Music.
Hello and welcome everybody this is joe from
startup rate.io the authority on german swiss and
austrian startups and today we are bringing you something
very special our update of the 2025
unicorn tracker for the dach region we ran a regular unicorn tracker in parallel
to our startup news during corona since there were so many newly coined unicorns
so for all of you we bring the format back here on God Friday.
If you celebrate it, happy Easter.
And we have a plan to get together to do a new unicorn tracker towards the end of the year.
Chris, how would a new unicorn tracker for Thanksgiving sound to you?
Yes, let's do it. I mean, so much is changing. Let's do it. Let's do it.
Think of this episode as a kind of status update. Keep in mind that no one is
required to report either reaching or losing unicorn status.
So there's always some guesswork involved as we
always rely on other sources here and correlate them on
most unicorns there's an agreement but not all we will also follow this episode
with extensive blog posts where you can learn more about the unicorns we mentioned
here we've done the legwork to gather unicorns former unicorns and some overlooked
champions in german-speaking startup scene with Easter around the corner,
what better time to bring you a shiny new unicorn?
And as we're already speaking of week, Chris, hey, welcome, my man.
Today, not in New York, right?
I snuck into it already. No, I'm talking to you today from Düsseldorf in Western
Germany, where I am actually on my little Easter break and traveling through the country.
Yeah, and looking ahead today, we got a great episode. We are talking fresh
unicorns, cautionary tales, A few stealth giants that rarely make headlines,
but are a bit in the background and nevertheless, are hugely successful.
And we are giving you, our aim is to give you like a complete state of play
for the DACH startup ecosystem.
As always, we explain it. DACH is Deutschland, Österreich, Schweiz,
Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Austria, Switzerland.
With most of these, we cannot give you more than just a few sentences due to
the number of companies and the sheer amount of data each company generates.
In 2024, there was only eGym coined as a new unicorn.
That makes us hope that for 2025, probably we have more to talk about and we
probably already have the first new unicorn with quantum systems.
We are covering 48 unicorns in total. So let's go. Yes, we are calling out those
who lost unicorn status too.
It's no judgment, just facts. Let's dive in back to you.
Oh, and I have a reply from Martha from Ohio.
She reached out to us and asked why Dach, why the C-H at the end.
The Swiss call themselves something like Confederation Helvenica,
Helvenica being their own name for Switzerland here. That's why it's Dach.
And I think in German we just say it because Dach rolls more easily off the tongue than D-C-H-A.
Yeah, and Dach also means roof in German, so that's about it.
So let's kick things off with the news addition to the list,
the one that actually tracked this unicorn tracker or started it.
Quantum Systems from Gilsing, Germany. I do believe that's pretty close to Munich.
AI drones, the Munich-based drone tech innovator, hit unicorn status in 2025
after securing 100 million in Series B funding from Notion Capital and Porsche.
The recent acquisition of a robot and expansion to Ukraine solidifies their
lead dual-use defense and commercial AI drones.
Talking a little bit about logistics and freight tech unicorns here.
We kick off with logistics tech, one of Dach region's quite powerhouses.
First up is Forto in Berlin. By the way, also an interview we did by the founder
and CEO that is now part of the supervisory board.
They've modernized global freight forwarding with real-time digital platforms,
simplifying cross-border trade.
But 2025 brought major changes.
Layoffs hit a third of their team and founder, Michel Vax, moved to chairman.
The new CEO, oh, it's a French name?
Guillaume Petit Perrin. Guillaume Petit Perrin.
Ah, okay. As he said, it's steering the ship towards profitability while exploring possible sales.
Yes, right. And then there's Ascender with a 2N, also Berlin-based,
shaking up full truckload freight across Europe.
They have acquired CS Robinson's European arm. And now Ascender doubled its
revenue to 1.4 billion euros.
They've upgraded leadership, expanded their tech stack with the SenOS platform
and are now competing in 20 plus countries.
It's a logistics unicorn scaling like a rocket, one could say.
And so by now you can probably tell we are giving you an overview of the German unicorns by industry.
So moving on from logistics and freight tech to mobility and micro mobility.
Yes. From Freight2People, let's talk mobility flicks. By the way,
also an interview we did.
Link in the show notes. In Munich is a standout.
Not only are they behind Flixbus and FlixTrain, but they also own Greyhound
in the US. Their 2024 revenues hit 2 billion euros with EQT and Kühne Holding backing them.
They're expanding globally, including new routes in India and pioneering sustainable
mobility with solar-powered and hydrogen-powered buses.
Also in micromobility, or not also because Flix is buses, but in micromobility,
we see TIA from Berlin. once a micromobility unicorn in and of itself with a
2 billion euro valuation.
In 2024, they merged with DOT and are now Europe's largest shared e-scooter
operator. I guess many people have seen them.
If they live in a bigger city, they faced heavy layoffs and a declining valuation
because there really was a boom for these companies.
And now it's only a few companies left in the market, but their rides now surpass 100 million annually.
And I would say tier counts as a former unicorn in most lists.
Also here, what I talk about, Volocopter in Bruchsal, once a flying taxi unicorn,
they went bankrupt before the Olympic debut.
China's Wong Feng Group bought them in March 2025 for just 10 million euros,
making a dramatic end to Germany's first EVTOL unicorn.
Going into Deep Tech and iHardware, another Deep Tech star is Agile Robots, also Munich.
They made waves as Germany's first
robotic unicorn with softbank backing. In 2023, they acquired Franca,
Emica, and BMW's automation unit Ideal Works.
They're pushing forward with award-winning robot arms like Yana 3,
tackling automation in health industry and logistics.
And just like Agile Robots and BMW, We also have Helsing in Munich,
taking AI to the battlefield there.
They raised €450 million in 2024 and are now at a €5 billion valuation,
so largely significant, developing defense AI for fighter jets and drones.
Helsing is one of the key players in the Eurofighter upgrade, FACAS program.
The Baltic expansion shows how serious they are about European security tech.
And I guess the whole discussion about the future of NATO, Europe investing
more in its own defense systems in order to be less dependent on the U.S.
Will probably mean good business for them as well.
Related to what we are talking now, at least we already dropped BMW.
We are now looking at auto companies and some overlooked giants there.
There is Check24 in Munich which is
a little bit of everything because it's also a website that offers car rentals
it's a competitor to Booking.com but despite flying under the radar it's a price
comparison platform that in Germany really is a consumer tech behemoth profitable, bootstrap,
still a unicorn in 2024 with really aggressive marketing in Germany they gave
away free football jerseys from the German team.
And they really got a lot of buzz from that, but also some backlash.
But Czech 24, definitely one of the German unicorns to watch.
Also, Autodoc in Berlin, Europe's leading auto parts e-commerce firm.
In 2024, they reported 1.3 billion, yes, would be euros in revenue,
a 10% profit margin and a 2.3 billion valuation after Apollo Global invested.
They are preparing for 2025 IPO and pushing hard into the B2B space with Autodoc Pro.
Going a little bit into biotech and life science here, there is only one for
the very simple reason that...
All lists in Switzerland include this one startup.
Otherwise, we shipped around noting all the unicorns that are from the biotech space.
It's much complicated. But if you'd like to get an overview done here,
we are also happy to do it.
One prominent player there, as I said, is ADC Therapeutics from Lausanne, Switzerland.
They specialize in antibody drug conjugates for cancer.
After 105 million US dollars raised there in 2024, the truck Zylonte,
something like this, turned profitable.
But the valuation dropped below unicorn level and their market cap now sits
at around 150 million. Chris?
Yeah, so ADC is a really good example of volatility in the biotech sector.
I mean, if they have been a unicorn and are now sitting around $150 million, you can really see that.
In our next section, we'll cover climate tech unicorns and why 2025 could be their breakout year.
Stay tuned for that. But let's take a little breath.
And say thank you to our sponsor for a little ad break.
Welcome back from the ad break. So we are moving on to climate tech and renewable energy, as I said.
For example, we also mentioned them a couple of times in the podcast,
in the regular podcast already.
We have 1,5 Grad, 1.5 degrees, if you translate it.
They are based in Hamburg, definitely another startup to watch.
They've raised over 450 million euros and acquired solar companies across Europe
and Australia. They have an energy platform called Heartbeat AI,
which helps households to buy cheap electricity and then sell it higher.
So it's definitely a company in that industry, in the climate tech industry,
that is thinking about how to...
Kind of harvest the potential of the field.
Yes, NPAL in Berlin or NPAL, something like this.
And I would pronounce them NPAL in Berlin is the largest residential solar platform
in Germany with over 5 billion, yes, again, would be yours in financing race.
They now offer a full energy suit, batteries, heat pumps, EV charging,
and AI-powered heartbeat platform to manage it all. In Switzerland,
Climeworks leads in carbon capture.
The mammoth DAC plant in Iceland is live, capable of removing 36,000 tons of CO2 annually.
Partnerships with companies like Morgan Stanley and accolades from Frost Company
cement their global leadership.
Chris, you want to start with fintech and insure tech unicorns? Yes.
There is N26. I was even a former customer of them, a company that has gone
through several iterations by now, but still being a Berlin heavyweight.
They overcame regulatory headwinds, bounced back, attracted 250,000 new customers
per month, as they say, and are now posting 440 million euros in revenue.
That's from last year they've exited the US and Brazil market to focus on Europe
and plan to double their marketing spend in 2025 so definitely still a company
that has not seen its last days even though it might have felt like that probably even in our podcast.
I see. Trade Republic actually, before the last fundraise of N26 for some weeks or two months,
something like this, Germany's most valuable fintech, the Berlin-based NIO broker
now serves over 8 million customers and manages more than 100 billion euros in assets.
In 2024, they secured a full banking license, but outages in early 2025 raised
concerns about their platform's reliability.
And just as dynamic as the fintech sector in Germany is also insure tech.
There we see that Clark from Frankfurt is growing steadily.
They hit 135 million euro in revenue in 23 and transitioned founder Christopher
Oster to chairman now. They've also appeared twice on Startup Radio,
diving deeply into their strategy and into their digital insurance vision.
So Clark definitely want to watch too.
I vividly remember the first interview before they became Unicorn.
I was talking with Christopher.
And at the time, we've been an audio-only podcast, so I'm not really sure about his face.
But he was on the list of Bloomberg's 20 most promising startups you never heard
of. I asked him if this was a word for him, most promising startups or a challenge
for his marketing never heard of.
I think by now you know my style.
Do not forget Scalable Capital, headquartered in Munich with $17 billion under
management and a customer base of over 600,000, they are major player in wealth tech.
But outages and EU regulatory risks about their payment for order flow model
have raised eyebrows about long-term viability.
The payment for order flow is actually also a problem of trade republic, I have to mention.
We also see Raisin, a company that aims to redefine savings across Europe.
They have an impressive 57 billion euros in assets under their management,
are profitable and expanding into new countries. Also, they appeared on Startup
Radio to share their journey.
Definitely a fintech to watch closely as well.
Another important one is Mambu in Berlin, a core banking SaaS platform supporting
over 114 million users in 2024. They acquired French payment tech.
Nouriel? Chris, you're better in French. You actually learned that stuff. I did never. Numeral.
As he said, expand their product suite and won Google Cloud's financial services
partner of the year award.
And rounding out this little fintech crew here is Bitpanda, probably the most
talked about startup that we have.
From Austria, they are an Austrian crypto unicorn and they are launching non-custodial
DeFi wallet. They're expanding into Dubai.
They're pushing their B2B white label offerings.
So they bid ponder technology solutions. So definitely last but not least in this little section.
Also, I have an add-on for this list because nobody likes taxes,
but TaxFix became a unicorn with innovating in tax filings across Europe.
After acquiring TaxScouts in the UK, they're growing despite a workforce reduction
in 2023. three, their commitment is simplifying taxes for everybody.
Users keep them on the map. Exactly. And now we go into SaaS and enterprise and HR tech.
That is definitely the place to talk about Salonis, Germany's only DecaCorn,
meaning a valuation of above $10 billion. In their case, 13.2 was the number we found.
Based in Munich, Salonis is a global leader in process mining and execution management.
They are partnering with IBM and ServiceNow and in 24 delayed their IPO to focus
on embedding AI deeper into their platform. So pretty impressive and gutsy management decision there.
Another Munich-based standout is Personio, an HR tech platform tailored for
small and medium-sized enterprises.
They are optimizing internal operations right now after layoffs in 2024,
but they remain a European category leader, still with a strong growth and deep
integrations in HR workflows. So Personio still want to watch.
Let's not skip Contentful in Berlin.
They are powered digital experience for giants like IKEA and Shopify.
Even after a 15% layoff, they launched a new AI feature and kept their valuation near $3 billion.
Their CMS platform remains a backbone for modern digital infrastructure.
And in internal communications, we see that staff based from Chemnitz made waves
as the first unicorn from the eastern part of the country, sometimes still referred
to in the country as the new states.
They've expanded rapidly with the support of JP Morgan and KFW,
their Kreditanstalt für Wideraufbau, launched a next generation email platform
and landed in the Gardner magic quadrant.
Moving on to AI and language tech, DeepL, based in Cologne, is a powerhouse in translation tech.
In 24, they raised $300 million and launched Clarify, a real-time editing tool
for Nuance translation.
Translations. They now serve 100,000 customers, including global enterprises
like Coursera and Deutsche Bahn.
AI has been central to their growth and to our show as well.
Startup Radio has been tracking deep L since early days, and now they are on
Forbes AI50 and Cloud 100 list. Not bad for a Cologne startup.
Chris, you want to talk a little bit about travel and marketplaces?
Always travel i want to talk about travel on travel
get your guide a berlin-based company raised
nearly 200 million euros in 23 and now lists over 110 000 global experiences
strategic partners like checkout.com and prima helping them boost conversion
and scale globally but i also have to say i had a get your guide experience
in rome where i wanted to watch the or go see the Caravaggio exhibit.
And I bought my ticket through Get Your Guide.
And when I arrived at Piazza Barberini, Piazza Palazzo Barberini,
it turned out that the ticket I bought did not include the special exhibit and
it was not mentioned on the website properly.
So I will let them know.
I will write Get Your Guide and see what comes out of it.
You should do also we have Omeo
actually a startup that I interviewed many
many years ago when they were really early stage their
founder under their old name GoEuro they are still from Berlin and they have
secured by now more than 120 million credit facilities they're expanding into
Southeast Asia and offering flexible multi-model travel tools across Europe yeah,
In travel and marketplaces, a very interesting niche that Krono24 sits in.
They are from Karlsruhe and are a leading marketplace for luxury watches.
With $235 million in funding and new leadership, they're now adapting to shifts
in demand and they are doubling down on digital innovation.
It's going to be interesting to see how that goes in that small market in luxury e-commerce.
Yes, great rundown so far, Chris. Coming up next, we'll take a closer look at
food, consumer, robotics, and education unicorns, plus those we've lost along the way.
So stick around. You're listening to StartupRate.io. Don't forget to rate us
and check out our links in the show notes.
Time for some ads.
Thanks for sticking around. Welcome back to Consumer Tech Robotics and Food
Innovation. Let's start with Berlin Brands Group.
With $800 million in funding, they've acquired dozens of D2C brands and expanded globally.
Despite layoffs and rising competition, they're pushing hard in compliance and
portfolio optimization, maintaining their unicorn crown.
And speaking of optimization, Shoko, also based in Berlin, is digitalizing the food supply chain.
They have an app that reduces food waste and streamlines restaurant supplier communication.
They acquired the Spanish startup
Katu and became Spain's top food service ordering platform as well.
So a company that seems to do a lot of things right, Shoko, also based in Berlin.
And also, we already mentioned it, eGym from Munich in 2024,
they raised $200 million to
grow their WellPass corporate wellness network and launched eGym Genius,
an AI workout coach after acquiring Fit Reserve and Hustle.
They are scaling fast in Europe and the US.
Moving on to EdTech, education tech, smart data, and deep logistics.
Yes, GoStudent in Vienna is transforming education with hybrid online-offline
tutoring and VR-based language learning.
The AI tutor Amelia is already helping thousands of students personalize their
learning experience. Oh, interesting.
Over in Zurich, Ascandit is a global leader in smart data capture.
They have clients like Carrefour and the NHS in the UK.
Their SDKs now offer AI-powered scanning tech, smart labels,
and advanced logistics solutions.
Let's talk about commerce tools. The Munich-based e-commerce software provider,
a leader in API-first, headless commerce and purchase $30 billion in GMV last year.
Despite recent layoffs and leadership turnover, they continue to win enterprise
clients and Google Cloud Awards.
Yeah, and that was it for our little section of software-as-a-service FinTech
and Marketplace Unicorns.
But now, we mentioned it a couple of times already, we are moving on to,
I don't know if we can call it a graveyard, because maybe some of those might,
experience a resurrection.
So let's talk about former unicorns and the question where are they now?
You got the first one. Okay, for now, for the part nobody likes, but it's important.
Let's talk about former unicorns. First, we have WeFox once valued at 4.5 billion
drop below unicorn level amid deep losses in Italy and Germany.
Leadership changed twice and they're now fighting for survival.
And actually, we have to say, we talked about this a lot because the fight in
and for WeFox was quite public.
Grover, known for tech rentals, lost its unicorn status after a down round and
they burned through over 1 billion euros in funding.
They've now pivoted to some kind of stabilization mode with a new CFO on board
to ride the ship. We will see how that goes.
In Farm, once the vertical farming darling exited several markets and entered
administration by late 2023, the co-founder now runs a much smaller Canadian spin-off.
Their pivotal to kosher greens in North America is a far cry from their global farming dreams.
And actually, I couldn't even find their website anymore. So they're completely
stamped up, but still on some lists here.
More like infamous than inform. Am I right?
There's also, oh God, I'm so sorry. I know it's people and dreams and et cetera.
I'm sorry for the joke, but I'm sorry for the joke. And that's even a segue
because there's also a Joker without the E, a Berlin born quick commerce startup.
We've talked about that industry quite often here in terms of fast grocery shopping.
Once a billion-dollar player, Joko now exited Europe and the US,
only operating as Ducky in Brazil.
The valuation dropped below $1 billion after a tough down round.
Actually, I was tempted to also include Gorillaz there, but then I realized
they already lost their billion-dollar valuation during the takeover from Get
here more than three years ago.
So I thought, ah, just skip this here.
Not skipping. We will. Oh, that was Yoda saying, talk about Solaris,
a major banking as a service player.
So its valuation dropped from $1.6 billion to $90 million after heavy losses and staff cuts.
Japanese SBI Group took over the majority ownership in 2024,
a sobering example of scaling too fast in fintech.
And rounding out, here are the ones we mentioned before, because they're still
on some lists we have found.
Just a very quick run through. TIA, the former micromobility unicorn,
merged with DOT, and saw its value drop to 150 million euros.
Volocopter, the air taxi pioneer, sold to China's OneFeng group after insolvency.
And NUMBRES, without the E, once a Swiss fintech unicorn, quietly faded into B2B niche obscurity.
And there you have it. or our full unicorn tracker, all 48 known unicorns in
Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, plus the fallen stars who shaped the ecosystem.
Whether you're a DACH founder or just a tech nerd, this was your full download
on the DACH startup scene stands right now.
Yes, so we will continue updating this every three months.
So hit follow, check out the show notes for all source links, investor info.
We hope you enjoyed this special episode and this special overview of the market.
A bit of a shift from our regular programming.
You can also find more investor info and our own interviews with many of these
founders on our website. For now, though, we say thanks for listening to StartupRate.io,
your inside track to the DACH startup ecosystem.
Until next time, auf Wiedersehen and keep scaling. Yes, please do. Bye. Bye.
Music.