raising significant funds. We have our usually shortened list a bit longer this month, to show that it is not all gloom and doom here. You will also notice that the M&A activity is up, totaling 55 bn US$ in summer 2022 (for all of Europe), and is still going strong.

Let’s talk startups:

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This show was made possible by Hessen Trade and Invest with their brand Invest-in-Hessen. You can learn more about them here (https://www.invest-in-hessen.com/). We also run a dedicated sub-podcast with all interviews and news in cooperation with them. Find it all here:

Tech Startups Germany

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Blog Post

Find all links, news and show notes here: https://medium.com/@startuprad_io/this-month-in-german-swiss-and-austrian-gsa-startups-september-2022-53339fae6ca7

Top News

Everphone started with their first fundraising for Series C in December 2021 and now make an additional closing of 32 mn Euros, which totals — according to PitchBook 232 m US$ Series C for their device-as-a-service model

European crypto app downloads have almost halved from 2021 amongst the biggest drops are Blockchain.com and unicorn Bitpanda.

Sifted writes “Beleaguered Austrian crypto trading platform Bitpanda saw a 65% decrease in app downloads from 563k in H1 2021 to 197k in H1 2022. In June, the company laid off a third of its employees, admitting that it had hired too fast and needed to cut back expenditure amid the crypto market rout.” VCs keep an eye on their investments and the app downloads are a proxy for growth here for them.

Yes, they are not startups, but it gives you a great overview of the current environment, also for the startups

• Automotive supplier Dr. Schneider has to file for insolvency with 4000 people employed there
• Shoe retailer Ludwig Görtz is a staple in German shopping streets founded in 1875 with their big stores and 1.800 employees, now they have to file for insolvency
• German toilet paper producer Hakle is a household staple in Germany. Now they have to file for insolvency, due to high costs of raw materials, energy, and transportation
• Traditional Austrian lighting company Kolarz, founded in 1918, has to file for insolvency

Lots of mergers in monetizing podcasts, the first Julep from Munich was bought by Libsyn and now London-based Auddy buys Vienna-based Audiomy

Keep in mind here, that most startups are likely not in financial trouble, but they rather try to extend the money they have already raised. The consensus seems to be cutting 15–20% of the workforce for most startups.

• Berlin-based escooter company Tier fires 16% of employees and freezes new hiring they are firing around 180 people
• Berlin-based Artnight organizes DIY art events across Germany. They are impacted by Corona and let 1/3rd of their staff go
• Infarm lays off staff as energy prices bite and recession looms
• Tiger-backed startup Pitch lays off 30% of staff
• Urban Sports Club lets go 15% (55 people) of their workforce
• Expense management via credit card is the topic of startup Moss. They have to let go of 70 employees (~ 15% of their workforce)

FSIS Issues Public Health Alert For Specific Ground Beef In HelloFresh Meal Kits Due to Possible E. Coli O157:H7 Contamination | Food Safety and Inspection Service

Germans refer sometimes to cars as Germany’s most loved child, but the current situation is also hitting the used car market: Auto1 competitor Cazoo leaves the German market...

Welcome to our April 2023 wrap-up with important news from the startup scenes in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland in 30 minutes or less 🙂.

Our Highlights:

Considerable funding made headlines last month. We have more than 600 M euros in funding in our highlights alone. A potential large exit: Software AG, the Darmstadt-based listed software company, is close to a 2.4 bn US$ exit with an offer from Silverlake Partners. Also, Berlin-based Blinkist may be close to a 200 M € exit. Hundreds of millions of raised funds were announced by Enpal (via ABS), Isar Aerospace, IntegrityNext, Razor Group, and Tado. Also, SAP is close to investing in Germany’s hottest AI startup Aleph Alpha from Heidelberg. Diverging picture in Airtaxi space: Lilium is looking for new investors; Volocopter builds the taxis and expects them to fly in less than 500 days at the Paris Olympics.

Let’s talk startups:

Top News

Software AG Close to a Multi-Billion Acquisition

Private-equity firm Silver Lake Partners, based in Menlo Park, is close to buying Germany’s Software AG in $2.42 billion deal. The offer is already public, reported Reuters. Shares of listed Software AG jumped 53% at the announcement. The investor already knows the company: In February 2022, Silver Lake had invested 344 million euros in the software developer’s convertible bond, which upon conversion would represent nearly 9% of issued Software AG shares.

Enpal Raises More Than 300 M€

Enpal raises up to €356 million via Securitization of Solar Receivables with first German residential solar ABS. ABS are asset-backed securities, that means if Enpal can not pay interest or pay back the final sum, the investors have the collateral (assets) backing the security

Blinkist Close to 200 M € Exit

Reports blog Deutsche-Startups, with an offer from an — yet unnamed — American company. The blog, with its founder Alexander Hüsing is usually pretty well informed and has been right before.

Isar Aerospace Closes €155 Million Funding

Isar Aerospace closes €155 million Series C funding round, ignition sequence start, all engine running. Investors are 7-Industries Holding, Bayern Kapital via its Scale Up Fund Bavaria, Earlybird Venture Capital, HV Capital, Lakestar, Lombard Odier Investment Managers, Porsche Automobil Holding SE (Porsche SE), UVC Partners, and Vsquared Ventures

100 m € for IntegrityNext

The company has been bootstrapped for seven years, but now IntegrityNext takes €100 million from EQT Growth fund.

Razor Group Raises 88 M US$

Berlin-based Razor Group, an e-commerce aggregator, closes Series C at $88M at $1.2B valuation, acquires Stryze to consolidate.

Tado Raises Money, As IPO Plans Falter

Smart thermostat startup Tado wanted to IPO but then came Corona and Ukraine. They originally wanted to explore a sale or IPO after their 2021 fundraising, but the SPAC deal faltered and they needed to adapt. So they raised 46.9 M US$. Their existing investors already include Siemens, Amazon, and EON.

SAP To Invest In AI Startup Aleph Alpha

German press reports that the software giant SAP is about to invest in German ChatGPT competitor Aleph Alpha, which also claims to have eliminated fake news from its software. As yet, the valuation and investment are not known.

Related: Heidelberg-based startup, a competitor of ChatGPT, claims to have eliminated fake news from its tool Luminous

Airtaxi Lilium is Looking for New Money, and Volocopter is Planning to Fly

Airtaxi Lilium: 0 Euro revenue, 253 mn € losses. They are looking for new investors. Volocopter on the other hand, wants to start operating their drones as taxis ASAP. They also pledged to operate their air taxis in Paris, during the Olympic Games, in less than 500 days.

Related: Volocopter starts production — founders magazin

All Links and Show Notes

Here is our blog post: https://medium.com/startuprad-io/this-month-in-german-swiss-and-austrian-gsa-startups-april-2023-episode-380-88b68d4bd32d

Mentioned in this episode:

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