Music.
Hello and welcome, everybody. This is Joe from StartupRate.io.
You are listening to This Month in German, Swiss, and Austrian Startups June
2025 together with Chris.
Hey, how are you doing? Hey, I'm good.
Awesome. Chris is, as always, joining us from New York City and I'm in Frankfurt.
Welcome to our regular startup news from the startup at Tech Entrepreneurship
Scenes in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. We are recording this on the 30th of June.
As always, all news not included will be part of our news wrap-up.
This time, the summer wrap-up to be published on September 1st,
where we're wrapping up July and most of August.
Our news is taking summer break in July and August, and then we will be back
with regular news from September on.
We needed to cut, again, our news very, very seriously. we had like 17 pages
of raw news and that would have been something for like an hour.
Everything, as always, you can find on our blog, celebrate.io forward slash
blog, all the sources where you can dig in.
Quite a lot of news pieces have several news source links.
Chris, are you going to celebrate Independence Day the day after this publication?
Yes, I will. And be celebrating with friends who always rent out a hotel room
in order to have a better view at the fireworks in New York.
Where are the fireworks taking place? This year on the East River.
And it's really big. And then we all sneak into a tiny room.
We have drinks in the bathtub and some food. And it's usually like 10 to 12 people. It's super fun.
Sounds good. Let's go to our highlights. June 2025 catapulted the Dach startup scene into new heights.
Headlines by Germany's ascension as a powerhouse in defense tech and deep tech.
Berlin and Munich-based Helsing became Germany's most valuable startup,
surpassing Salonis with a 600 million Series C funding, a 600 million euros,
sorry, CERC funding led by Daniel X Primera Matera.
If the name Daniel X sounds familiar, he's one of the founders of Spotify.
Cementing its position as the country's second decatur corn and overtaking Salonis in the process.
Simultaneously, Munich's ESA Aerospace joined the Unicorn Club,
raising $150 million via convertible bonds to fuel its commercial space launch operations,
with growing geopolitical demand for sovereign satellite capabilities across Europe.
Meanwhile, Berlin-based stealth mode health tech LunarCare quietly entered Unicorn
territory with over 30 million users.
FDACA approved phototherapy solutions, highlighting Berlin's rising cloud in
media innovation, in medical innovation.
And by the name, guys, by the way, guys, for LumaCare, we really had to dig deep to find this.
Infrastructure and fintech also took center stage. Hamburg's Impossible Cloud,
a decentralized Web3-enabled enterprise cloud platform,
reached a $470 million valuation as strategic injection from NGP Capital,
further validating Europe's ambition to develop hyperscaler alternatives.
Munich's headquartered Scalable Capital closed the record 155 million Euro Series E,
Round, aiming to become the Charles Schwab of Europe with ETF investing,
crypto access and AI-powered wealth management tools.
In biotech, ITM Isotope Technologies Munich SE secured a mammoth 262.5 million
euro in non-dilutive debt financing from Blue Owl Capital to scale its radiopharmaceutical
pipeline and PrEP for FDA submission of ITM11,
its GEP Net Cancer Therapy.
These mega-run deals confirm investors' appetite for infrastructure layer innovation,
vertical SaaS and frontier health tech.
Policy and ecosystem moves rounded out the month with a long-awaited release
of the EU Start-Up and Scale-Up Strategy dubbed Choose Europe to Start and Scale.
The blueprint includes a $10 billion scale-up Europe fund, a unified 28th regime
for legal harmonization, and Lab2Unicorn initiative to bridge research and commercialization.
All key steps in making the EU globally competitive for tech founders.
Regionally, Switzerland's 100 billion deep tech vision,
new reports on DACH CEE climate tech, and Germany's improved IFO Business Climate
Index pointed to a cautious optimism despite capital concentration pressure.
From rising unicorns like Helsing to smart policy bets and decentralized infrastructure
champions like Impossible Cloud,
Startup Radio remains your go-to
source for what's next in DACH innovation funding and founder momentum.
So let's talk startups. As we said, this news piece will go live Thursday, July 3rd, 2025.
You can listen to it on our radio station and we will be back after short ad
break with Chris with the top news.
So let's pay some more attention to a couple of the top news of this month.
Some of it you had already mentioned.
First up, there's three new unicorns in these news.
And one is even a Decacorn.
So Helsing is Germany's second Decacorn and now Germany's most valuable startup.
The German defense tech sector sees a breakout moment as Helsing surpasses Celonis in valuation.
It is a pretty remarkable development because now we see that Germany's startup
landscape has a new champion.
So the AI-driven defense startup Helsing has closed a monumental 600 million euro CUC funding,
propelling its valuation to a staggering 12 billion dollars and dethroning Celonis
as the country's most valuable privately held tech company.
The raise, as you mentioned, led by Spotify co-founder Daniel X,
investments firm Prima Materia marks a pivotal shift in European venture capital
from software as a service and fintech towards dual-use deep tech innovation.
It's only the second German Decacon and Helsing reflects growing investor appetite
for sovereign AI and next-generation defense technologies.
The company is based in Berlin and Munich and develops real-time AI software
for battlefield situational awareness, integrating sensor fusion and drone autonomy,
a model gaining traction among heightened geopolitical instability.
Probably you've heard that a lot of countries, especially the NATO countries,
are discussing increasing their funding for,
um for military operations so
this right now seems to be well within this trend and the funding round cements
helsing's status as europe's premier defense unicorn with strategic partnerships
in place including rheinmetall and a pending acquisition of grob aircraft signaling
a full-stack expansion into AI-powered aerospace systems.
So, ESA Aerospace, again related in the same field, reaches the unicorn orbit
with 150 million euros in a convertible race.
Germany's private space race gains momentum here.
They had a 150 million euro convertible bond raise positioning the Munich-based
rocket startup among the elite of Europe's burgeoning commercial space sector.
Founding in 2018 as a private launch services provider,
Isai Aerospace now has rapidly ascended from a Sunicorn to a Unicorn,
capitalizing on rising geopolitical demand for sovereign launch capabilities
and satellite deployment independence.
Funding round, confirmed by German business media, fuels the company's ambitions
to rival SpaceX, Arianespace, and Arianespace by offering flexible,
coast-efficient orbital delivery from European soil.
The fresh capital will be used to accelerate its Spectrum rocket program,
set to deliver small and medium payloads to low-Earth orbit, LEO,
amid mounting demand from defense, climate monitoring, and telecommunications clients. It's...
Also, this milestone comes as Germany doubles down on space tech autonomy,
placing the country at the forefront of a new industrial frontier with major
ESA contracts, so that's the European Space Agency,
already secured and the new valuation crossing the billion euro mark.
ESA Aerospace exemplifies the resurgence of European new space competitiveness.
And you also already mentioned that the Berlin-based health tech startup LumaCare
has very discreetly entered the Unicorn Club,
achieving a valuation exceeding 1 billion euros following its Series D funding round.
Despite amassing over 30 million euros users, LumaCare has maintained a low
profile focusing on delivering innovative phototherapy solutions.
They have a flagship product called the LumaCare LC122M LAMP, a versatile,
non-invasive treatment platform for conditions ranging from dermatological issues
to oncology, utilizing photodynamic therapy called PDT and phototherapeutic protocols.
The company has CEMDD and FDA approvals,
and therefore LumaCare's technology is gaining traction in both clinical and
research settings in a field that has a growing demand for cost-effective and
flexible medical treatments. Okay.
Also here, we can see since they are based in Berlin, that the European health
tech sector is expanding and Berlin is becoming more of a hub for medical innovation there.
And Hamburg-based Impossible Cloud has reached a 470 million euro valuation
following a strategic investment from NGP Capital, signaling growing institutional
confidence in decentralized infrastructure solutions.
Chris, does this sound for you very much like Sunicorn as well?
Yeah, yeah. But yeah, so I mean, 470 million.
Yeah, because I mean, numbers, do they matter these days anymore? Who knows? Up is down.
The startup which operates a blockchain-powered cloud storage platform tailored
to enterprise use is positioning itself as a European answer to hyperscalers
like AWS from Amazon, Google Cloud, and Azure.
By combining Web3 architecture with enterprise-grade compliance and performance,
Impossible Cloud is tapping into the surging demand for very sovereign and distributed
data services across the EU and beyond.
And NGP Capital's investment underscores larger capital reallocation trend toward
infrastructure-layer startups that blend decentralization with real-world utility.
We also see that this move reinforces themes from our recent interview with
NGP Capital on VC investment patterns in the Dach region, where the rise of
vertical SaaS and frontier tech, including cloud, AI, cybersecurity,
is reshaping Europe's venture.
Landscapes. Three more to go, people. Bear with me.
Munich-based ITM Isotope Technologies has locked up to...
262.5 million euros in
non-dilutive debt financing from funds managed
by blue old capital marking one of the largest capital
raises in european biotech this year the financing
led by blue old credit platform provides an
immediate 140 million dollars tron trench to advance the u.s regulatory submission
and commercial readiness of itm 11 the company's lead radio pharmaceutical legal
candidate for treating gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors,
GEPNETs.
JEPNETs.
I think they, JEPNETs, that sounds more like something you want to fight.
With promising phase three clinical trial results and a 2025 FDA filing planned,
ITM is emerging as a dominant player in targeted radiotherapeutics.
The deal also supports the scale-up of actinium-225 isotope production via actinier,
ITM's joint venture reinforcing Germany's leadership in next-generation cancer therapies.
So we see here that we are in an era where biotech startups often face equity dilution.
ITM's non-dilutive structure is standing out, signaling deep investor confidence
in late-stage nuclear medicine innovation.
A very dynamic market as of now, especially given the developments in the US.
So we will see how it goes for European companies here.
And the European Commission has officially launched its comprehensive EU startup
and scale-up strategy titled Choose Europe to Start and Scale.
Aiming to transform the European Union into a global hub for technology-driven companies.
The strategy addresses longstanding challenges faced by startups and scale-ups,
including fragmented regulations,
limited access to finance, talent shortages, and key initiatives now include
the introduction of a 28th regime to harmonize insolvency, labor, and tax laws.
28th regime here referring to the fact
that the european union has 27 membership countries and
therefore 27 secretaries because
each country needs to have one secretary or commissioner in
the european commission also the establishment of a 10 billion scale-up europe
fund to support deep tech companies and the blue carpet initiative to attract
and retain top talent The strategy also emphasizes faster market uptake through
the Lab2 Unicorn program,
facilitating the transition from research to commercialization.
This whole development aligns with our earlier report in February,
in which we anticipated the release of the strategy in the summer.
For more details, you can refer to our February coverage, where we had the DACH
startups seen a February roundup.
And there we are talking a bit more about that. And last but not least,
Munich-based fintech Scalable Capital has secured 155 million euros in its largest
funding round to date, led by Belgium investment firm Zofina and the pan-European
growth equity investor Notteo's partners.
This series E round brings the total capital raised by Scalable Capital to over 470 million euros.
Fresh funding will support the expansion of Scalable's digital investment platform
across Europe with a focus on markets like France and Italy.
The company wants to grow its assets under management from 30 billion euros
right now to over 100 billion euros within the next two to three years,
positioning themselves, you already said it, as the Charles Schwab of Europe.
Scalable Capital offers a suite of investment products, including ETFs,
stocks, bonds, cryptocurrencies, private equity through its Scalable Broker
and Scalable Wealth Services.
The platform also plans to introduce new features such as children's investment
accounts and enhance AI-driven portfolio management tools.
Co-founder and co-CEO Erik Pottsuvajt emphasized that the funding round is a
significant step toward becoming Europe's leading retail investment platform.
And now we are done with taking some time for the real big stories,
a bit of housekeeping, and then we can look at the ecosystem.
Actually, I don't have a lot for housekeeping. I was just checking the monthly
wrap-up we get from… Because we got our house in order.
That's why. We got our house in order. We scored in the last 30 days in more
than 30 countries in the world, in some of them, in multiple podcast charts.
If you're interested to work with us, email us at partnerships at celebrate.io.
You can subscribe and follow on our link tree. And now we are already on to the ecosystem.
First, have a look at Europe. 1 trillion euro fund, Power Walk and Northern
Gridstone team up on a new UK-based EIS fund, Ambition.
Europe's first trillion euro startups, Swiss-EU startups.
EIF, Defense Tech Fund, European Investment Fund, launches its first defense
tech initiative, part of a growing strategic investment wave.
DACH CE Climate Tech report highlights the fastest growing climate tech startups
across DACH and Central and Eastern Europe in 2025.
EU AI Act enforcement timelines. The European Commission confirms phased enforcement
of AI Act begins in Q3 2025.
Fines expected in 2026. Now let's talk a little bit about Germany.
And there I hand it back over to Chris, who is usually the guy for Germany.
Yeah. And so interesting how different governments are trying to rein in some of the AI companies.
It's also always part here of the discussions in the US in the finance packaging.
And there's even discussion whether if some states individually in the US try
to regulate AI, whether they are receiving government funding or whether the
federal government stops giving them money. Moving on to Germany,
though, you already said it.
We always look at the IFO index, which is a business climate index based on a survey.
And we see that it increases for the sixth straight month driven by optimism
in manufacturing and services.
10 VCs are actively investing millions into German startups across sectors like AI, fintech and SaaS.
A bullish signal for the local ecosystem, writes Deutsche Startups.
We have now a federal minister on startups.
It's part of the new government here. The first public appearance of Germany's
startup minister highlights a vision-driven approach to supporting founders.
Business Insider writes a bit more about this. Then when we look at digital wallets,
That secretary that I was just talking about, Wildberger, he outlined aggressive
goals for nationwide wallet infrastructure and startup partnerships.
More about that in Handelsblatt.
Die Kreditanstatt für Wiederbauaufbau, KFW, has some new startup insights.
Their latest research highlights increased German startup activity despite macro
headwinds. And Germany's new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, criticized for calling
himself Plan B for a digital minister.
He raises concerns over tech policy expertises. So, yeah, we see that this whole
new secretary or this new ministry is kind of still like some growth pain, growing pain to do.
Um german entrepreneurship org
and ifo institute call for
stronger government support to unlock startup growth we
have a deep dive into capital concentration in germany's vc landscape at deutsche
startups asking who still gets funding in 2025 and bitcoin com the german tech
association says founders are optimistic about the new federal government stance
on innovation and capital markets.
And in the fight between the two capitals or metropolises of Berlin and Munich,
we have a new analysis that reveals Berlin is home to 60% of Germany's unicorns,
but Munich is catching up in B2B SaaS.
And moving on to Austria, there we see that Austria's tech Fund Fund Zukunft
Österreich is going to disperse 140 million euros in 2026,
though only 50 million euros has been reserved to date.
So if you intend to move to Salzburg, there's money.
And in Switzerland, we have a deep tech report there.
A new Swiss report is showing that deep tech startup creation rises in medtech, AI and robotics.
Related to that, there is a deep tech 100 billion euro vision.
New insights position Switzerland as Europe's 100 billion euro deep tech innovation
engine driven by public private research and development, writes TechEU.
And Swiss Angel investor Peter Kessel is named business angel of the year 2025.
Congratulations, Herr Kessel.
General news. Joe, VC funds for people who are looking for money.
Show me the money. Yeah, a few of you guys, I'm sure, are looking for money.
Some VC news and funds in case you're looking for money. And as always,
there's just a selection.
Budget A closes fund number five. Over-subscribed 325 million euros.
Top AI VCs in Europe. PitchBook reveals the 10 most active VC firms investing
in European AI startups led by Atomico and Early Bird.
Pico's Capital Fund announces 250 million euros, fund number two,
to support early stage startups from pre-C to Series A in Europe and the US.
BGF 500 million pound fund.
UK-based BGF commits 500 million pounds to European tech investment,
targeting growth, startup, and scale-ups.
Main capital fund number five. They raised 520 million euros to support B2B
software across Europe. Crypto VC launch.
Javier Megan launches 20 million euros, 20 million US dollars.
Sorry, crypto VC fund Fractis to support next-gen DeFi protocol tooling.
VC launch book. Alex van Frankenberg releases Das Ehrliche Geld,
The Honest Money, exploring VC transparency and founder psychology.
Of course, you can listen to the interview we had with Alex when he was still
CEO of Germany's Hitech Gründerfonds or HTGF.
Greentech Growth Fund closes €160 million, focused on decommodization scale-ups.
Deep tech news, Proxima Fusion on the Unicorn Path.
They secured €130 million to build the world's first accelerator power plant,
Europe's largest private fusion race.
Note, we have an upcoming interview with them.
You'll see it very likely late summer, early spring. AWS Server and Cloud Amazon
Web Services launches a dedicated European Server and Cloud to meet GDPR.
On the Green Tech News, Circular Economy Mapping, a startup map highlights innovators
across Europe working on a sustainable circular economy solution.
Look it up at starting up.
AI News, Black Forest Labs AI launched a new image generation AI to compete with OpenAI's DALI.
Synflow Voice AI they're building the next generation German voice assistant
signaling a new competition in conversational AI and OpenAI in Germany opened
their first office in Germany in Munich.
Take a deep breath going to the biotech news biotech billion deal bio and tech
inc's multi billion deal licensing and acquisition deal with the US former giant
expanding its oncology pipeline.
Related, their cancer drug antibody-based cancer treatment shows promises of
targeting multiple tumors.
You can read more on public broadcaster SWR.
Kumia Award Swiss MedTech. Kumia
wins 2025 Swiss MedTech Award for Breakthrough and Mainz Biomed Grant.
They secure public funding to develop a next-generation pancreatic
cancer detection of course you can learn more about
them in our interview and somehow the news
that BioNTech bought QOVAC is not
in here with link I'll repair that and Chris
takes over the fintech news yes so
uh yeah before we start keep in mind the massive scalable funding
that we already talked about but more fintech news
get safe has is showing a strategy
shift it's a German insure tech company and
they exit the insurance license model
and are pivoting to white label and
partner based strategies sailors a berlin-based
fintech for seafarers scores an exit after surprise traction founders close
funding and acquisition in the second quarter writes business insider moving
on from fintech to deep tech bosch big company that we've been talking about quite often is...
Didn't you work for them at one point? No.
I applied when I was 19, but they didn't want me.
Okay. Which is totally fine. I'm totally not holding a grudge anymore. 26 years later.
So the company announced a billion euro initiative to deepen AI-driven development
for automotive and manufacturing verticals. The AI Gigafactory sees a gridlock.
Major European tech firms fail to agree on centralized AI chip manufacturing,
undermining the AI Gigafactory ambition of the European Union.
Moving on towards general news. The general news. The German Startup Awards have been handed out.
They celebrate the winners of the 2025 German Startup Awards with a focus on
resilience and originality.
Note, we will have an interview series with the winners of the German Startup
Awards to be published in fall and winter this year.
That is something that will keep us busy during the summer, like we did last
year, giving you an unparalleled chance to pick their head and dive deep into
the minds of these amazing founders and investors.
Forbes 30 under 30, German founders featured in Europe, Forbes 30 under 30,
German unicorn watch startups like Level, Affinity,
Synflow show breakout potential on Germany's next unicorn tracker radar on Deutsche
Startups, AutoOne founder Hakan Koch, teases bold new venture.
He is reportedly in a highly sensitive new venture in the digital mobility space,
planning automotive insurance and B2B fintech in stealth, according to F-A-Z.
The FlixTrain concerns.
Internal business report raises doubt about FlixTrain's long-term growth projections
amid EU expansion ambitions.
And of course, you can always listen to what the former CEO thinks about it
in our interview with them dating a few years back.
Also, flashing posts stagnates. Chris, you remember we had large coverage because
they were rumored to have an exit that was approaching one billion.
Yeah. It turned out it wasn't that much.
And now the German beverage delivery scale up reports flat 2024 revenue despite
market expansion efforts.
There's a revolt at HelloFresh. You notice anything from that in New York?
Uh, no, but I don't see them anymore anyway. I don't know.
Yeah, I get the feeling they scaled back the marketing, right?
Yeah, they came and went a bit, just like the super fast supermarkets.
We've seen so many come and go already, you and I, haven't we?
Yes, exactly. It sounds like a very old couple, right?
Yeah, and it's a bad sign for all the AI companies, because we've seen enough hypes by now.
Going back to the HelloFresh revolt, executives at HelloFresh face shareholder
dissent ahead of the annual general meeting.
Pay packages and culture are at the center, according to Bloomberg.
Bubble changes its CEO, but the speech learning app, the BABBEL,
used as the executive named as new CEO of Bubble, Germany's leading language
learning app, signaling a global push.
And WingCopter Capital Round, drone logistics startup WingCopter,
secures new funding to scale international delivery roads.
As always, they don't publish the valuation. They don't publish the amount.
But you can learn, of course, more in our interview with them.
Isn't that a surprise, Chris?
In Berlin and Paris, Techstars pause or suspense their accelerator programs,
citing changing founder support needs and operational models.
According to TechEU, there is quite some protest going on in respective cities about that.
Reiseland IPO cancelled. Reiseland,
AG, withdraws IPO due to market turbulences and list side lack of international demand.
Also, second attempt of Autodoc to IPO failed one day before the IPO.
Background is that there was not enough demand for the shares in the price range
they offered, but the minority shareholder private equity fund would not go lower.
Also, Kleinanzeigen, what is it, Chris? Classified ads?
Yeah, classified ads, Kleinanzeigen, clones, search.
They used to be a part of eBay and there's a new wave of second-hand marketplaces.
Clones emerge across the Dach region as eBay Kleinanzeigen tightens the policies.
Now to a little bit of creative destruction.
Goya is shut down. Hamburg startup MyRobin collapses in Austria.
Startup Insolvency. Watch at trendingtopics.eu. Medigine is insolvent KFAI shuts
down Handing over to Chris to end on a high note Yes,
more optimistic stuff Zama raises 57 million dollars.
Symbiotic raises 29 million euros, a health tech startup Trava announces a series
A it's working in sustainable energy forecasting,
Affinity The group raises 23 million euros to bring seamless payments to Europe's automotive sector.
Dataplore lends 20.5 million dollars.
They are based in the US and want to expand their AI-powered mapping tools.
SynthFlow AI gets 20 million euros.
It's a voice AI startup enabling smart assistance for customer support in regulated industries.
Ostrom has a Series B of 20 million euros.
It's an energy tech startup and that money allows them to expand their smart
meter platform and enter the French market.
Rewe Group invests $17 million in fulfillment tools, betting on distributed
order management to win global e-commerce. Okay.
Or to gain global e-commerce market share.
Remberg, it's a Munich-based industrial software as a service startup,
raises 15 million euros in a Series A to streamline after-served service workflows.
The space tech startup Okapi Orbit raises 13 million euros to build sustainable
satellite traffic management.
Baobab gets an insurance deal of 12 million euros to scale an embedded insurance
platform across Europe.
Smart Fleet, 12 million euros for a Series A. It's AI-powered fleet management
for electric last-mile logistics.
Klimatic, with a Q in the end, a Berlin-based company, raised 10 million euros
to embed climate impacts going into business intelligence systems.
Colibri has a founder return after 120 million euro Colibri Games exit.
The co-founder now raises 5 million for a new multiplayer game studio.
And no funding, but a comeback we will also include here in the good news column,
Robo, an Austrian ed-tech robot company, Robo Wunderkind.
They relaunched after bankruptcy by pivoting its business model.
So congratulations there.
And I also want to hint for our audience, for our listeners,
SynthFlow AI, the 20 million euro race. Remember, they have been mentioned in
the Sunicon bracket as well.
Guys, there is just a little bit of M&A news. Hornet Security exit.
U.S. cybersecurity firm Proofpoint acquires Germany's Hornet Security.
And OneDock Acquisition Swiss appointment booking platform OneDock acquires
a local competitor to consolidate.
Chris, you want to take the last news, useless knowledge.
I think it's very useful knowledge because in June 2025,
Germany achieved a record surplus in cheese exports, surpassing 1.2 billion
euros for the first time,
a milestone that was attributed to increased demand for specialty cheeses in
international markets, particularly in Asia and the Middle East.
This might seem a niche statistic, but it definitely highlights Germany's unexpected
prowess in the dairy export sector, even amidst broader economic challenges.
And that also allows me to end with a cheese pun, because which cheese do you need to hide a horse?
No idea. The mask a pony.
Awesome. Guys, we do have a lot at the state ahead of the curve,
TED Talks for founders, a lot of fresh startup lists.
And, Chris, I would say that's a month wrap. We will be back with the startup
news on September 1st for our summer wrap up.
And until then, you can expect a weekly dose of StartupBite.io,
mostly from me. Chris, when is your next episode going live?
Oh, inshallah, always be on your toes.
Yes, I'm very confident it will come soon.
Bye. Bye.
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