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This Month in GSA Startups — March 2022

Germany, the region of Sauerland via Pixabay

This article is part of our coverage of Monthly Startup News from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

Executive Summary

  • This blog post first appeared first on old medium publication (https://medium.

  • We recorded this new episode on Monday, March 21st, 2022.

  • As always: All news not yet included here will be published in our next news episode.

  • We have the 100 most influential women in startup and venture capital in Europe.

  • This show was made possible by Hessen Trade and Invest with their brand Invest-in-Hessen.


Germany, the region of Sauerland via Pixabay

New Blog

This Month in GSA Startups — March 2022 Startuprad.io brings you independent coverage of the key developments shaping the startup and venture capital landscape across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

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.



We recorded this new episode on Monday, March 21st, 2022. The recording is one week earlier than usual, due to the travel schedules of Chris and me.

As always: All news not yet included here will be published in our next news episode.


Our highlights:


We have the 100 most influential women in startup and venture capital in Europe. There are two new unicorns to announce in GSA. Unicorn Personio set up a charity fund and Germany’s largest fintech exit (at approx 1 bn US$) is in the making. We have an exclusive interview with the CEO in charge for almost 40 minutes from July 2021. We try to touch on the Russian invasion in Ukraine as lightly as possible, only when it impacts the GSA startup scene since you get more than enough news about this tragedy on ANY OTHER outlet. Please note that this does not mean we don’t care, but it is not our area of coverage. We are also talking about delivery startups and again Wirecard. Not surprisingly, Wirecard will keep the German courts busy for years to come.


Let’s talk startups:


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Our 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 (https://www.invest-in-hessen.com/). We also run a dedicated sub-podcast with all interviews and news in cooperation with them. Find it all here: https://techstartups.sounder.fm/



Podcasts

Video Podcast



Audio Podcast


Top News


Top 100: Europe’s Most Influential Women in the Startup and Venture Capital Space

Including:

  • Alina Bassi from Kleiderly

  • Ida Tin co-founder and chairwoman of the board of Clue, the world’s fastest-growing female health app

  • Marie-Helene Armstreiter, lead partner at SpeedInvest

  • Maria Pennanen, co-founder of Accelerator Frankfurt

  • Miriam Wohlfarth, serial founder Ratepay and Banxware


Two New Unicorns


Volocopter (Bruchsal)

  • ‘Flying taxi’ startup Volocopter picks up another $241M, says service is now two years out. With this transaction, they become a unicorn https://buff.ly/3sOUXHl


Staffbase (Chemnitz)

  • Private Equity investors General Atlantic and Insight Partners invest 106 m Euro in Chemnitz-based Staffbase, valuing the company above 1 bn US$ and becoming a unicorn https://buff.ly/36rr72K


Unicorn Charity Fund

German Tech Unicorn Personio Creates $66 Million, Charity Fund. Personio does HR software for smaller companies. The initial money in the fund went to charities tackling climate change and education inequality. https://buff.ly/3IlM11D


Germany’s Largest Fintech Exit In The Making

ID Now is an online identification startup, looking at Germany’s Largest Fintech Exit at 1 bn US$. Startuprad.io published an exclusive interview of ID now in July 2021 with Andreas Bodczek. We talk to him one on one for almost 40 minutes. Have a look here https://buff.ly/3JpT3Tl


Russia Ukraine Conflict

You get more than enough news of this tragedy, so we will only cover the news related to startups in GSA or Europe:


Delivery Unicorn Gorillas


Startup Gorillas Planning to Raise $700 Million of New Funding https://buff.ly/3M7w7Kv


Staying with Delivery


Delivery Hero left the German market (again), so Wolt and Lieferando split the market amongst them. Now Uber Eats plans a strong expansion. We see lower prices for consumers in the near future https://buff.ly/3tpUcDN


Wirecard


100 lawsuits have already been filed against German finance supervisor Bafin in the Wirecard case according to the district court Frankfurt, 500 additional are already announced https://buff.ly/3Iid51N

Wirecard boss Braun is indicted for balance sheet manipulation by German finance oversight BaFin, looking at up to 10 years in prison. It is also fair to assume this will not be the last case brought against him by BaFin or other parties https://buff.ly/3tcNAtC


NeoBrokers GSA Update

  • Now there is at least a hint on the schedule of N26’s IPO: N26 co-founder: We will be ready for an IPO at the end of 2022 https://buff.ly/3HC1Q31

  • Bitpanda gets “E-Geld Institut” license and can now provide payment services. With this license, they can offer more investments including cooperating with banks for deposit brokerage https://buff.ly/3tHkFwJ

  • Vienna-based neobroker Bitpanda locks out Russian banks https://buff.ly/3C7T6jZ not surprising, given they are now a licensed financial service provider and a large sanction list.


Housekeeping & Time to Brag

  • Thank you very much, Egypt, for downloading us as the 60th country in your podcast charts! On March 15th and 16th, you downloaded us to #47 in your entrepreneurship podcast charts and #219 in your business podcast charts in iTunes. We are very happy! Thank you, our audience for making this possible and for being one of the thousands downloading an episode each week! We are very happy to have you as fans!

  • More on the housekeeping side: NOTE: Our blog will move to medium.com. The background is that we completely change the setup of the website and all of our blog posts will move. You can find us here: https://medium.com/startuprad-io If you follow us via RSS feed, you can update it: medium.com/feed/startuprad-io

  • Meetfox: Susanne, a founder from Vienna sells her startup to french Sendinblue https://buff.ly/3MFFmSn You can listen to the story in our interview with Johanna here, how she set up the company in Vienna as a marketplace for coaches, but soon realized that the company was better in payments and scheduling than at market places and how she was lured by Techstars from Vienna to New York City. Learn more about her in our interview here: https://buff.ly/3J154hZ

  • Note: Also the story with potentially Germany’s largest fintech exit is an exclusive interview from us :-) Learn more here: https://buff.ly/3JpT3Tl


Ecosystem

  • That was a shock for the whole German startup and business angel scene: The successful INVEST support for early business angel investments was cut by 50% without warning effective immediately! Here is an open letter by founders and investors to protest https://buff.ly/3I1gQHG

  • German Minister of Finance Christian Lindner plans to spend 200 bn Euros ( ~ 215 bn US$) on climate protection and modernizing energy and industry until 2026 https://buff.ly/3hNCpki

  • KfW’s German Private Equity Barometer / German Venture Capital Barometer for Q4 2021 was published “Assessments of current business situation rose to all-time high” https://www.kfw.de/About-KfW/Service/Download-Center/Konzernthemen/Research/Indikatoren/German-Private-Equity-Barometer/ note here that this barometer neither includes the recent developments in Ukraine, nor corona, nor the increase in interest rates that already happened or are on the horizon.

  • Despite the good news, recent developments leave traces in the German startup scene: German business newspaper Handelsblatt is asking if the fintech bubble is bursting. There is a trend towards lower valuations for fintech startups in Germany, #Berlin-based Penta may be the first to feel it https://buff.ly/3N1RvkB

  • In 2021 another record was set. Analytics company CBInsights found 221 new Corporate Venture Capital Funds (CVC). Is this great for startups or concerning for VCs? https://buff.ly/3pxnb7A

  • First activities of the EU in the New Green Deal: EU invests €110M+ to give life to environmental and climate projects https://buff.ly/3pbIMCl we will keep you updated on investment activities of the many programs of the different levels (state, federal government, EU), but we will not cover every single investment here.

  • Interest rates are rising, but EY expects to see more large buyout deals in the 2nd half of 2022. 2021 was already a great year with the number of buyouts rising 35% to 302 https://buff.ly/3M6ioUn This may include tech companies, remember Teamviewer?

  • Why companies start buying up media outlets: “Companies are realizing that owning their audiences and going direct can lower Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC) and Increase Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)” write the analyst from CBinsights https://buff.ly/33Lww3N

  • European fintech’s fierce last year of funding shows no sign of slowing in 2022 finds Tech.eu https://buff.ly/3KkQjH7

  • Credit Suisse Strategist Says We’re Witnessing Birth of a New World Monetary Order https://buff.ly/3vWGhrP


Hubs

There are many deserving startups, cities, and entrepreneurs who will never get any English coverage, would it not be for us. This is why this section exists. As always the order of cities and news is the order we found them.


Berlin and Munich Leading the Charge

EU startups made a list of the 10 fast-growing German startups to watch in 2022 https://buff.ly/3hRZTFj All of them are either from Berlin or Munich, which speaks well for both hubs. MedKitDoc (Berlin), Hiv (Berlin), Klima (Berlin), Marvel Fusion (Munich), QUIN (berlin), Gorillas (Berlin), Pliant (Berlin), Arive (Munich), DANCE (Berlin), and Gunzilla Games (Berlin).


Frankfurt

  • Deutsche Börse Finalizes Acquisition of Majority Stake in Crypto Finance https://buff.ly/3JVu22h

  • CommerzVentures closes €300 million fund to boost European fintech and insurtech startups https://buff.ly/3C84mNb

  • Insurtech unicorn from Frankfurt, Clark has set up a holding structure as a European entity, which can be taken as a step in preparing an IPO https://buff.ly/3HMgqoJ

  • Our own article: In our news, we talked about the acquisition of IntraNav by NASDAQ listed Inpixon, now we found the price tag in their 2021 annual SEC filing: IntraNav was acquired for 1 m Euros https://buff.ly/3KQuJdQ


Mainz


Magdeburg


Landau in der Pfalz

  • This is a lovely little city within the region of the Pfalz on the so-called Southern Wine Route. Not even 50.000 people live there, but we are very happy to have some startup news for the first time on them here: Florian Bein discloses investment of unknown amount in Beedrop, a startup producing honey, supposed to strengthen the immune system https://buff.ly/3vgnmI9


Stuttgart


Görlitz


Tübingen

We have covered CureVac quite a lot here. Most of the time it has been bad news for the company, so we feel obliged to also share good news from them here:


Cologne

  • German VC firm Capnamic closes €190 million fund to fuel startups in German-speaking countries https://buff.ly/3hwA5hI


Munich

  • Munich-based 2trde picks up €7 million for its used-vehicle platform https://buff.ly/3hY4HZz

  • Goldman Sachs Asset Management & existing investors HPE Growth and Cinco Capital invest 70 mn US$ Venture Capital in Munich-based insurtech Xempus, formerly known as xbAV, bringing the total for the life insurance and pension SaaS solution to 125 m US$ https://buff.ly/3MFqAuR


Saarbrücken

  • 5-million-euro seed investment for Saarbrücken-based startup NATIF.ai | via HTGF “Its superior technology based on Artificial Intelligence automates document-based processes, freeing employees from paperwork” https://buff.ly/3vRquu1


Austria


Switzerland


General News / Tech News / Companies News Section


Fintechs

  • Deutschbanker is popular with fintechs … well, at least their employees. Former Deutsche Bankers are working for Raisin DS (soon the head of Raisin Bank), CEO Solarisbank, CEO Trade Republic, N26’s head of public affairs, or Penta’s head of growth https://buff.ly/3KQaq09

  • The merger between deposit brokers Raisin and Deposit Solutions to Raisin DS is Germany’s largest fintech merger to this day. Now the 2020 numbers of DS reveal they had to fight with declining revenues and losing bank partners https://buff.ly/3HNY72j

  • Berlin-based fintech Moonfare raised 125 mn US$ from investors like Tiger Global in November. Now more data is available that we wanted to share with you. The founder is a former German KKR CEO. He wants to enter the US market with the funding. On average the current customers invest 680k €. Learn more here https://buff.ly/33JQdZP

  • Berlin-based unicorn Solarisbank hires the first female executive as chief growth officer https://buff.ly/3t4uGnt The french lady named Chloé Mayenobe has been working in Natixis Payments before, part of investment bank Natixis.

  • Speedinvest invests together with Y-Combinator and business angels like Bitpanda CEO Eric Demuth in french fintech Finary, which will launch in Germany https://buff.ly/3shnuVL

  • Modifi Raises 145 M USD in Debt Financing https://buff.ly/33TwrLC

  • FlixBus, Flink and Runtastic founders back Berlin startup with €3.4 million to put an end to inefficient e-commerce deliveries https://buff.ly/3IyrtTv

  • Berlin-based Payrails raises over €5.7 million to launch payments and financial services operating system https://buff.ly/37uEdgf


A very very few Venture Capital investment/fundraising rounds

  • Berlin-based unicorn Forto raises 250 mn US$ Venture Capital, pumping their valuation to 2.1 bn US$ (formerly 1.2 bn US$). Investors include Disruptive, Softbank, G Squared, Northzone, Unbound, and A.P. Moeller Holding https://buff.ly/3i3UQ4J

  • French-German Healthcare tech platform Doctolib reaches $6.4 billion valuation https://buff.ly/3qe2wWp

  • Bain Capital Ventures Launches $560 Million Crypto Fund https://buff.ly/360vPo4

  • Berlin-based early-stage Revent raises 60 mn Euros for their fund, investing in impact startups https://buff.ly/33Jd0Ff

  • German healthtech startup Formel Skin gets €30 million boost to make dermatology more accessible https://buff.ly/3BSkXVd

  • Monite is helping SaaS businesses and neobanks build new products with $5 million https://buff.ly/3K552Ww

  • Instafreight raises 40 m US$ venture capital. Investors include PE fund Heliad and the European Investment Bank, as well as existing investors https://buff.ly/35I36or


Other News

  • HelloFresh sees slowing growth and the share price takes a dive https://buff.ly/35lPTkQ

  • Ford sells electric scooter unit Spin to Berlin’s Tier https://buff.ly/3sB82UG

  • Tiger Global is also in Germany an important investor in the startup scene, so it drew our attention when CB Insights published an article, especially since Tiger has closed in Q1 60% of the number of deals the did in all of 2021 https://buff.ly/3tsuVca

  • Egyptian furniture marketplace Homzmart acquires German tech company — Disrupt Africa https://buff.ly/34dP8cZ

  • Dawanda, a German competitor of Etsy has already been shut down, but the published data now reveals that Etsy still paid 35 m US$ https://buff.ly/3vIEW7B

  • Sad news for edtech Charly. First, they lost 2019 their 26 years old co-founder who passed away following a traffic accident (we talked about it in the news), now they have to file for insolvency https://buff.ly/3tBgWR9

  • Interesting idea to travel: Cargoriders is a German startup, allowing you to book a trip with a containership https://buff.ly/3pd5qdD

  • German Grocery giant REWE sells its stake in Durst.de, a beverage delivery service, even though they invested only two years ago https://buff.ly/3wmTD0v

In case you celebrate it: Happy Easter. We will be back with our April News Wrap-Up on April 28th.


Stay ahead of the curve


Key Takeaways

  • We have the 100 most influential women in startup and venture capital in Europe.

  • 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.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the key facts about This Month Startups March 2022?

This article is part of our coverage of Monthly Startup News from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

How does this affect the German startup ecosystem?

We have the 100 most influential women in startup and venture capital in Europe. There are two new unicorns to announce in GSA. Unicorn Personio set up a charity fund and Germany’s largest fintech exit (at approx 1 bn US$) is in the making.

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.

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