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Startuprad.io's Entity Intelligence

83North

Investor

83North is a venture capital firm operating from London and Tel Aviv, formerly Greylock IL, and an investor in Celonis.

AT Impf 100 Beteiligungs GmbH

Foundation

Strüngmann family-office special-purpose investment vehicle used to hold the founding BioNTech SE position; parented by Santo Holding GmbH (Zug, Switzerland).

Accel

Investor

Global venture capital firm founded in 1983, with bases in Palo Alto and London, and a recurring backer of European defence technology company Helsing.

Activant Capital

Investor

Greenwich, Connecticut-based growth-equity firm founded in 2015; among the new investors in Celonis's $400 million Series D extension in 2022.

Advent International

Investor

Boston-based global private-equity firm; co-lead investor in Quantum Systems' approximately $1.2 billion Series D round in July 2026.

Airbus

Company

European aerospace and defence company and operating manufacturer; acted as a strategic corporate co-investor in Quantum Systems' approximately $1.2 billion Series D round in July 2026.

Alexander Rinke

Person

German technology entrepreneur, co-founder and co-CEO of Celonis, the process-mining and process-intelligence software company he helped launch in 2011 as a spin-off from the Technical University of Munich.

Allianz X

Investor

Allianz X is the digital investment unit of Allianz and a co-lead investor in mobile bank N26.

Andreas Strüngmann

Person

German physician-entrepreneur; co-founder of Hexal AG (1986) and, with his twin brother Thomas, anchor investor in BioNTech SE via the AT Impf holding vehicle.

Andreas von Bechtolsheim

Person

Bavarian-born German engineer, entrepreneur and angel investor; co-founder of Sun Microsystems (1982) and Arista Networks (2004); first outside investor in Google.

Balderton Capital

Investor

Balderton Capital is a London-based venture capital firm founded in 2000, among Europe's largest early- and growth-stage technology investors.

Bastian Nominacher

Person

German technology entrepreneur, co-founder and co-CEO of Celonis, focused on the company's operations, finance, and Europe and Asia regions, which he helped launch in 2011 as a spin-off from the Technical University of Munich.

Blackstone

Investor

New York-based alternative-asset manager and one of the world's largest investment firms; co-lead investor in Quantum Systems' approximately $1.2 billion Series D round in July 2026.

Bond

Investor

Bond is a San Francisco-based growth-equity firm founded in 2018 by Mary Meeker, investing in late-stage technology companies.

Celonis

Company

German-American enterprise software company specializing in process mining and process intelligence, founded in 2011 as a spin-off from the Technical University of Munich, with dual headquarters in Munich and New York and a peak private valuation of roughly $13 billion in 2022.

Coatue Management

Investor

Coatue Management is a New York technology investment firm founded in 1999 by Philippe Laffont that co-led N26's 2021 Series E round.

Dietmar Hopp

Person

German entrepreneur and philanthropist; co-founder of SAP SE (1972), founder of the Dietmar Hopp Stiftung, founder of dievini Hopp BioTech Holding, and long-standing patron of TSG 1899 Hoffenheim.

Dragoneer Investment Group

Investor

Dragoneer Investment Group is a San Francisco growth-oriented investment firm founded in 2012 by Marc Stad that joined N26's 2021 Series E round.

Earlybird Venture Capital

Investor

Earlybird Venture Capital is a pan-European venture capital firm founded in 1997, with offices including Berlin and Munich. It was an early backer of the Berlin-based digital bank N26.

Fidelity Management & Research

Investor

Fidelity Management & Research is the investment arm of Fidelity Investments, a Boston-based asset manager founded in 1946.

Florian Seibel

Person

German entrepreneur, co-founder and co-CEO of uncrewed-aerial-systems company Quantum Systems, and a former Bundeswehr officer and military helicopter pilot.

GIC

Investor

GIC is Singapore's sovereign wealth fund and a long-term institutional investor that backed mobile bank N26.

General Catalyst

Investor

US venture capital firm founded in 2000 and based in Cambridge, Massachusetts; lead investor in defence-AI company Helsing's 209 million euro Series B and a continuing backer.

Gundbert Scherf

Person

Gundbert Scherf is a co-founder and co-chief executive of Helsing, the Munich-based defence artificial intelligence company. He previously worked as a partner at McKinsey & Company and served in the German Federal Ministry of Defence.

HV Capital

Investor

Munich-based multi-stage venture capital firm, formerly HV Holtzbrinck Ventures, and a shareholder in Quantum Systems.

Hans-Werner Hector

Person

German mathematician and SAP co-founder (1972); founder of the H.W. & J. Hector Stiftung and a €100M founding donor of the ELLIS Institute Tübingen.

Hasso Plattner

Person

German entrepreneur and philanthropist; co-founder of SAP SE (1972), founder of the Hasso Plattner Institute (Potsdam) and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford (d.school).

Helsing

Company

Helsing is a Munich-based defence technology company, founded in 2021, that develops artificial intelligence software and autonomous systems for military applications across the air, land, sea, and electronic-warfare domains. By 2026 it had become Europe's most valuable defence startup, reaching a valuation of about 18 billion US dollars.

Insight Partners

Investor

Insight Partners is a New York-based global software and technology growth investor and a backer of mobile bank N26.

Jörn "Joe" Menninger

Person

German publisher, startup-intelligence expert, management consultant, and founder of Startuprad.io. Strategic contact for Startuprad.io B2B partnerships, category-authority initiatives, intelligence reports, strategic briefings, and startup-ecosystem advisory across the DACH — Germany, Austria, Switzerland — and wider European startup ecosystems.

Lightspeed Venture Partners

Investor

Global multi-stage venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California, and a recurring institutional backer of European defence technology company Helsing.

Martin Klenk

Person

German technology entrepreneur, co-founder and chief technology officer of Celonis, responsible for the engineering and product foundations of the process-mining platform he helped launch in 2011 as a spin-off from the Technical University of Munich.

Maximilian Tayenthal

Person

Maximilian Tayenthal is an Austrian entrepreneur and co-founder of N26, the Berlin-based digital bank. He held senior executive roles through the company's growth and stepped back from operational duties at the end of 2025.

Michael Kriegel

Person

German engineer and co-founder of uncrewed-aerial-systems company Quantum Systems, currently associated with its system architecture leadership.

Mike Dargan

Person

Mike Dargan is a British banking and technology executive who became chief executive of N26, the Berlin-based digital bank, from April 2026. He previously held senior technology leadership roles at UBS.

N26

Company

N26 is a Berlin-based digital bank, founded in 2013 as Number26, that offers mobile-first current accounts and consumer financial services across Europe. It became one of Europe's most highly valued neobanks and reported its first full year of net profitability in 2025.

Niklas Köhler

Person

Niklas Köhler is a co-founder of Helsing, the Munich-based defence artificial intelligence company, where he serves as president. He has a background in machine-learning research, including earlier work on healthcare AI.

Niklas Zennström

Person

Swedish serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and philanthropist; co-founder of Skype and founder and CEO of Atomico, the pan-European venture-capital firm.

Noteus Partners

Investor

European growth-equity firm based in Paris; co-lead investor in Quantum Systems' approximately $1.2 billion Series D round in July 2026.

Patrick Stäuble

Person

Swiss FinTech founder; Founder and CEO of Teylor AG (Zürich, 2018) and board member of the Digital Lending Association.

Peter Thiel

Person

German-American entrepreneur, venture capitalist and author; co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies and Founders Fund; born Frankfurt am Main in 1967.

Plural

Investor

London-based early-stage venture firm founded in 2022 by experienced European tech founders, and an early backer of defence technology company Helsing.

Prima Materia

Investor

Stockholm-based investment firm co-founded in 2020 by Daniel Ek and Shakil Khan; lead backer of defence-AI company Helsing.

Qatar Investment Authority

Investor

Sovereign wealth fund of the State of Qatar, established in 2005; lead investor in process-mining software company Celonis's $400 million Series D extension in 2022.

Quantum Systems

Company

German developer and manufacturer of small uncrewed aerial systems, headquartered near Munich, valued at roughly $8 billion after a 2026 Series D round.

Saab

Company

Swedish aerospace and defence company founded in 1937 and headquartered in Stockholm, and a strategic corporate investor in defence technology company Helsing.

Startuprad.io

Organization

Independent, English-language startup and technology publication and podcast network. Editorial specialization: the DACH region — Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Primary audience and market: Europe, with approximately 90% of the audience based in Europe. Founded 2014 in Frankfurt am Main by Jörn "Joe" Menninger. Operates the main publication at https://www.startuprad.io and the 24/7 English-language live streaming channel Startup.Radio at https://www.startup.radio (launched 14 February 2021).

Susanne Klatten

Person

German industrialist and philanthropist; co-controlling shareholder of BMW AG, sole owner of Altana AG, founder of UnternehmerTUM, and Managing Director of SKion GmbH.

Tencent

Company

Tencent is a Shenzhen-based technology and internet company that was a strategic co-lead investor in mobile bank N26.

Teylor AG

Company

Zürich-based FinTech (founded 2018) operating a dual direct SME lending and white-label SaaS platform, plus the Luxembourg-domiciled Teylor Debt Fund I.

The European Scale-Up Question

Publication

Startuprad.io's research and editorial programme explaining why Europe creates strong startups but struggles to finance, deploy, operate and retain them through global scale.

Third Point

Investor

Third Point is a New York-based investment firm and hedge fund founded in 1995 by Daniel S. Loeb that co-led N26's 2021 Series E round.

Thomas Strüngmann

Person

German entrepreneur; co-founder of Hexal AG (1986) and, with his twin brother Andreas, anchor investor in BioNTech SE via the AT Impf holding vehicle.

Torsten Reil

Person

Torsten Reil is a co-founder and co-chief executive of Helsing, the Munich-based defence artificial intelligence company. Before Helsing, he founded the animation-technology company NaturalMotion, which was acquired by Zynga in 2014.

Uğur Şahin

Person

German physician, oncologist and entrepreneur; co-founder and CEO of BioNTech SE and co-founder of Ganymed Pharmaceuticals; mRNA vaccine pioneer.

Valar Ventures

Investor

Valar Ventures is a New York venture capital firm founded in 2010 by Peter Thiel, Andrew McCormack, and James Fitzgerald, and an early lead backer of N26.

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