This Month in German Startups - October 2020

This Month in German Startups - Summer 2020 Wrap-UpWelcome to this month in German Startups by Startuprad.io - in a transatlantic news recording with Chris in New York City.

Today we are wrapping up summer 2020 for you. This is going to take a bit longer than normal, so grab a coffee and relax on the couch.

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Housekeeping - Time to brag We made it now in 39 Countries in the podcast charts, adding Switzerland, Zimbabwe, Israel, and Indonesia! Thank you!

[caption id="attachment_3669" align="alignleft" width="800"]Podcast Charts Appearances of Startuprad.io - Now in 39 countries[/caption]

As a premier source for startup information from Germany, Startupradio was already a part of the US launch of podcasts on Amazon Music and is now in Germany as well.

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Video News - This video will go live on Thursday, September 24th 19.00 CET (Frankfurt, Zürich, Berlin, Milan)https://youtu.be/AQBKnWmxaTY

Audio News - The audio podcast will go live at the same timeWe just need some time after the release until we can embed the Spotify player here.

Top NewsCoronavirus / Curevac Curevac was one of the biggest startup stories during the summer. They are a Tübingen, Germany-based biotech company, working on a coronavirus vaccine.

They IPOed for more than 200 mn US$ (https://buff.ly/3iUsus6)

They got visited by Elon Musk (https://buff.ly/3cjMdzf)

And we already blogged about their government investment in June (https://buff.ly/3iY0y6Q)

And they received a large investment pre-IPO by two international heavy weights:

Pre-IPO: Qatar Investment Authority takes stake in vaccine-maker CureVac https://buff.ly/3jnYZzD Glaxosmithkline (GSK) pays 142 mn Euro for 10% stake in one of #Germany's most promising candidates for a #coronavirus #vaccine Curevac from Tuebingen https://buff.ly/3homvLk Coronavirus / Potential super spreader event in the Berlin startup scene?deutsche-startups reports in their podcast, that a super-spreader event took place in the Berlin Venture Capital and startup scene on Friday, September 11th https://buff.ly/2ElAxzc

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

Wirecard's liquidator sends employees into garden leave without pay via email after 20.00 o'clock. Rumors talk about 50% of the more than 1.000 employees https://buff.ly/34wB7F6

Related: Wirecard scandal fallout sees 50% of German staff laid off https://buff.ly/3hvG30vWirecard liabilities exceeding the assets by 2.8 bn Euro, only a few of the companies within the group had revenues at all says an expert assessment obtained by German media https://buff.ly/2EzLhKv Berlin-based Finleap snapped up some employees there:

Finleap starts a new unit Finleap Forward, with former Wirecard employees to help banks, insurers and SMEs with their digital transformation https://buff.ly/2QsWkra

More details emerged: Finleap hired a team of six employees of the Wirecard Innovation Labs to help banks, insurance companies, and SMEs with their digital transformation https://buff.ly/3hza2EYBerlin-based big data startup SO1 was bought shortly before the accounting scandal, now the founders bought assets back https://buff.ly/32JMcl0 More than 100 potential bidders lined up to acquire parts of #Wirecard, Germany’s erstwhile fintech darling” https:...

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