Corona appears to change everything. It did so with our time for publications as well. We are sorry about that and give you now an update of 2021 Q1 and Q2 in one post. We may have taken a break writing here, but we did not stop chasing data and tweeting about funding events on our Twitter account.
In the time we cover here, Germany went through the 2nd and 3rd wave of corona infections, with partial lockdowns. This has been definitely a very challenging time for all of us, but startups told us that for some — not all — this made it much harder to raise funds.
We also heard about large swings in valuation, but in both directions.
Most deals disclosed in Q1 have been in preparations way ahead of time. Normally an entrepreneur in Germany estimates 6–18 months for fundraising, depending on their industry and development stage. So we may see more of an corona impact down the road.
But again, our deepest respect for all the entrepreneurs who achieved their funding goals, despite those very challenging times.
Let us get started with the headline: Startups in Greater Rhine-Main/Frankfurt raised 427,17 mn €, which is 499,14 mn US$, let’s say half a billion US Dollar. This time the startups in the area raised mostly classical venture capital, admittedly we also see the trend of venture debt funding here, especially with the Capitq 30 mn bond deal, plus a deal by Cansativa in revenue-based funding.
2021 Q1
We found in Q1 twelve venture capital or venture debt deals. Of these several are not public knowledge. In total the deals we tracked raised 401,9 mn Euros (471 mn US$). Notable deals include Volocopter (200 mn €), Clark.de (69 mn €) and Bryter (60 mn €), as well as Captiq’s 30 mn € bond deal, Wingcopter (18 mn €) and the medtech Creative Balloons (15 mn €).
You can learn more about some startups, who raised funds in their respective interviews here:
Totals of money raised in deals and deal count tracked by RhineMain.vc
2021 Q2
In the 2nd quarter, we found thirteen venture capital and venture debt deals. They raised in total 35 m €. Notable deals are Palturai (4 mn €) and Africa Green Tech (4 mn €).
Admittedly the total funds raised are a lower bound estimate, some startups disclosed only “seven digits funding”, where we assumed it to be 1 mn €. The same funding could turn out to be 9 mn €, but we are sticking to the lowest sum we get from public sources.
We could only track 17.27 mn € in venture funding, compared to 343 MN € in Q2 2019 and 368 MN € in Q2 2020. Admittedly BioNTech has been playing a large role in these quarters with their ramp of their products and preparation of their NASDAQ IPO. If we are controlling for their impact, the Q2 2021 is still the lowest total in funds raises, we have tracked so far. This may be due to corona. We hope there is a catch-up later.
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