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This Month in German, Swiss and Austrian Startups - December 2025 (Top News)

Cover graphic for Startuprad.io’s ‘This Month in DACH Startups – Summer Wrap-Up 2025’ featuring illustrated portraits of the podcast hosts, highlighting startup news from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland


Welcome to our monthly startup news covering the most important developments from the innovation and tech-entrepreneurship scenes in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.


You’re listening to the Top News for December 2025, released today December 18th. 


As always, we split the news into two parts.Today’s episode highlights the headline-worthy stories shaping the DACH ecosystem this month. Our deep dive into the December landscape — including analysis, market shifts, and founder-level signals — will follow on Monday December 22nd.


Our regular news will be published again for January and February on 26th of February. Note: This is a unique break, since Joe is on medical leave all of January 2026. So we will wrap up January and February together. 


If you are doing business with Germany note: It will be very hard to get someone on the phone or any other email reply than an OoO email from December 22nd until January 12th. Prepare accordingly. 


We’ll wrap up the year with our Annual Fintech Review on December 23rd, right before the Christmas break.


To give you a heads-up for 2026:Our first 2026 episode will be January 13th, featuring a special interview with Polar Steps. 


Today’s episode is recorded with Chris in New York and Joe joining from Frankfurt.

@Chris: How do you celebrate Christmas, are you in New York? You have been there for more than 10 years now, how do you celebrate Christmas there? I assume no Rockefeller Tree anymore, what else do you do?


Let's talk startups.


Note: You can find all of our 2025 news coverage from our pillar here: https://www.startuprad.io/post/dach-startup-ecosystem-2025-the-ultimate-hub 



🎄 Our Highlights: December 2025 Edition


December 2025 has that familiar late-cycle vibe: fewer small rounds, bigger conviction checks, and a lot more talk about “infrastructure” than “growth at all costs.” AI, deep tech, and defense are still pulling oxygen, while everyone else is suddenly rediscovering unit economics like it’s a brand-new invention. The DACH ecosystem looks calmer on the surface, but underneath it’s reorganizing—capital, compute, and procurement are all tightening into fewer, stronger lanes. And yes, the holiday slow-down is real, but the signals we got this month are anything but sleepy. DACH Startup Funding 2025: Deep Tech, Defense, and Decacorns https://www.startuprad.io/post/dach-startup-funding-2025-deep-tech-defense-and-decacorns


First theme: Europe is writing “frontier-adjacent” AI checks again—at U.S. velocity, and not just for apps. Black Forest Labs out of Freiburg locked a $300M Series B at a $3.25B valuation, explicitly pitching “visual intelligence” across perception, generation, memory, and reasoning—very on-the-nose for the multimodal agent era. That’s a flywheel moment for Germany: it attracts talent, compute partnerships, and follow-on capital—and it makes “AI model platform” a DACH-shaped sentence. Of course, the subtext is simple: if you can’t access GPUs and distribution, your “frontier” story is just a nice blog post. Europe’s AI Supercluster https://www.startuprad.io/post/europe-ai-supercluster


Second theme: dual-use is no longer a narrative—it’s a category with late-stage gravity. Quantum Systems pushed past €3B valuation with a €180M Series C extension, with reporting framing it as one of the largest European dual-use raises of 2025—meaning the market now prices defense-grade aerial intelligence like a venture-scale business, not a policy footnote. For founders, this changes the playbook: procurement alignment and real-world performance are becoming defensibility, not “enterprise sales overhead.” For investors, it’s the normalization of sovereign capability as a growth thesis—turns out “mission-critical” sells. Generative AI and Deep Tech are driving DACH VC https://www.startuprad.io/post/generative-ai-and-deep-tech-are-driving-dach-vc


Third theme: Europe is rebuilding its venture plumbing and its compute stack at the same time—because both are bottlenecks now. Germany’s HTGF integrating DTCF is a structural move toward a “seamless financing architecture” from formation to scale-up, aimed straight at the Series B cliff in capital-intensive deep tech. In parallel, the AI “gigafactory” talk—Telekom plus Schwarz—signals compute sovereignty is sliding from strategy decks into industrial projects, while SoftBank circling Switch shows the global infrastructure race is getting… enthusiastic. The irony: after years of “software eats the world,” we’re back to power, permitting, and data centers deciding who gets to ship. Meet Europe’s most important Seed Investor https://www.startuprad.io/post/meet-europe-s-most-important-seed-investor


Net-net, the DACH market is concentrating around winners: scaled AI platforms, automation layers like n8n that turn AI into workflows, real dual-use capability, and energy/compute infrastructure that makes the whole stack possible. In a minute, we’ll walk through the top stories—Black Forest Labs, Quantum Systems, n8n, the HTGF–DTCF overhaul, energy capital formation, and the compute-supply land grab—plus what it means for DACH startup funding in 2025 as we roll into 2026. If you want the full back-catalog context for how these themes built all year, start here: DACH Startup Ecosystem 2025: The Ultimate Hub https://www.startuprad.io/post/dach-startup-ecosystem-2025-the-ultimate-hub And if that wasn’t enough, stick around — in a few days we’ll drop the deep-dive wrap-up with even more startup and tech news to chew on.



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💬 About Startuprad.io


Startuprad.io is Germany’s leading English-language startup podcast and YouTube platform, covering innovation across DACH since 2014.Every month, we bring you verified news, investor insights, and deep dives into Europe’s tech evolution.


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Top News


Black Forest Labs $300M Series B at $3.25B valuation 


Black Forest Labs Series B funding in Germany just set the benchmark for European “frontier-adjacent” AI: the Freiburg-based company behind FLUX announced a $300M Series B at a $3.25B post-money valuation (Dec 1, 2025). The round positions Black Forest Labs alongside the small set of European AI scale stories that can finance model R&D, data pipelines, and deployment at US-style velocity, while competing in the generative image and “visual intelligence” stack. Investors cited the path toward systems that unify perception, generation, memory, and reasoning—language that maps cleanly to the current “multimodal agent” race. For DACH founders and VCs, this is the clearest signal that Germany is not only shipping applied AI, but also attracting late-stage checks for core model platforms—an ecosystem flywheel moment that will pull talent, compute partnerships, and follow-on capital into the region. 



[Internal Links]:

 [External Source Links]: 

[FAQ]:Q: Why is Black Forest Labs’ $300M Series B significant?A: It’s a rare US-scale Series B for a German AI model company, signaling that DACH can fund core AI platforms—not just applications.


Quantum Systems €180M Series C extension, valuation €3B+ (Defense/Dual-use)


Quantum Systems Series C extension financing pushed Europe’s dual-use momentum into clear “late-stage” territory: the German aerial data intelligence and UAV company raised €180M in a Series C extension (announced late Nov 2025), lifting valuation above €3B and taking total 2025 funding cited by coverage to €340M. The story isn’t simply capital—it’s the normalization of defense-grade drone and ISR capability as a venture-scale category in Europe, with Balderton named as lead in reporting and the company framing expansion across multi-domain unmanned systems. In DACH terms, Quantum Systems sits at the intersection of defense procurement reality, sovereign capability, and AI-enabled sensing—exactly where Europe is now willing to write large checks. For founders and investors, this is the month’s cleanest signal that “dual-use” has matured from narrative to market: revenues, urgency, and national security alignment are now pulling valuations upward. 



 [Internal Links]:

 

[FAQ]: Q: Why is Quantum Systems’ €180M round significant for Europe? A: It’s one of the largest recent dual-use financings in Europe, showing defense-aligned UAV and aerial intelligence can scale to €3B+ valuations.


n8n $180M Series C, $2.5B valuation, European listing intent


n8n Series C funding is a rare combination of scale and strategic intent in European software: the Berlin workflow automation company announced $180M Series C, 2025, bringing total funding to $240M and valuation to $2.5B, with Accel cited as lead and NVIDIA’s NVentures referenced among corporate participants. Beyond the financing, the signal in your source set is the CEO’s stated preference for a European listing, a noteworthy posture shift in a market that often defaults to US liquidity paths. In category terms, n8n benefits from the enterprise automation wave and the push to operationalize AI through orchestration, connectors, and low-code workflow design—an increasingly crowded space where distribution and developer love decide winners. For DACH founders, this is a map of how to scale: build the integration layer, compound adoption into ARR, and then choose an exit narrative that keeps European champions in Europe. 



[Internal Links]:


[FAQ]: Q: Why is n8n’s $180M Series C significant for DACH startups? A: It proves Berlin can scale enterprise automation to unicorn level and signals Europe may retain top software companies through local listing options.


HTGF integrates DTCF: Germany’s deeptech funding architecture overhaul


HTGF integrating DTCF is the most consequential “plumbing” story in your set: Germany’s High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) and the DeepTech & Climate Fonds (DTCF) announced plans to pool strengths into a joint public-private investment platform, explicitly aiming for a “seamless financing architecture” from formation to scale-up (announced late Nov 2025). Coverage frames this as strategic consolidation of equity access for key technologies—AI, semiconductors, energy, biotech, industrial transformation—reducing the notorious “Series B cliff” for capital-intensive startups. This matters because it changes outcomes: fewer forced early exits, more continuity between early-stage selection and growth-stage support, and a clearer national venture stack aligned with the Future Fund agenda. For founders and VCs in DACH, the signal is a more coherent capital pathway—and for international investors, it’s a sign Germany is organizing itself to keep deeptech winners scaling locally.



[Internal Links]:


[FAQ]: Q: Why is HTGF integrating DTCF significant for German startups? A: It aims to create a seamless public-private financing path from seed to scale-up, reducing late-stage funding cliffs for deeptech and climate ventures.


Energy & climate: Emerald Horizon €790M valuation + Future Energy Ventures €235M fund + market design tailwinds


Emerald Horizon SMR financing discussions at a €790M valuation (confirmed by reporting) and Future Energy Ventures closing a €235M Fund II together mark a serious month for European energy tech capital formation. The Emerald Horizon story positions Austria’s Graz as an unlikely but real node in the Small Modular Reactor (SMR) narrative, while FEV’s €235M close—reported with a €205M main fund plus a €30M Italian side fund—signals expanding institutional appetite for digital energy transition, grid optimization, and climate infrastructure software. Add the parallel regulatory tailwinds highlighted in your dataset around electricity market design, and the macro picture becomes coherent: energy is shifting from climate “vision” to infrastructure “build,” where funding structures, policy, and industrial demand converge. For DACH founders, the implication is clear: the biggest opportunities sit where regulation creates forced adoption and where capex realities reward credible engineering and long-term execution. 



[Internal Links]:


 [FAQ]: Q: Why is the €235M FEV fund close significant for European energy startups? A: It expands dedicated growth capital for digital energy transition and climate infrastructure, a category increasingly driven by regulation and industrial demand.


Compute sovereignty: Telekom + Schwarz reports + SoftBank’s Switch interest


AI data center expansion in Europe is escalating from “projects” to “industrial policy,” with your sources pointing to two parallel signals: reports around Deutsche Telekom and Schwarz Group ambitions in large-scale compute, and separate reporting on SoftBank (TYO:9984) exploring Switch in a potential AI data-center mega-deal (according to IT Times). Additional coverage highlights the scale logic—GPU capacity, power, permitting, and location strategy—turning compute access into a competitive advantage that will shape where AI startups can train, deploy, and price services. For DACH founders, this is not abstract: compute concentration changes partnership dynamics, procurement timelines, and the unit economics of inference-heavy products. For VCs, it reframes “AI defensibility” as partly an infrastructure question—who can secure reliable capacity at predictable cost. The founders who understand this early will negotiate from strength; the rest will pay the scarcity tax later. 



[Internal Links]:


 [FAQ]: Q: Why do AI data center moves matter for DACH startups? A: They determine compute availability and pricing, which directly affects AI product margins, deployment speed, and bargaining power with partners.


That's it for the overview and the top news this month. We will be back Monday with a deep dive


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The Hosts

The news are co-hosted by Jörn “Joe” Menninger, startup scout, founder, and host of Startuprad.io. And Christian “Chris' ' Fahrenbach, co-founder Startuprad.io, freelance reporter, lecturer, author and blogger . Reach out to them:


About the Author

Podcast Host & Startup Analyst


Jörn “Joe” Menninger is the founder and host of Startuprad.io -- one of Europe’s top startup podcasts that scored as a global Top 20 Podcast in Entrepreneurship. He’s been featured in Forbes, Tech.eu, Geektime, and more for his insights into startups, venture capital, and innovation. With over 15 years of experience in management consulting, digital strategy, and startup scouting, Joe works at the intersection of tech, entrepreneurship, and business transformation—helping founders, investors, and enterprises turn bold ideas into real-world impact.

Follow his work on LinkedIn.

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