This Month in German, Swiss, and Austrian (GSA) Startups - October 2022 Wrap-Up

Welcome to This Month in German, Swiss, and Austrian (GSA) Startups in October 2022 by Startuprad.io with Chris from Essen, Germany, and Joe from Frankfurt. We recorded this news episode on Thursday, October 20th, 2022.

Our Highlights:

Another one of our former guests gets a Snoop Dog investment. Quick delivery startup Gorillas seems to sell itself to competitor Getir, according to Bloomberg, despite an earlier announcement they are looking for more investments. Gadget rental service Grover adds 270 m € in venture debt, getting it close to 2 billion €. Our former guest Nuri (formerly Bitwala) had to file for insolvency, now investors jump ship and the company is wound down this year. Volocopter is sued by early crowdfunding backers, Home24 has a takeover offer from a brick-and-mortar furniture retailer and BioNTech takes on cancer. Also, Munich-based travel tech Holidu raises 100 m € in a combination of 75 m equity and 25 m debt funding.

Let’s talk startups:

Our Enablers

Younium

Younium is the subscription management and billing platform for B2B SaaS. Younium brings the transformative infrastructure to manage and grow your business while you focus on the things that matter. https://www.younium.com/

Tvarit

Tvarit is an industrial ai startup, that helps companies to reduce rejections by 40%-60% in metal casting, as well as saving up to 18% on energy. Learn more here: https://www.tvarit.com/

Invest-in-Hessen

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 - Startups and Venture Capital

Startupraven.com

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Startup Raven

Top News

Europe’s Largest Cannabis Funding To Date

Europe’s largest cannabis funding to date: Snoop Dogg-backed German cannabis startup gets $37.6M Series B led by British American Tobacco

learn more about the Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 (German Startup Awards) founder Finn Age Hänsel in our interview

Gorillas May Soon Be Bought By Getir

Delivery Startup Getir in Advanced Talks to Buy Gorillas (Bloomberg). They write:

• “Proposed deal for Gorillas would be a mix of cash and equity
• The combination would give Getir, which is backed by Mubadala Investment Co. and Sequoia Capital, scale in key European markets including the UK and Germany.
• Gorillas had previously held talks with a number of competitors about the prospects for a merger or sale of its business, people familiar with the matter said previously.
• Chief Executive Officer Kagan Sumer said earlier this year that he planned to look for new financing to recalibrate the company to work toward profitability.”

Grover Takes Home 270 m €

As consumer spending tightens, yet appetites for tech remain the same, Berlin-based Grover sees an uptick in rental interest and is now bringing its debt funding to close to €2 billion to meet demand. Grover takes on more debt funding, this time €270 million from London-based M&G

Our Former Guest Nuri (Bitwala)

Will be wound down. Despite seeing interest from investors, they could not get one to sign up. So the company will be shut down until the end of the year. The last day one can use a Nuri account is in mid-December. Neobank Vivid makes all former Nuri customers a good offer.

• Insolvency administrator of crypto startup Nuri sees interest in the platform and fintech sales capacities
• After the crypto markets did not turn positive, two potential investors in Nuri jumped ship, so the company will not emerge from insolvency but be wound down

Volocopter Now Sued by Crowdinvestors

German unicorn Volocopter was sued by 177 former crowd backers, who feel they should have gotten “a fair participation”, especially since they backed the company very early

We Mentioned Home24 on a Regular Basis

Now they stand alone time may be over. We talked in the past about lowering forecasts and the tough environments. Now XXXLutz — a traditional brick-and-mortar furniture store — made an offer to buy Home24

BioNTech Takes on Cancer

First, they took on Corona with their widely successful vaccine. Now the doctors are hopeful it could lead to new treatments for melanoma, bowel cancer, and other tumor types. The mRNA technology being used works by ...