Chris and Joe talk about the reviews of the startup year 2017 they have found and the forecasts for 2018 they find noteworthy.

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2017 in Review

2017 Review: These Cities Are Leading the World in ICO Activity https://buff.ly/2E1shyu  
San Francisco
Moscow
London
Singapore
New York
Los Angeles
Hongkong
Tallinn
Berlin
Shanghai  

 A record-setting year: 2017 VC activity in 3 charts | PitchBook News https://buff.ly/2B8pAyq

2017 Reviews

The top ideas of 2017 from the analysts of pitchbook. https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/our-analyst-teams-top-ideas-themes-of-2017

German government gets a “FAILED” rating for their efforts for startups in 2017 writes Gruenderszene in their 2017 review – 82% of German startups need to bootstrap and experts mostly come up with minor examples for regulatory improvements, like “Scale”, a new segment at the stock exchange, aiming at young and fast-growing companies. https://buff.ly/2Cjm9Vo

German startup portal Gruenderszene has 12 important exits from the German startup scene marked as important. Lead by 270 mn US$ exit of Goodgame Studios from Hamburg, sold to the Swedish company Stillfront. Or Math42, an app, sold to US-company Chegg for around 20 million. https://buff.ly/2DkrDM8

The State of B2B Germany Tech in 2017  “Germany dominates in fields such as cybersecurity, autonomous vehicles, robotics, virtual reality and augmented reality.” | G2 Crowd http://ow.ly/yodI30hoIA1

2017 – What was new in Frankfurt?

Frankfurt increases gravity for fintechs writes “Der Bank Blog.” The city has seen an almost 30% growth in the number of fintechs headquartered there, they also raised 25 mn Euros Venture Capital since 2016 – which puts them in third place in this Fintech-ranking https://buff.ly/2Aq8wOY

ICO made in Frankfurt, the fintech savedroid is working on its ICO, which they announced on Startuprad.io in December. Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEfX6knd-1o&t=0s

One of the main developers of Ethereum is headquartered in Rhine-Main with the Mainz based company brainbot, who also made a token sales in 2017 “The Raiden Network Token (RDN) Launch http://ow.ly/ERhW30hBlPR”

Germany your “valleys”: Germany has many diverse startup hubs – crossing city and state borders – Frankfurt Rhein-Main area especially strong in fintech https://buff.ly/2zF762Y

2017 in Startup Trends – Hot Topic of the Year: Blockchain

Nick Szabo, the father of smart contracts – History of the Blockchain https://buff.ly/2Bz5dr6

Identifying Leading Blockchain Startups on a Worldwide Level https://buff.ly/2BPVmNw

What Is Ethereum? https://buff.ly/2Dku7tW

ICOs – A vizualization of all ICOs https://elementus.io/blog/token-sales-visualization/

Deutsche Bank calls Bitcoin top Risk factor for 2018 | BTC-ECHO https://buff.ly/2yhsn1W

2017 in Startup Trends – E-Mobility and Autonomous Driving

Emobility is important for the future of Germany. It, unfortunately, took a CCC member only 2 minutes to hack an electro charging station writes NGIN Mobility https://buff.ly/2CapMNf 

Former BMW, Deutsche Bank, and Faraday Future managers get together in Germany to build a self-driving city car reports NGIN Mobility exclusively. The company is called Evelozcity https://buff.ly/2D8puTG

BMW invests in battery company that could lead to more range and faster charging https://buff.ly/2BKPFR2

VW invests in BeBerlin-basedargo-E-Bike writes NGIN Mobility. The ebike is a mix of a bicycle and a delivery car. The seed financing comes from a joint company, owned by VW and the city of Wolfsburg (HQ of VW is located here) https://buff.ly/2BCIXfL

2017 in Startup Trends – Bikesharing companies

Limebike starts offering it’s bikes in Frankfurt, starting this month reports Journal Frankfurt. Welcome to Frankfurt guys! https://buff.ly/2z9PXhy

 

Merck Accelerator program, as one example of the corporate accelerator landscape (Sponsored by Merck). Here is the playlist.

 

Outlook 2018

18 Trends Shaping Tech in 2018, among them: Shifting Models for Car Ownership and the Race to become an AI Powerhouse https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/top-tech-trends-2018/?utm_source=CB+Insights+Newsletter&utm_campaign=825dfba58c-FriNL_12_22_2017&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_9dc0513989-825dfba58c-87220133

AI and Machine Learning Trends for 2018: What to Expect – DZone AI https://buff.ly/2zYg9vO

Why 2018 could be the year for Europe’s next $100bn tech firm https://buff.ly/2CxJTmj

7 Predictions for SaaS in 2018 https://buff.ly/2CtdtIS

How FinTech Will Change in 2018: 10 Top FinTech Trends – Finedge Blog https://buff.ly/2C87JHt

One of the big things in the making for 2018 SLAW: Breakingviews – Tech salad will come with a side of SLAW in 2018 – Reuters http://ow.ly/l8mF30hBm7a

The IPO of
Spotify
Lyft
Airbnb
WeWork