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Highlights of Germany’s Most Extensive Annual Startup Survey

Updated: May 9

Germany’s 2021 Startup Survey reveals insights on funding, female founders, and the growing tech ecosystem in Berlin and NRW.

What Is This About?

Germany's most extensive annual startup survey for 2021 reveals key insights on funding trends, female founders, and the growing tech ecosystem in Berlin and beyond. This article breaks down the survey's findings on startup demographics, challenges, and the evolving landscape of German entrepreneurship.

Introduction

Germany's most extensive annual startup survey for 2021 reveals critical insights about the ecosystem's demographics, funding patterns, and geographic distribution. This article distills the key findings — covering the growing tech ecosystem in Berlin and beyond, female founder participation, and the structural trends shaping German entrepreneurship.

Germany's 2021 startup survey reveals key ecosystem insights including growing female founder participation, expanding geographic distribution beyond Berlin, and increasing funding access across the country.


Germany’s 2021 Startup Survey reveals insights on funding, female founders, and the growing tech ecosystem in Berlin and NRW. Startuprad.io brings you independent coverage of the key developments shaping the startup and venture capital landscape across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

Schloss Neuschwanstein via Pixabay — Also a realized dream, like so many startups

The Survey

Hey guys, this is Joe from Startuprad.io. Today we bring you an audio-only episode. We know this is uncommon, but there is a special occasion for this. The most comprehensive startup survey is Germany was published, so we wanted to bring you some highlights. This extensive survey is conducted by the German Startup Association in cooperation with partners annually since 2013.


Let’s dig a bit deeper into the most authoritative overview of the German startup scene.


Since raw numbers are always a bit tricky in the audio podcast, we will stick mostly to facts, without the percentage points. Otherwise, we will always use 1/4th 1/3rd, and so on to make it easier for the listeners.


Every time we talk about percentage points, it is only in terms of responses to the questions. You can find the link to the German original below.


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A bit of data on the survey

This year more than 2.000 startups participated with more than 5.000 founders. In total the startups have more than 33.000 employees. On average the participating startups are a bit over 2 ½ years old and are mostly located in Berlin and NRW (Nordrheinwestfalen, one of Germany’s states). NRW is Germany’s largest state by population. It is also home to the Rhein-Ruhr metropolitan region, one of the world’s 40 largest Metropolitan Regions.


Hot regions

The hotspot is still Berlin, but also cities like Leipzig or Dresden (home to Germany’s center for semiconductor production) are also gaining ground. Berlin represents 17,1% of the surveyed startups


Industries of the startups

In total, they found startups from 16 industries, plus “others.” The by far largest share are IT and Telekom companies, followed by medicine and medical care. Food, as 3rd, does not even make up 10% of the responses, followed by automotive and logistics.

Also, Fintechs (finance, banking, and insurance) only make up 4,7% of the startups, even though they make headlines and big funding. Also, proptech (property tech, everything dealing with real estate) is a separate category making up 3.7%.

The smallest share is startups active in tourism.


Highlights

Let us hit some of the highlights here:

  • Startups still feel the effects of corona

  • Startups in Germany hire more and more people

  • The biggest challenges are customers, product and capital

  • Good news: There is an increasing number of female founders

  • Universities and research centers are a great starting point for founders. More than a quarter are founding out of such an institution and more than 1/3rd met their co-founder at university

  • The mood is better than last year. More than 65% of founders are happy with the ecosystem

  • Data monopolies make it harder to compete. More than 1/3rd of founders think they have enough data, but 2/3rds criticize the data monopoly of large corporates.

  • Access to capital is a central success factor, for the survival and growth

  • Corporate venture capital is seen to combine capital and cooperation

  • Sustainability does not exclude growth

Let us dig in a little bit deeper


More Details from the Survey

As we so frequently say, startups a spread across the country. By State Berlin is only No 2 with more than 17.1% of participating startups, behind NRW with 18.5%. With Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, 4 states make up almost 2/3rds of the startups surveyed.

The business models are led by SaaS, followed by platforms.

On average a Startup has 17.6 FTEs and plans to hire additional 8.7 FTEs. Keep in mind here that the survey was conducted during summer 2021, when we knew about delta, but omicron was not yet known, as well as the current high infection numbers in Germany. That may have changed the picture here dramatically.

The startups are also hiring a more diverse workforce, with more than 1/3rd of women and 28% employees from abroad.

The diversity of founders is also getting better. In 2017 less than 15% of the founders were women, now they make up almost 18%, with a big jump in 2021.

In Germany startup is a business for university graduates, more than 85% have at least a bachelor’s degree, more than 1/3rd of the founders have a master’s, almost 16% have a Ph.D. Only 0,1% of respondents have not graduated from a school at all. Most university graduates studied business studies, followed by engineers, followed by computer sciences. STEM graduates as 4th only make up 10%. Lawyers, Graphic Designer, and doctors are the least represented.

The top universities from which startups are founded are mostly technical universities like RWTH Aachen, Technical University Munich, Technical University Karlsruhe (KIT), or Technical University Berlin

It is surprising that there is a big potential for Corporate Venture Capital, which is preferred by more than 40% of the founders, of which only half of that has found a CVC investor.

Funding significantly increased across all 2.000+ surveyed startups.

More startups want investments from Business Angels, funding from their own cash flow and Venture Capital. The by far largest gap between received and desired funding is within the area of a strategic investor (e.g. Family Offices). They apparently really could step up their game.

Almost 60% of startups are looking for an exit. A quarter for an IPO, almost 30% sell themselves to a startup or scaleup, 45% are looking for an investor like a private equity fund and 85% would prefer to be sold to an established corporate.

Of those with exit ambitions almost 15% look for more than 1 bn Euros in valuation (1,15 bn US$). The largest share of exit interested startups is looking for an exit valuation of 10 to 50 mn Euros, which make up almost 30%.


Expectations

The calculated business climate is back to the level of pre-corona.

When asked about their satisfaction with the startup ecosystem founders in Berlin and Munich are happier than the national average, but 65% of founders across Germany are happy to very happy with the ecosystem.


Corona

Last year 3/4th of startups felt the effect of corona one way or another. This is down to half in the 2021 survey.


Challenges

The largest challenge is still sales, getting new customers, but more than 1/3rd sees raising VC as a significant hurdle.


Feedback

Reach out to us, here is our audience survey, to give us feedback, suggest topics, interview partners or just to say “Hallo!” https://forms.gle/mLV6mVKwGwKuut8BA


The Host

This interview was conducted by Jörn “Joe” Menninger, startup scout, founder, and host of Startuprad.io. Reach out to him:LinkedInTwitterEmail


  • The hotspot is still Berlin, but also cities like Leipzig or Dresden (home to Germany’s center for semiconductor production) are also gaining ground.

  • This article covers a significant development in the DACH startup and venture capital ecosystem.

  • The DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) continues to be one of Europe's most dynamic startup markets.

Relationship Map

  • Startuprad.io → published → Highlights of Germany’s Most Extensive Annual Startup Survey

Partner with Startuprad.io

Startuprad.io is the leading independent media platform covering startups, venture capital, and innovation across the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) and Europe. We offer B2B partnership opportunities for companies looking to reach startup decision-makers, founders, and investors.

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What are the key facts about Highlights Germany’s Most Extensive Annual?

Germany’s 2021 Startup Survey reveals insights on funding, female founders, and the growing tech ecosystem in Berlin and NRW.

How does this affect the German startup ecosystem?

Germany’s 2021 Startup Survey reveals insights on funding, female founders, and the growing tech ecosystem in Berlin and NRW.

What are the latest startup funding trends in the DACH region?

Startuprad.io tracks venture capital and startup funding across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Explore our pillar coverage pages for the latest data.

About the Host

Joern "Joe" Menninger is the host of the Startuprad.io podcast and covers founders, investors, and policy developments across the DACH startup ecosystem. Through more than 1,300 interviews and nearly a decade of reporting, he documents the evolution of the European startup landscape. Follow Joern on LinkedIn.

Want to reach the DACH startup ecosystem? Become a partner and connect with founders, investors, and operators across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

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