New Blog
This blog post first appeared first on old medium publication (https://medium.com/startuprad-io), and was moved to this blog with the relaunch of our website in summer 2024.
Welcome to This Month in German Startups in November 2021 by Startuprad.io — in a news recording with Chris from New York City and me Joe, from Frankfurt am Main.
We recorded this new episode on Friday, November 19th. All news not included here will be published in our December News (to be published on December 23rd). There will also be our annual Fintech Review on December 25th and we will be back with an AI startup interview on January 13th. So we take a few weeks off around the holidays. We are not there yet, so let’s get started:
Today we have escooter Tier’s newest funding and acquisition, N26 pulling the plug on their US operations already in January 2022, and the amazing IPO of Sono Motors on NASDAQ. There are also new unicorns, we proudly present Frankfurt’s first unicorn, the insurtech Clark.de. Also, Razor Group (an Amazon shop buyer) becomes a unicorn with a 125 mn US$ fundraising. In November, there is no unicorn tracker. We will keep our eyes open and maybe the next news will have a unicorn tracker companion.
Happy Thanksgiving to our US audience!
Let’s talk startups:
Tune in to our Internet Radio Station here:
Subscribe to Our Podcast Here
Find all options to subscribe to our newsletter, podcast, YouTube channel or listen to our internet radio station here
Enablers
Invest-in-Hessen
This show was made possible by Hessen Trade and Invest with their brand Invest-in-Hessen. You can learn more about them here.
We also run a dedicated sub-podcast with all interviews and news in cooperation with them. Find it all here on Anchor
Startupraven
The best way to identify investors and cooperation partners for early-stage startups. Sign up for early access here
Our Video Podcast went Live on Thursday, November 25th, 16.00 CET
Our Audio Podcast Went Live at the Same Time
Subscribe to our podcast here: https://linktr.ee/startupradio
Top News
Tier raises capital and buys a bicycle rental company
Tier scoots off with $200M, all-equity ‘first close’ of Series D https://buff.ly/3jIGE2g
Plus take over bike rental service nextbike, but does not disclose the price. They are https://about.tier.app/de/tier-and-nextbike-unit-to-become-the-number-1-for-sustainable-micro-mobility/ Tier says ““The combined force of the two companies will create Europe’s largest and most diverse micro-mobility provider with more than 250,000 vehicles in over 400 cities.”
Related Links
After entering the Netherlands, Berlin-based TIER Mobility raises €171.4M; now valued at €1.72B https://buff.ly/3jKAzlK
N26 pull the plug on their US operations
They will stop on January 11th, 2022 already. So there is not much time to shift your main bank account if you ever had it there. N26 started in the US in 2019 and now, 2 ½ years later, already leaves again. https://n26.com/en-us/blog/n26-us-operations
Three more unicorns (Sono Motors is publicly traded and strictly not a unicorn, but Clark and Razor Group make the cut)
Sono Motors IPO on NASDAQ
Sono Motors, the Munich-based solar company startup, had a great IPO. They offered their shares for 15 US$ and reached (yesterday) on first trading a high of 38.74 US$. This is all despite delivering their first car (16.000 pre-orders on their books) only next year. In total they will have raised around 135 mn US$, at a 2.6 bn US$ valuation. The two founders Jona Christians and Laurin Hahn retain the majority of the votes. https://finance.yahoo.com/m/0ad5129a-f89c-3940-b882-0c9f55a33264/sono-motors-has-gone-public%2C.html?.tsrc=fin-srch
https://www.businessinsider.de/gruenderszene/business/sono-motors-schafft-den-sprung-an-die-nasdaq/
Related: Sono Motors IPO: SEV Starts Trading on Nasdaq https://buff.ly/3qU4TPc
Clark.de — Now a unicorn
Frankfurt-based insurtech startup Clark Germany gets the website Finanzen.de from AllianzX in an all-share deal. Existing VCs invested as well. The transaction values Clark at more than 1 bn US$, becoming Frankfurt’s first unicorn. AllianzX becomes largest minority stakeholder https://t.co/cAIQYBck1b?amp=1
You can learn more about the complicated transaction and the founder (we had him overtime in two interviews) on our blog post here: https://www.startuprad.io/blog/frankfurt-has-its-first-unicorn-startup/
Razor Group
Amazon-shop-buyer Razor Group raises 125 mn US$ and cracks unicorn valuation https://buff.ly/3wCdmaM
Ecosystem
How data is helping European VCs find their next hidden gems https://buff.ly/2ZOFr2v
German Retail Association forecasts for Black Friday and Cyber Monday 4,9 bn Euros revenues in Germany https://buff.ly/3FuSntK https://buff.ly/3Ft2Kht
Hubs
Frankfurt
Clark.de is Frankfurt’s first unicorn (from above)
Frankfurt Notches a Win as Cities Fight for Green-Finance Crown https://buff.ly/3CoEb3v. This is Frankfurt’s chance to become the global center of green finance.
No more paper. Frankfurt-based startup paperless has hundreds of clients waiting to be the first customers https://buff.ly/3CuzS7o, they help you get rid of hardcopy contracts and documents
Frankfurt-based fund of funds Multiple Capital has closed its €20 million raise for Multiple Fund II https://buff.ly/3w6lHDg
BITA secures €6m investment from ETFS Capital https://buff.ly/3n0xMqu Learn more about the founder in our interview here: https://www.startuprad.io/blog/bita-allows-the-calculation-of-tailored-indices/
Helen Ventures, and Porsche Ventures invest in Frankfurt-based customer loyalty startup &Charge an undisclosed amount https://buff.ly/3bY17vB
Last news we have already announced that Fastbill sold itself to Canadian unicorn FreshBooks. Now here is the exclusive interview with Fastbill’s founder: https://www.startuprad.io/blog/fastbills-exit-to-canada-based-unicorn-freshbooks/
Mainz
BioNTech, the company behind the Pfizer corona vaccine is building a factory in Africa to produce their vaccine https://buff.ly/3vOj6xw
BioNTech is not only successful as a startup, but the tax revenues fill the coffers of Mainz, where they are located. Mainz wants to use the money to pay back debt and help to get more biotech startups to the city https://lnkd.in/e4EsrE2b
Tübingen
Curevac one of Germany’s great biotech hopes had to trash its first approach for a corona vaccine, now they are back with their 2nd attempt and promising data on it https://buff.ly/3Dtpuxj
Heidelberg
Insurtech startup Getsafe obtains property insurance license, turning itself from an insurtech into an insurance company https://buff.ly/3CmnYMT
Hamburg
NAGA Launches Stock Trading Globally and Announces Its Own NFT Marketplace https://buff.ly/3jR5YmK
We spotted NAGA very early and brought them to you back in 2015! https://music.amazon.de/podcasts/2a1bdac9-7b5e-47c0-89d5-11a277228946/episodes/e183e74d-b07b-495e-9a17-9b5e087f08b3/startuprad-io---the-authority-on-german-startups-two-interviews-from-euro-finance-tech-2015
Munich
See above for Sono Motors
Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek puts €100M into #Munich-based defense startup Helsing.ai, in their Series A funding at a valuation of more than €400M to support democracies — TechCrunch https://buff.ly/309TGP6
UVC Partners raises their 3rd VC fund. Amongst the investors are the founders of the unicorns Flixbus and Celonis. Flixbus received investments from UVC early on https://buff.ly/3nvdSUW. Now Deutsche-Startups reports that they raised 255 mn €, the original target was 150 mn € https://buff.ly/3x2FDY4
Cobrainer applies AI to HR and raises 11 mn € as Series A funding, to expand across Europe https://buff.ly/3jHZR3N
Deep North, a Redwood City, CA and Munich, Germany-based AI company transforming video assets into custom-tailored analytics, raised $16.7M in Series A-1 funding https://buff.ly/3GBVAZC
Cliniserve, a SaaS tool for nursing homes from Munich, raises a “seven-digit” seed round https://buff.ly/3oaFSwk
Munich-based Parkamo closes €2.1 million funding to continue the expansion of its climate compensated parking app | EU-Startups https://buff.ly/3wD8Poi
Stuttgart
AnyDesk wants to replace Team Viewer. Now they raise 70 mn US$ venture capital from investors General Atlantic, Insight Partners, EQT Ventures and Possible Ventures https://buff.ly/3cx94rH https://buff.ly/3oFvvRd
Austria
iDWell: Vienna-based PropTech raises several million Euros venture capital from investors in Guesty, Shazam, or Delivery Hero https://buff.ly/3bsNTXe
Vienna’s tech startup ecosystem gathers momentum https://buff.ly/3F6p40g
General News / Companies News Section
The Zooplus story is nearing an end. The story in short: One PE company wanted to take them private and made an offer. Then two others were interested in joining the fight. One dropped out and H&F and EQT decided to work together.
Zooplus buyout to be decided Wednesday, November 3rd, the offer for the company was raised, now reaching 3.4 bn Euros (~4 bn US$) https://buff.ly/3w4pJft
Hellman & Friedman (H&F) and EQT now own more than 50% of the Zooplus shares. They paid 480 €/share, valuing the company at 3.7 bn € https://buff.ly/3FvDIhP
Here is a short overview of the bidding war compiled by the Exciting Commerce Blog
2,8 bn Euro (390 Euro/share) Hellman & Friedman August 13th.
3,3 bn Euro (460 Euro/share) Hellman & Friedman September 12th
3,4 bn Euro (470 Euro/share) EQT September 25th
3,4 bn Euro (470 Euro/share) Hellman & Friedman October 7th
3,4 Euro (480 Euro/share) Hellman & Friedman and EQT joint offer on October 25th
November 3rd they purchased more than 50% of the shares
Fintech
A German blog looked through the published P&L and balance sheet of Berlin-based fintech unicorn Trade Republic (Sep 30th, ‘20)
Their revenue grew by 3.600%
CAC 40 €
RPC 100 €
==> They make ~60 € out of each new client the first year https://buff.ly/3EYjBZ9?utm_source=-custom-by-source-0-
Moonfare — a Berlin-based fintech that allows its clients to invest in PE funds — raises $125M in Series C led by Insight Partners to accelerate global growth https://buff.ly/3jYSBB2 at an assumed valuation of 500 mn Euros. They can be seen as a competitor of NYC based startups iCapital Network or Artivest, but iCapital has already raised 3x the funding of Moonfare. We will see how far Moonfare gets, since the money is for their international expansion.
A new move in the neobroker competition between Trade Republic, Bitpanda and Scalable: Munich-based neobroker Scalable Capital buys JustETF, an ETF-focused website https://buff.ly/3o5o9Gk
German finance oversight Bafin surprised by Insurtech Hype, the seven insurtechs in Germany only make up 0,02% of all property premiums in the German market https://buff.ly/3D0TIrg
Solarisbank (the banking backend of many fintech startups) is reorganizing due to their first international acquisition https://buff.ly/3pY7QxB
SPACS are not dead yet
Former German McKinsey CEO Cornelius Baur keeps pushing his SPAC plans. It will be listed in Amsterdam, looking for targets in health care https://buff.ly/3qOMnaY Now Handelsblatt reports the ex CEOs from Merck and Qiagen are also part of the SPAC team: https://buff.ly/3kUg4DT
Noteworthy New VC Funds
World Fund just launched Europe’s biggest climate tech venture capital fund with €350 million https://buff.ly/2ZvbdAU
Balderton Capital announces €529 million early-stage fund to back Europe’s next wave of breakout tech https://buff.ly/3ctKybb
All Other News
MediaMarkt Saturn — Ceconomy made one third of profits online https://buff.ly/3GGolnY
Goldman Sachs owns 17,4% of the German online furniture store Home24. This makes the New York-based investment bank their largest shareholder https://buff.ly/2ZN9iIi
Germany’s Sanity Group adds $3.5M to Series A | PitchBook https://buff.ly/3mMMLEG
You can learn more about the founder in this interview https://buff.ly/3bILqIA
Carbon accounting startup Plan A raises $10m six months after seed https://buff.ly/3q8OnL2
DN Capital opens Berlin office https://buff.ly/3EJoZ2m
1 in 10 of All-New Startups in Germany Are Fintech Companies https://buff.ly/3pX7qHQ?utm_source=-custom-by-source-0-
German logistics startup Hive just raised $34 million from Tiger Global. The firm’s unique approach to due diligence won the deal — and other VCs are taking note. https://buff.ly/3olFjjo
Y42 raises 27 m Euro (31 m US$) Series A, with lead investors atomico and insightpartners https://buff.ly/3BkErzM
German online car dealer Auto1 raises 2021 targets on strong demand https://buff.ly/3CBOPEc
Stay ahead of the curve
Sequoia Capital just blew up the VC fund model https://buff.ly/3BaIsXC
SoftBank Vision Fund Borrows Against DoorDash, Coupang Stakes https://buff.ly/3bsKbgy
This article was originally published on Startuprad.io. Find the link here: https://www.startuprad.io/blog/this-month-in-german-startups-november-2021/
Comments