Welcome to Startupradio rad dot io,
your podcast and YouTube blog covering the German
Startupradio with news, interviews, and
live events. Hello,
and welcome, everybody. This is Joe from start up rate dot aero, your Startupradio
podcast and YouTube blog from Germany, bringing you to
all the May 2024 news wrap up this
month in GSA startups. Of course, again, with Chris in New York. Hey.
How you doing, man? Hey. Yeah. I'm doing fine. It's, the
first day of, like, really warm weather, it feels. So we had, like,
85 degrees, 30 degree 30 degrees Celsius. So getting ready
for summer here. Uh-oh. We did here in
Germany have a lot of problems with heavy rainfall,
especially in Saarland where, where a lot of,
where a lot of damage was done by, little
creeks that became huge rivers because, due
to a lot of rainfall in in a very,
very short amount of time. That said, welcome to our
May 2024 wrap up with vital news from
the start up and tech entrepreneurship scene in Germany,
Austria, and Switzerland. This time, we likely not
make it in 30 minutes or less, but we'll nonetheless try.
Our Startupradio is recorded with Chris back in New York City, and
I'm in Frankfurt. Today is May 16th.
Due to wood Monday and travel plans, we had to move our
schedule a little bit around. But as always, all news
relevant not yet included will be part of our next news
wrap up. Our schedule. We
will have another news episode coming up on June 27th.
Then we will be back with a summer wrap up published
on Labor Day, September 2nd. We already
know, when we will record this in August.
In between, we'll have a bit lighter summer program but we're
not sure yet how it will look. We do have a lot
of requests. So we may do more publications
than every other week, like we have done in the
past for July August. So there were no
weekly publication, but every other week. And we started
again with the StartupRadio on Labor Day.
Chris, you always seem to be a highlights guy.
Yeah. And this month around, it's actually is or
fits like a highlight section because
when we did the research, it turned out that the
StartupRadio scene in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria is actually in a pretty
good mood and state of mind, and they seem to be really roaring
back. So we see more large investments. We also see
more signs of life in very early stage investments. So
give looking at the rest of the episode, I would say pour yourself your favorite
drink, get a snack, because this will be a lot of
positive news this time around and a bit longer than normal. And it can also
be an adult beverage. Adult. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Of
course. Day drinking for the win. So for this,
news wrap up alone, we found new VC funds raised
more than 7,500,000,000 US dollars.
One of the top news we're gonna look into is, Germany really being at a
crossroads with, pioneering air taxi
Startupradio. One category that we look into here quite often,
Lilium and Volocopter in that case. Domestic debate
over those, companies
are a lot about state support, and, Germany is
questioning whether they should subsidize these companies.
But France is stepping in, and they extend
a welcoming hand with offers of subsidies and guarantees.
Lilium is in advanced talks with the French government,
and, we will have a bit of a look, there. Yes.
Amazon's bought 7.8
€1,000,000,000 investment in Brandenburg to develop a
purely European cloud storage
infrastructure, underscores its unwavering commitment
to data sovereignty even amidst leadership
changes at AWS. We may add that Brandenburg
is the is the state surrounding Berlin.
Meanwhile, Wefox, once a beacon of insurtech innovation,
faces valuation setbacks amid growth challenges.
At on a brighter note, the fight against Alzheimer's
get a substantial boost at Takeda Partners,
with Swiss firm AC Immune in a
deal potentially exceeding 2,000,000,000
US dollars despite significant q one
losses and a dip in stock valuation, bio
and tech remains resolute advancing its
oncology pipeline and preparing for a renewed push in COVID
vaccine demand later this year. Guys,
let's talk startups. As always,
Eos strongly recommended to tune into our Internet radio station,
which will also soon get a new, website.
More than a 100000 people are listening,
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This recording was made possible by HTI and the Enterprise
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Look for our dedicated sub podcast in partnership with them
called Tech Startups Germany. Of course, you could find it on our
Linktree. Chris, you wanna handle
some of the top news? Yes. And there I mean, we started I
started talking about it a bit already. We see,
pretty lengthy and intense discussion about the topic of
air taxis. So in
Germany, especially in southern Germany, Bavarian, but in Wurttemberg,
politicians really wonder how much they should subsidize, this
industry, specifically companies like
Lilium and Volocopter, while at the same time,
France seems to be extending a bit of a warmer hand in terms of subsidies
and guarantees. Especially Lilium seems to be in
advanced talks with the French government for expansion plans and
potential financial aid even though,
the possible involvement at the Olympic Games in Paris where
they were discussing about flight taxis
was a bit trimmed down.
We have a lot of additional resources
about this in our show notes where, we
will talk where you can read more about Volocopter at the Olympics,
where you can read more about how Volocopter threatens to
move the company from Germany to a foreign country,
where you can see that China and the US are actually doing better than Germany
right now. And, yeah. So
the big question about all of this, I guess, is how big
can this actually be? I think
compared to 3, 4, 5 years ago, the
mood in the market also kind of shifted for this. And the question
because also we see that a lot of especially the autonomous
driving topics are toned down. Like, Apple nixed their plan for
a car. Daimler Daimler said that they are not gonna
pursue anymore an autonomously driven truck for
now. So yeah. And and a lot of the,
innovation and Startupradio novelties in the
transportation field seem to be a bit
on the, like, waning side, I would say. So we will see
how it goes with the air
taxi and aviation
companies. Moving on from that,
Amazon, as you already hinted at, is going to invest more than €7,500,000,000
in Brandenburg, specifically their
cloud division, who which wants to invest €7,800,000,000,
in order to establish a a purely European to
establish purely European storage capacities.
Even though their current chief, AWS, even though their
current chief departed, AWS remains committed to building a sovereign,
European cloud. Wefox valuation took a
hit. The investor devalued the stake in,
Wefox. Once, Wefox was hailed as a revolutionize
as a revolutionary insurance, but now,
they feel some of the woes amid growth
challenges. I feel a lot of this today is, like,
badly bad for a German. We, fucks, revolution.
Anyway, then, the Swiss firm AC gets a
100,000,000 and up to 2,000,000,000 US dollars to fight Alzheimer's
disease, which is really big news in Alzheimer's research. It's
a Japanese company, Takeda, that teams up with the Swiss firm,
AC Immune, in a $1,000,000,000 deal to tackle the disease.
The upfront payment is a $100,000,000, and the potential for the deal is to
soar between $2,000,000,000. More about that in the show
notes. And, now you also got more information about in
about the health sector. You know what's really crazy about
this? If you see the 2,000,000,000, actually 100,000,000
US dollar looks like a small sum, but
it isn't. Far from it. Talking about bio
and tech. Bio and tech advances cancer drug development,
amid 380,000,000 loss. Facing
significant research costs and a decline in revenues from the COVID
area, BioNTech founders began this year with loss.
Despite this, BioNTech remains committed to its annual
objectives or bite with the stock under pressure. The
shattered COVID 19 business and increased research
costs led the Mindspace Biotech Company to incur a
loss in the Q1, which was 315,000,000
compared with a profit of over 400,000,000
in a year ago. Tech stock is down. But
nonetheless, they are looking to generate around
90% of its annual revenue in the final months of
2024 due to the seasonal demand for COVID
vaccines. Their research costs surge by
50%, but, you don't need to
fear, when they have more than 300,000,000
loss, they're sitting on a 16 1,000,000,000. Yes.
Billion with a b financial caution. So everything
should be great. By the way, our new
website is live. It took me quite a lot of time and work, but
nonetheless, it is there. Stop by and leave us feedback.
The little disclaimer, not all blog posts are moved there yet,
but we will do this in the future. Plus not all the plays
for the sub podcasts works, work that
is due to, some restrictions of
the, toolbox we're using
to, put together the website. Nonetheless, we'll find a solution
for that as well. If you're looking to partner with us, you see
you will find our storefront at passionfruit.meforward/startupradio,
Joe word. And now I'm handing over to the
ecosystem to Chris again. Yes. And in the
ecosystem, it's basically where we zoom in
in our show, regarding
information and news that affect the wider
Startupradio landscape. So let's start on a global level,
where we see a likely good sign for all VC investors globally. Japan's
Japan's SoftBank Group reports a quarterly profit turnaround,
signaling resilience in the face of challenges. Despite
investment loss, the tech investor remains pivotal in the German Startupradio
as well. More about that in the show notes.
Zooming in on Europe where we see that government funding emerged as a
major player in European VC funding in 2023, doubling
its share over the previous year. Amid geopolitical tensions,
Europe strengthens its tech sovereignty with sizable investments in
AI, quantum and biotech, and in climate tech.
And we've got some insights from PitchBook's q 1 2024
European venture report that revealed a mixed q one with robust
deal activity and some fundraising resilience. Early stage
dominance persist, but exits showed some
weakness. In the German StartupRadio ecosystem, we
see that in April, despite the prevailing investment turn down, we
witnessed 12 double digit or triple digit $1,000,000 investments
in the country, totaling around €440,000,000.
Among them are ventures like Flink, Palua,
Mark Pilot, Smart Reporting, Finmit, and Proxima
Fusion. Despite several ongoing crises, numerous StartupRadio, scale
ups, and grown ups managed to secure substantial funding
from well known entities to under the radar gems. We got a
couple of the recent top funding runs rounds in the show
notes. Then German startups also expect more from the EU,
like unified funding, better access to venture capital, and a true
single market. We see that European Digital
Associations unite to call for a reboot of the EU StartupRadio
policy. Background for that also in the show notes.
And we got good news from Germany. We often look at it, the e for
business climate index, basically a
survey, a regular survey among business leaders.
It rose to 89.4 points in April,
marking the 3rd consecutive increase. Sentiment is up as
companies express satisfaction with the current business and brighter expectations.
German BC sentiment also shows signs of recovery
in, q 1 2024 bouncing back from q from a q
4 slump of the past year. Business
expectations and IPO climate warming,
but entry IPO business expectation in the IPO
climate are warming, but entry valuation satisfaction
nosedives. Europe's quantum
startups are thriving amidst global challenges in the quantum computing
race. They attracted €336,000,000
in investments in 2023, which is,
an increase of 47%. And we got news from
Bundest minister Robert Harbeck, economy,
secretary for for the, for business
and, for the economy. The StartupRadio advisory
board gets a makeover with a smaller and more flexible format called the
startup circle. More about that approach
is in the show notes. And,
we got a report that looks at the German workforce
that says more than half of all overtime hours in Germany in
the past year were unpaid. All of that, obviously,
a sig a concerning trend in work life balance.
Employees altogether locked a staggering 1,300,000,000
extra hours out of which 775,000,000
went without pay apparently. And, we
have a study about where about StartupRadio founders
and the, the people that get to, start
startups in Germany from the Berthoud Mann Foundation, and they
found out that 6 in 10 founders come from,
academic households. So, are not first
generation college kids. And
that, obviously, this level of education is also shaping the
entrepreneurial journey, and, parental
background influences not only their networks, but
also their mindsets, says the study.
We have the full study in the show notes and also some coverage from Zeatrutch
exciting about that. After this look at the
whole ecosystem, we are now gonna look at some of
the biggest German Startupradio hubs. And since we're starting
with Frankfurt, I'll hand it over back to you.
Thank you very much. Of course, we tend to highlight here some hidden
gems and cities of general start up interest. We start with my Joe
turf Frankfurt, Rhein Main. Taylor acquires Credit Shelf in a
quest to dominate your to dominate European
Menninger. We do have an interview with Credit Shelf where
they announced a 100,000,000 investment led by Goldman Sachs. Unfortunately,
that never came true because they, they had problems with an existing
investor chipping in the first loss piece. And that's why
they went almost belly up and got rescued by
be acquired by Taylor. Evuka, with the German headquarter
in Frankfurt, secures £270,000,000 in debt
funding to bolster SME Menninger supported by Citibank and
Insight Investment. The lender responds to
rising demand from small businesses. Of course, read more in our
show notes. Beautiful city of Heidelberg.
Discover over 20 startups from Heidelberg that are making waves from
AI powerhouse, Alabalfa, to rising stars like
Pareto's, Fresh Taste, and in Stavord, the
city's buzzing with innovation. Check out the full list in the show notes.
Aachen's SILEB, a sustainable
battery recycling firm, just secured 55,000,000 in
series a funding led by World Fund and Porsche
Ventures with support from Bosch Ventures and
more. Essen, German vertical
farming StartupRadio Greens,
small v, big g, secures a
coveted spot among the top 500 food tech companies
worldwide for 2023. Their innovative use of AI
technology in food production earns them this recognition.
And I thought vertical farming was dead. I'm surprised.
And Chris is almost in his home turf in a town
I've never heard from again. Chris, can can you help me out where this
city is and why it's so beautiful? I was fighting to take this over. So
we are looking, I I think, for the first time ever, obviously, at Neustadt am
Coche. Neustadt am Coche is a small town close to
Heilbron, close to Stuttgart, and I actually have friends
there who run one of the most charming coworking and event
spaces. So if you ever need an event space in
Neustadt am Kocha, be sure to check out Atelier Fox.
But what we are, also looking at today
is that there is another company there that's writing headlines,
and, to be more precise, they are breaking ground in space tech.
It's called High Impulse, high h
y impulse. And they launched a rocket powered by
Candle wax hybrid propulsion.
Propulsion. Oh god. I could never be an engineer because I
can't say the words. Marking a milestone for private space ventures.
100 Splat German Business and Economics Newspaper wrote a lot about
this. That's it about Germany, though. Let's look at
Austria, my specialty. Fiskars Austria filed for
insolvency, marking the largest insolvency case in
Styria in Der Steiermark, which with €1,340,000,000,
they have a restructuring process underway following the opening of
proceedings at the regional court in Graz.
Then CEO, Obling, completed a 100% founder
buyout of the Vienna based Introtech Finabro Finabro?
Fin a bro? Maybe it's for people who go to the
gym. It's Finabro. After recent setbacks, including
insolvency rumors, Finabro resurfaced with a fresh start
in Germany. And,
Joe in onto Switzerland, we have a news alert. The Swiss
StartupRadio scene continues to thrive with innovation and growth,
despite the size says tech EU. Despite its size,
Switzerland ranks 6th globally in total funds raised by
tech companies showcasing, what is a pretty remarkable
potential. In 2023 alone, the Swiss Tech Venture secured
€2,800,000,000, pretty whooping,
highlighting the nation's prowess in the entrepreneurial landscape.
Switzerland with a GDP ranking of 21 worldwide
manages to punch above its weight in the StartupRadio arena in
that case. The, Tech
EU article also looks into the details why that is
the case. One, reason for it is that
the government and private sector collaborations have been instrumental in
nurturing the ecosystem there. Then there are tax incentives to funding
up to fund opportunities, accelerator programs, and overall,
just like a very, supportive environment for start ups.
We will have some more, fundraisers
for Austrian and Swiss companies in the end, but for now, we will move on
to the general news tech news and company news section.
1st off, there are new funds in case any of you guys is
looking for money. This is also only a
selection. Let me rattle some of them.
The general catalyst reportedly raises
nearly €6,000,000,000 for tech Startupradio, signaling a robust
investor confidence. Funds are going to be invested across
various sectors including Fintech and health care, right, the Financial
Times. XL, ACCEL, announced a
new 602,000,000 euro fund to support
early stage funders in Europe and Israel. They
already have a 24 year old 24 year presence in
Europe and continue to back, tech companies.
Their news from Innovacapital, their latest fund, Innovac7,
has closed 407,000,000 exceeding
its target and hard cap. They are focused on
business and financial services, industrials, and consumer and lifestyle
sectors and are backed by institutional and commercial support.
Norskine VC just closed its 2nd fund at €320,000,000,
doubling down on impact entrepreneurs tackling the world's greatest problems
and backed by some of Europe's top investors like folks on AP 1 and
EIF. And not really a new fund, but, this is
just like the best place for our start up news to talk about it. The
global founders' capital linked with Rocket Internet opts for a strategic
shift now. Instead of a new fund, they'll invest solely from Rocket.
Internet's coffers, with €300,000,000 to deploy
their poised for focused early stage ventures
that they say. Moving on, handing it back to
you. Going into the Fintech news, 2
times Austria this time, 2 times a Bitpanda. Number 1
is, they expand into MENA,
Middle East and North Africa with a new office in Dubai focusing
on b to b solutions. And Bitpanda news
number 2 on a as of April 25th, Bitpanda has become
the broker with largest crypto offering in Europe boasting 411
currencies and over 4,500,000 users across nearly
30 countries. French Techstra
giant, United, odds new loan
operations in Germany shifting focus more to profit
profitable markets despite a 4 year presence
citing lower profitability potential and intense
competition. Chris, you wanna hand over, you wanna take over
general news again? Yeah. Let's look at a couple of more companies.
Starting with Munich's Hollydo, just
like holiday, but with a u instead of a y in the
end. They made a major move acquiring Madrid's mad
Madrid's Club Rural to, enhance
their rural vacation rentals in Spain and Portugal. They now claim to have
28,000 homes in their portfolio. So basically,
chain changing probably or probably changing a lot of travel experiences
there. We see big changes at Zalando as their cofounder
David Schneider steps down as Joe CEO to focus on strategic
partnerships and brand relationships. David Schroder, so
it's like a change of the Davids there. David steps up as a
new co CEO.
And, yeah, that's what what
we have about Zalando. Formerly known as Pozhalot and
make Essence Delivery serve as rebrands as GreenClub,
looking into fresh, healthy, and sustainable offerings. They have a
€12,000,000 in revenue projected for
2024 and expansion plans across Germany.
Good luck for that. The food saving StartupRadio from
Berlin, or surplus
is back in action. Founder, Rafael Fehmer, secured brand rights domain and
online shop and social media accounts with support from investors
and wants to fight food waste. Despite some
initial setbacks, the Eastern German robotics prodigy, Wandelbots,
is looking for a comeback. Cofounder Christian Pichnik unveiled
unveiled a radical business model pivot and a strategic AI
partnership with OpenAI. High stakes move,
More information about that in the show notes. We have
some more news about top fertility Startupradio catching investors'
eyes. VCs from Zofinova, Antler, and Ananda
Impact Ventures revealed their pick at, Sift.
EU. 1 in 6 1 in 6 people affected by
globally. So they are hoping that their
solutions will become crucial in that medical field.
Zuma Equity acquires a majority stake in the Munich based
FastLTA, a leader in secure data storage solution for businesses.
Fast LTA has €25,000,000 revenue in 2023
and wants to grow and expand internationally.
Then, Germany has revoked Mastodon's
non profit status despite an an an unchanged
service. The founder says, though, he remains undeterred
and is confirming the
commitment to EU operations. Then,
the founders of Jimdo, after 17 years,
regained a 100% ownership of their StartupRadio and
cofounder steered the company through tough times, now profitable, and
are focused on product. Excellent. That what they say that's what they say.
We have freed you off in our interview from September
2023. You can find that in our medium channel. Link to
that is in the show notes. And the English investor, Star Capital, takes
over Nextbike, a bike sharing provider from Tia,
which for them signals a strategic shift emphasizing TIER's focus on
direct to customer services. But we also have
some more, like, brutal
changes, which we collect under
the euphemism of creative destruction. Yes. We
do. Creative destruction. But, Chris, I get the feeling the fundraising section
gets bigger and bigger, and the creative destruction,
section gets smaller and smaller, just at least the feeling.
Sad news for the v arvo, Munich based holo ride fights for
insolvency. StartupRadio Eeloop, known for Tesla
car sharing and vehicle tokenization, faces a setback as it
halts car sharing operations due to high costs and financing burdens.
The closure is part of a restructuring process. Chris, you want to take
over the high note and the fundraisings? There was not a lot of lot of
destruction, actually. So, yeah, fundraisings.
Just another small selection. I'm gonna really be fast with this.
The news here and their total value show how resilient the StartupRadio in
GSA is. We've only included a
selected number of fundraisings about €5,000,000 or US dollars.
Let's start. Berlin based Startupradio, secures
€62,000,000 in funding led by Ultimeta Capital.
Some of the investors include football legend, Bastian Schweinsteiger,
and Palua aims to revolutionize call centers with an AI
powered voice intelligence. Munich based biotech startup in
Sempra got €19,000,000 for an innovative
for their biodegradable materials led by EQT Ventures. The
series a round also seized investments from Bion Capital,
the investment arm of Henkel, and Valley investor Allantecapitor.
In industrial biotechnology, in Sempra, secure
oh, sorry. That's, that's the same. Trava, a
leading provider of AI driven energy solutions, just secured
€10,000,000 in seed funding led by Baldaton Capital.
They plan to expand their eye tech and solutions,
to drive renewable energy forward. And I promise we will
have a look at some more from Switzerland where
MIMO Therapeutics raises 20,000,000 Swiss
francs in a series c extension, totaling now
45,000,000 Swiss francs. The funding will accelerate clinical
advancement of anti BKV, a
promising treatment for BK virus infection in
kidney transplants patients. GlaxoSmith
Klein joins Bioversus in a series c extension run
furthering their collaboration to advance IP
Bacteria for, tuberculosis treatment.
With a 12,300,000 investment, the total proceeds
now reach around 45,000,000
Swiss francs. Anapaya enters a growth phase
with 10,000,000 Swiss francs in investment to bolster their business
critical services using, Xi'an Internet arch
architecture. Funding they receive comes from
Cape Capital, Najee Mustafa, 6,
and Misten Labs. And Appiah wants to use the money
for global expansion as well. Test Maid Health
announced $6,000,000 in seed funding,
led by led by RH Capital
with support from the helm, Zurcher Kantonalbank, M.
Boy Street Ventures, Liechsteiner Foundation, and
Dart Labs dot Joe.
Their goal at Testmate Health is to
improve at home testings testing for,
STIs. And in Austria, we see
that Vienna's Inspire AI just secured
€25,500,000 in series b led by
Zook Capital. They also are looking at
a global expansion. More about their journey
is also in our show notes. We have some
more news to stay ahead of the curve. You can
read all about that in the show notes. We are always looking for feedback.
We are happy if you follow us everywhere. If you leave us a review,
hit that subscribe button. That's always good for our numbers.
I'm gonna say we will be back on June 27th as promised by Joe as
well with the news next news episodes and the next regular episode.
Will go live next week.
Until then, I would say have a happy
early weeks of summer. I think getting out
there is really a good mood enhancer. Don't work too
hard on your startups. And if you do, just look for how to get how
to make the money. It's my advice. And,
Chris, you know what? It wasn't too bad. We were afraid that we
would talk around 50 minutes. We it will be
just shy of 35 minutes, which isn't too bad.
Chris, it was as always a pleasure talking to you.
And, I didn't hear sirens, so you owe me a
bagel for today. I that's good. Yeah. I hit a lot of
I muted myself a lot because outside there's construction and I have
the AC is on. So, I kind of
cheated today. As always, guys, give us
feedback in the blog post. There is a form for the feedback
and, of course, a link to the host on LinkedIn and on Twitter for
Chris and for me. Guys, that's a wrap. Thank you very much. It
was a pleasure having you here. Ciao for now.
That's all, folks. Find more news, streams,
events, at interviews at www.startuprad.
Joe. Remember, sharing is caring.