Startuprad.io's Entity Intelligence

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

9am.works, run by Berlin-based 9am GmbH, is a freelancer platform positioning itself as an operating system for independent work: an AI profile, a freelancer CRM, a job aggregator and an academy, plus company-side tools for contracting and centrally paying freelancers. Founded 2021 by Marc Clemens.

Strüngmann family-office special-purpose investment holding vehicle used to hold the founding stake in BioNTech SE; deployed the approximately 150 million euro 2008 seed capital that Andreas and Thomas Strüngmann provided to BioNTech and remained the single largest external BioNTech shareholder through the 2019 NASDAQ IPO and the 2021 market-capitalisation peak.

AUTO1 Group SE is a Berlin-headquartered digital automotive platform founded in 2012 by Christian Bertermann and Hakan Koç that buys, sells and finances used cars across Europe through the brands wirkaufendeinauto.de, AUTO1.com and Autohero. The company has been listed in the Prime Standard segment of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange since 4 February 2021 and is a member of the MDAX mid-cap index. It reported revenue of EUR 8.2 billion and 842,000 cars sold in 2025.

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

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

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

Munich-headquartered robotics company founded in 2018 by Peter Meusel and Zhaopeng Chen out of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), combining force-torque-sensitive robot arms with computer vision. Became Germany's first robotics unicorn via a USD 220 million SoftBank-led Series C in 2021 and has since expanded by acquisition.

Aglae is the technology investment arm of the Arnault family, headquartered in Paris, that invests in growth-stage technology companies globally on a long-horizon basis.

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.

Aleph Alpha GmbH is a Heidelberg-headquartered artificial-intelligence company founded in 2019 by Jonas Andrulis and Samuel Weinbach that, after exiting frontier foundation-model competition in 2024, builds PhariaAI, a sovereign enterprise AI operating system for European enterprises and public institutions.

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

German physician-entrepreneur (b. 1950); co-founder of Hexal AG (sold to Novartis in 2005 for approximately 5.65 billion euros) and, with his twin brother Thomas Strüngmann, anchor investor behind BioNTech SE from 2008 onwards via the AT Impf holding vehicle.

Bavarian-born German engineer, co-founder of Sun Microsystems (1982) and Arista Networks (2004), first outside investor in Google (August 1998), and one of Silicon Valley's most active hardware and infrastructure angel investors.

German entrepreneur; co-founder and CEO of Flix SE, the Munich-based mobility unicorn behind FlixBus and FlixTrain.

Portuguese-German systems biologist and chronobiology researcher; Professor of Systems Medicine at MSH Medical School Hamburg and scientific founder of TimeTeller GmbH, a body-clock diagnostics spin-off.

Ante Spittler is co-founder and CEO of Moss, a Berlin-based FinTech providing finance automation for European SMEs. A former investor turned operator, he leads a company that has raised approximately $180 million to date.

London-headquartered European venture-capital firm founded in 2006 by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström, investing at Series A through pre-IPO in European technology companies. Publisher of the annual State of European Tech report and, in September 2024, closed its largest ever fundraise of USD 1.24 billion across Atomico Venture VI (USD 485 million) and Atomico Growth VI (USD 754 million). Notable portfolio companies include Klarna, Supercell, Stripe, Pipedrive, DeepL and Aiven.

Impact-investment platform reported to be associated with the Goldbeck family office (Bielefeld area, Germany); investor in Aachen second-life battery-storage company Voltfang's June 2025 EUR 15 million Series B round.

Baillie Gifford is an independent Scottish asset management partnership founded in 1908 by Augustus Baillie and Carlyle Gifford, headquartered in Edinburgh, that manages long-term active equity strategies for institutional and private clients globally.

Bain Capital is a US alternative asset management firm founded in 1984 as a spin-off from the consulting firm Bain & Company, headquartered in Boston, that invests across private equity, credit, public equity, venture capital, real estate, life sciences and other alternative strategies.

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

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.

Ben Kohz is a Germany-based professional whose public profile is centred on co-head of product, fintiba gmbh, in the field of financial technology — banking and administrative services for international students in germany.

Berlin Brands Group is a Berlin direct-to-consumer e-commerce holding founded in 2005 as Chal-Tec by Peter Chaljawski, known for Klarstein, auna and blumfeldt. It became a unicorn in 2021, and HPS Investment Partners took sole control in a change of control cleared in March 2024.

Binance is the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by spot trading volume, founded in July 2017 by Changpeng Zhao (CZ) and Yi He. As of 2025 it reports more than 300 million registered users and roughly 38 percent of global spot market share (both company-reported). CZ stepped down as CEO in November 2023 as part of a US settlement. In the DACH region Binance never held a full BaFin licence: it withdrew its 2023 BaFin application and, per Startuprad.io reporting on June 2026 news, subsequently exited spot trading across the European Economic Area under MiCA enforcement.

BioNTech SE is a Mainz-headquartered biopharmaceutical company founded in 2008 as a spin-out of the Mainz University Medical Center, listed on Nasdaq since October 2019, that develops mRNA-based and immunotherapeutic medicines with a current focus on oncology.

Bitpanda GmbH is a Vienna-headquartered Austrian retail investment platform founded in 2014 by Eric Demuth, Paul Klanschek and Christian Trummer that gives European retail customers app-based access to cryptocurrencies, fractional shares, exchange-traded funds and precious metals. It supplies the same regulated trading, custody and settlement infrastructure to banks and financial institutions through Bitpanda Technology Solutions. In March 2021 Bitpanda became the first Austrian company to be valued above one billion US dollars, and in January 2025 it became the first large European crypto platform to hold a licence under the EU Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation.

Black Forest Labs is a German generative-artificial-intelligence company founded in 2024 by former members of the Stability AI research team, including Robin Rombach, Andreas Blattmann and Dominik Lorenz, that develops the FLUX family of text-to-image models and the Kontext image-editing model.

BlackRock is a US asset management firm founded in 1988, headquartered in New York, that is the largest asset manager in the world by assets under management and provides investment management, risk management and financial advisory services to institutional and retail clients globally.

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.

Privately held US financial technology, data, media and information services company headquartered in New York City, founded in 1981 by Michael Bloomberg (with co-founders Thomas Secunda, Duncan MacMillan and Charles Zegar); operator of the Bloomberg Terminal, the wire and multimedia news service Bloomberg News, and the Bloomberg Businessweek publication; distinct as a corporate entity from Michael Bloomberg the individual.

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

BaFin (Bundesanstalt fuer Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht) is the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, established on 1 May 2002 with headquarters in Bonn and a second office in Frankfurt am Main, and is the integrated national supervisor for banking, insurance, securities and asset management in Germany.

COMPREDICT is a Darmstadt deep-tech company that builds AI-based Virtual Sensors for vehicles, turning signals a car already produces into measurements that would otherwise need extra hardware. Founded in 2016 as a TU Darmstadt spin-off, it supplies carmakers and Tier 1 suppliers.

CONTENTshift is an annual accelerator programme for startups in the content, book and publishing industry, launched in 2016 as an initiative of the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels and today run from Stuttgart by the association's Baden-Württemberg regional branch.

CYNORA was a German deep-tech OLED emitter developer headquartered in Bruchsal near Karlsruhe. A spinoff associated with Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), it developed thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) OLED emitter materials — notably cyBlueBooster and cyUltimateGreen — targeting more efficient blue and green OLED displays. Samsung Display acquired CYNORA's intellectual property in a transaction announced in June 2022 for a reported ~USD 300 million; the company's roughly 120 employees were terminated at the transaction.

Cansativa is a medical-cannabis wholesaler, importer and distributor based in Moerfelden-Walldorf near Frankfurt Airport, founded in 2017 by Benedikt and Jakob Sons. It supplies German pharmacies and holds the distribution mandate for the BfArM cannabis agency's domestically grown cannabis.

Canyon Partners is a US alternative investment management firm co-founded in 1990 by Josh Friedman and Mitchell Julis and headquartered in Los Angeles, specialising in credit and event-driven strategies including distressed debt, structured finance and growth equity.

Carsten Kraus is a German serial founder and AI and data-science entrepreneur, best known for founding the data-quality company Omikron, the e-commerce search company FACT-Finder, and the video-AI startup Casablanca.ai.

Casablanca.ai is a Pforzheim deep-tech company whose AI software restores natural eye contact in video calls without extra hardware, founded in 2020 by Carsten Kraus with Markus Vollmer and Ivan Alles. Casablanca.AI GmbH filed for insolvency at Amtsgericht Pforzheim in October 2025.

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.

Cherry Ventures is a Berlin-headquartered venture-capital firm focused on European early-stage technology investments, with a portfolio spanning FinTech, marketplaces, health, and enterprise software.

Co-founder and CEO of Trade Republic, the Berlin-based mobile neobroker and bank, one of the most highly valued fintech companies in the German-speaking region.

Co-founder of CLARK, the Frankfurt-based digital insurance broker (insurtech); the company's CEO from 2015 to 2024 and now Chairman of its Supervisory Board.

CLARK Germany GmbH is a Frankfurt am Main-headquartered German insurtech company founded in 2015 that operates a digital insurance manager and licensed insurance brokerage. Through the Clark app, retail customers consolidate, compare and manage their insurance policies in one place, with Clark acting as the broker of record. The integration of the finanzen Group, agreed with Allianz X in November 2021, made Clark one of the largest insurtech groups in Europe.

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

Codoflow is a German SaaS platform for collaborative data-architecture management, operated by Codoflow GmbH in Aschheim near Munich and represented by founder and managing director Stefan Opitz. It targets small and mid-sized enterprises and consultancies rather than large-enterprise architecture teams.

Creandum is a European venture capital firm founded in 2003, headquartered in Stockholm with additional offices in Berlin, London and San Francisco, that invests in early-stage European technology companies.

DEEP Ecosystems is a Berlin-based network organisation and knowledge platform for startup-ecosystem builders worldwide, publishing research, running events, and connecting the practitioners who develop the ecosystems around startup hubs.

General Partner and Co-Head of Portage Capital Solutions, the late-stage fintech strategy of investment firm Portage; leads growth-, structured-equity and special-situations investments in financial technology and financial services.

German entrepreneur and co-founder and CEO of Choco, the Berlin-based B2B food-supply-chain software company whose AI-powered ordering platform reached unicorn status in 2022.

German computer scientist and entrepreneur; co-founder and Chief Information Officer of Flix, the Munich-headquartered European mobility company operating FlixBus and FlixTrain.

Paris-based European venture-capital firm; investor in Aachen second-life battery-storage company Voltfang's June 2025 EUR 15 million Series B round.

German entrepreneur and co-founder and CEO of Sennder, the Berlin-based digital road-freight forwarder that became one of Europe's largest full-truck-load logistics platforms and reached unicorn status in 2021.

David Schneider is a Germany-based professional whose public profile is centred on co-founder and management board member, zalando se, in the field of e-commerce — fashion, beauty and lifestyle in europe.

Cologne-based language-AI company, evolved out of the bilingual dictionary Linguee and launched as DeepL Translator in August 2017. Led by Jaroslaw Kutylowski, it has pivoted into enterprise software with DeepL Pro, Write, Voice and Agent, and announced a USD 300 million round at a USD 2 billion valuation in May 2024.

Delivery Hero SE is a Berlin-headquartered online food-delivery and quick-commerce group, founded in 2011 by Niklas Östberg, Kolja Hebenstreit, Markus Fuhrmann and Lukasz Gadowski, that operates consumer brands including foodpanda, Glovo, talabat, PedidosYa and Baemin across roughly 70 markets. Its shares have been listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the ticker DHER since 2017.

Deutsche Bahn AG (DB) is the Berlin-headquartered German national railway company, 100% owned by the Federal Republic of Germany, organised as a joint-stock company (Aktiengesellschaft) under private law, and the operator of the country's principal long-distance passenger rail services (ICE and IC/EC), a large regional-rail franchise portfolio, and a heavy-rail freight and infrastructure business; it is the incumbent long-distance rail operator against which the open-access competitor FlixTrain (the rail subsidiary of Flix SE) has competed since 2018.

Frankfurt am Main-headquartered German global universal bank, founded in Berlin in 1870 and listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (ticker DBK) with an additional listing on the New York Stock Exchange; organised across Corporate Bank, Investment Bank, Private Bank and Asset Management divisions (including DWS), and one of the most active corporate banking counterparties to the German Mittelstand and to the DACH startup and technology ecosystem.

Annual survey-based research report on the German startup ecosystem, published continuously since 2013 by the Bundesverband Deutsche Startups (Startup-Verband) in Berlin in partnership with the professional services firm PwC (with KPMG as a historical partner); one of the two canonical statistical baselines — alongside the KfW Gründungsmonitor — for tracking German startup demographics, funding, employment and sentiment.

Dianovi is a Darmstadt healthcare software company, founded in 2023 as a TU Darmstadt spin-off under the earlier name MySympto, that builds AI software for hospital emergency departments covering documentation quality assurance, case management and clinical decision support.

Dieter Schwarz is the German billionaire owner of the Schwarz Gruppe, the parent of Lidl and Kaufland, and a major private investor in German technology and AI through the Schwarz Group's technology arm and the Dieter Schwarz Stiftung.

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.

German technology executive and CEO of the Voith Group, previously CEO of Volocopter, Airbus Defence and Space, and a long-serving senior executive at Siemens.

German entrepreneur and co-founder and CEO of HelloFresh, the Berlin-based meal-kit company that went public on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in 2017 and became a DAX-listed multinational.

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.

Driverama is a pan-European online used-car platform launched in April 2021 by AURES Holdings — the Prague-based used-car group behind AAA Auto and Mototechna, controlled by private-equity firm Abris Capital Partners and founded by Anthony Denny. Note: Driverama is a subsidiary of AURES Holdings, not of AUTO1 Group. The company launched retail buying in Germany in July 2021, expanded to the Netherlands in January 2022 and to Berlin retail micro-branches in 2022. Reporting on any 2022 wind-down could not be independently verified at profile build; AURES Holdings continued to disclose Driverama within its brand portfolio in 2023 and 2024 sales reports.

EQT AB is a Swedish global private markets firm founded in 1994, headquartered in Stockholm and listed on Nasdaq Stockholm, that invests across private equity, infrastructure, real assets, ventures and impact strategies on behalf of institutional investors worldwide.

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.

Berlin-headquartered German climate-technology company (founded 2017 by Mario Kohle, Jochen Ziervogel and Viktor Wingert) that offers residential solar photovoltaic systems, battery storage, heat pumps and electric-vehicle wallboxes to homeowners in Germany on a monthly-subscription (rent-to-own) model; became Germany's first widely reported climate unicorn in October 2021 after a €150M Series C led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2.

Equidam is a Netherlands-based SaaS platform that computes and benchmarks startup valuations for founders, investors, and accelerators, combining five valuation methods and country-level parameters. Founded in Rotterdam in 2013 by Daniel Faloppa and Gianluca Valentini; merged with Share Council in February 2026.

Annual policy-and-investment summit organised by the European Business Angels Network (EBAN) with the European Commission and the InvestEU Portal. Held each October in Brussels (2026: Luxembourg), it convenes several hundred angel investors, seed funds, founders and EU policymakers to shape framework conditions for early-stage risk capital across Europe.

The European Central Bank (ECB) is the central bank of the euro and an official institution of the European Union, headquartered in Frankfurt am Main since 1998, responsible for the single monetary policy of the euro area and - through the Single Supervisory Mechanism established in 2014 - the direct prudential supervisor of significant banks in the participating EU member states.

The European Commission is the politically independent executive branch of the European Union, headquartered in Brussels with additional departments in Luxembourg. Established on 16 January 1958 as the Commission of the European Economic Community, it proposes EU legislation, implements decisions of the European Parliament and the Council of the EU, and administers major programmes and regulations of direct relevance to the European startup and technology ecosystem, including Horizon Europe, the European Innovation Council, the Digital Markets Act, the Digital Services Act and the AI Act.

The European Innovation Council is the European Union's innovation funding body under Horizon Europe, run from Brussels by the European Commission and EISMEA. It combines Pathfinder, Transition and Accelerator grants with direct equity investment through the EIC Fund.

The European Investment Bank is the European Union's lending arm, founded in 1958 under the Treaty of Rome, headquartered in Luxembourg and owned by the 27 Member States. With the European Investment Fund it forms the EIB Group, which signed EUR 100 billion of new financing in 2025, including EUR 10.4 billion in Germany.

Luxembourg-headquartered specialist EU financial institution established in 1994 to provide risk finance to European SMEs and mid-caps. Part of the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group since June 2000, when the EIB became majority shareholder. Deploys capital via fund-of-funds commitments to venture-capital and private-equity managers, direct co-investments, and guarantee and securitisation instruments.

Munich-headquartered German mobility technology company (founded 2019 by Max-Josef Meier, Maximilian Wuhr, Nikolai Schroder, Andreas Stryz, Max Beyer and Hans-Peter Ringer) that operates an all-inclusive multi-brand car subscription marketplace in Germany and the United States; reached unicorn status in 2026 following a EUR 140M Series D that valued the company at approximately EUR 1B.

FNA, legally Financial Network Analytics Ltd, is a London deep-technology company founded in 2013 by Dr Kimmo Soramaeki that applies network science, graph AI and simulation to payment systems, systemic-risk supervision and financial crime for central banks, market infrastructures and banks.

Netherlands-based venture-capital and venture-building firm focused on European deep-tech and industrial-hardware scale-ups; lead investor in the June 2025 EUR 15 million Series B of Aachen second-life battery-storage company Voltfang.

FastBill is a Frankfurt-based cloud invoicing and bookkeeping platform for freelancers and small businesses, founded in 2011 by Rene Maudrich and Christian Haefner. Acquired by Canadian FreshBooks in October 2021, it was bought back by its management in a 2024 buyout and is independent again.

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

Corporate venture arm of German logistics group FIEGE (Greven, North Rhine-Westphalia); new participant in Aachen second-life battery-storage company Voltfang's June 2025 EUR 15 million Series B round.

Filip Dames is a Germany-based professional whose public profile is centred on founding partner, cherry ventures, in the field of venture capital — early-stage european technology investment.

FinTech Forum is a Frankfurt am Main FinTech and InsurTech event series and scouting community founded in 2013 by Frank Schwab and Samarth Shekhar. Across 22 editions it has selected 360-plus startups to pitch to more than 1,800 investors, banks and insurers across the DACH region and the UK.

Startuprad.io Friday Entrepreneur series interview with Ante Spittler, co-founder and CEO of Moss, on finance automation for European SMEs, AI-driven invoice processing, and the operator-to-regulated-FinTech-CEO transition.

German serial entrepreneur and founder and CEO of Berlin-based cannabis and wellbeing company Sanity Group, and earlier co-founder of THE ICONIC and CEO of Movinga.

Finoa is a Berlin-based regulated digital-asset custody and staking platform for institutional investors, founded in 2018 by Christopher May and Henrik Gebbing. It holds three BaFin licences granted in February 2023 and has raised a USD 22 million Series A led by Balderton Capital plus later strategic rounds.

FirstGroup plc is a United Kingdom public-transport company headquartered in Aberdeen, Scotland, and listed on the London Stock Exchange, founded in 1995 through the merger of Badgerline Group and GRT Bus Group, that operates bus and rail services in the United Kingdom and, until October 2021, owned the US intercity coach operator Greyhound Lines.

Berlin-headquartered German quick-commerce (grocery-delivery) company (founded 2020 by Oliver Merkel, Christoph Cordes, Julian Dames and Nikolas Bullwinkel) that operates its own network of dark-store fulfilment centres to deliver groceries and everyday essentials to customers in Germany, the Netherlands and neighbouring European markets; reached widely reported unicorn valuation in December 2021 after a US$750M DoorDash-led Series B.

Flix SE is a Munich-based mobility technology company that operates the FlixBus and FlixTrain long-distance travel brands in Europe and the Greyhound intercity bus network in North America. Founded in 2011, it became one of Germany's most prominent mobility unicorns and now carries tens of millions of passengers across more than 40 countries.

FlixBus is the core intercity coach brand of Flix SE, launched in Germany in February 2013 and operated as an asset-light network platform under which regional coach operators run scheduled long-distance services in green FlixBus livery across Europe, North America, Turkey and other markets served by the Flix group and its acquired brands.

FlixTrain is the open-access long-distance passenger-rail brand and subsidiary of Flix SE, launched in Germany in March 2018 and operated as FlixTrain GmbH from Munich, running green-liveried long-distance trains on the German federal rail network in competition with the incumbent long-distance services of Deutsche Bahn.

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

Forto is a Berlin-headquartered digital freight forwarder covering ocean, rail, and air corridors between Asia and Europe, founded in 2016 as FreightHub. A former DACH unicorn valued at a reported $2.1 billion in 2022, Forto is a widely cited case study of the post-2022 European growth-stage rerating.

Founders Fund is a US venture capital firm co-founded in 2005 by Peter Thiel, Ken Howery and Luke Nosek, headquartered in San Francisco, that invests in breakthrough technology companies across defence, aerospace, life sciences, artificial intelligence and financial services.

Frank Schwab is a Germany-based professional whose public profile is centred on co-founder of fintech forum; non-executive director and strategic advisor, in the field of financial technology — banking innovation, digital banking and fintech strategy.

Private business school in Frankfurt am Main, recognised as a university under Hessian law and rooted in the 1957 Bankakademie. Its Centre for Digital Economics, formerly the Blockchain Center, its Entrepreneurship Centre and the Futury platform tie it into the Frankfurt fintech cluster.