Foreign.
Your podcast and YouTube blog covering the German
startup scene with news, interviews and
live events.
Hello and welcome. I would like to say it's a sunny welcome but unfortunately it's
rather gray here in New York. We welcome you to our regular
startup news from the startup and tech entrepreneurship scenes in Germany,
Austria and Switzerland. We are back from our summer break. I only
cling on to this like floral motive short sleeve I'm wearing
and we bring you a massive news episode today. In fact it's so long
we had to cut it into two episodes. So like double the fun.
Our startup news is recorded with me in
New York City. Joe is joining from Frankfurt.
Hey from Nightly Frankfurt. Hey guys, how you doing? And now I
started to mention myself first which if you want to get into German
idioms in German you usually learn the
donkey always mentions himself first. I
learned that when I grew up. Today's
News cut is August 19th. As always,
all news not included will be in our next shows next news wrap up
to be published October 2, wrapping up September and
the remaining August. Then we needed to cut our news seriously today so
you can have a brief news overview. We will have newspaper
other news pieces in our blog posts on
StartupRaid IO blog.
Those are the ones that we simply cannot cover here, otherwise the news would
stretch far too long. To give you a bigger bit of background this
time we went through more than 350 news pieces for you.
Therefore we decided for the first time in the history of StartupRate
IO that we will split this news recording into two pieces to keep them
short and crisp. Happy Labor Day to you. If you are
celebrating and entrepreneurs since
they are working so much, I guess have a special relationship to Labor
Day. But before I talk myself even more
into a corner, I'm going to hand it over to you Joe to kick us
off with the highlights. Yes, thanks Chris. I always
appreciate your energy here. The highlights
by the way, I love Labor Day because it usually frequently
coincides with my birthday. Our highlights
Startup funding momentum across Europe and the Dach region
accelerated in August with AI, climate tech and
fintech taking center stage. Berlin's AI
ecosystem made global headlines as one stealth
unicorn skyrocketed from US$350 million
to 2.3 billion valuation in just four months,
underlining the region's dominance in enterprise, automation and SAS
driven AI. Meanwhile, the macro backdrop remains
tense with Germany's GDP contracting
sparking recession fears. But venture capital continues
to pour into deep tech and energy innovation as
hedge bets against cyclical slowdown.
Major deals shape this month. Narrative
Climeworks raised US$162 million to
advance its CO2 capture technology. What
Stuttgart based maker site secured 60 million
euros Series B to scale its sustainable supply
chain software q and added
62 million Series A 60 million euros
Series A to push quantum inspired climate solutions
and Munich's Tanzo or Tanzo
closed 12 million euros Series A
underscoring climate tech as a long term growth
pillar for the first on the FinTech front,
N26 faced regulatory heat and
leadership shakeups even as Scanbot
SDK exited via acquisition and Blynk absorbed
Finstep, highlighting both consolidation
and compliance challenges in Europe's
neobanking sector. For founders and VCs,
these developments signal a bifurcated market.
Late stage climate and AI startups are attracting mega
rounds and unicorn valuations while
fintech and mobility plays like Lilium navigate restructuring
and defense pivots to secure survival.
This month wave of scaleups and exit reinforces
the thesis that Europe's competitive edge lies
in climate innovation, quantum technologies and and
enterprise AI sectors now too big for
global investors to ignore. Let's talk
startups. There's link you can give us feedback. As we said, the
first interview the first piece of this news will go live
September 1, 2025 and I'm just turning around and
checking and number two part two will go live on
September 4, 2025.
Chris, you always you look pretty sharp in your shirt and by the
way discussing it up front. We both are wearing shirts.
Chris, you want to take over the top news, especially if you're dressed so
nice. For once we clean up, I'm
going to kick things off with Berlin's
N8N. It's a workflow
automation startup that has rocketed to a $2.3 billion
pre money valuation in August
like a week ago after Excel led a mega round with Maritech Capital
expected to join, marking one of Europe's biggest AI driven autom
deals. This year the company's value has
jumped from just $350 million in March
24, so within one and a half years
we have seen more than six times increase there on the back
of surging demand for AI agents and enterprise grade
workflow automation, they say they have an annual
recurring revenue of more than $40 million
and a 200,000 member community. And
NH N8N has become a
leading open source alternative to zapier and
make.com Lilium
brings in Pluta as
insolvency advisor amid their defense
pivot. So Lilium we talked about them quite often
in our podcast already based In Munich is an air taxi
startup that faces mounting insolvency pressures as
zu Deutsche Zeitung has reported for example several
times last time last week. And
restructuring advisor AAMG Pluta has been now
called in to guide the company through its crisis. That follows
Handel's Blood's revelations that Lillium is weighing a defense sector pivot
to generate near term revenues. With the defense sector right
now being quite booming in European countries
because they're investing more due to the Ukraine war and
the US being a less reliable partner than in the
business Insiders note on Fresh investor interest
is to is reviving a 20 million euro
financing deal. Despite pioneering Europe's
EVTOL ambitions, Lilium has
endured cash burn layoffs and delayed
certification milestones, so it's still relatively uncertain
what their commercial future will bring. And now thinking
about dual use applications in defense and emergency services,
Lilium is pivoting, kind of
hedging the risk. And they are joining a wider European
trend of aerospace startups turning to government based contracts
to bridge long funding Cycles Cycles
N26 another company we've been talking about a lot
here, a NEO bank based in Berlin, is
facing a severe governance crisis since
probably the most severe one since its founding as their
Co founder and CEO Valentin Steif stepped down a
couple of days ago August 15th earlier than planned
reported for example by Golem and FR Set the The
exit follows Baffin's special audit Bafin
being the regulatory committee
institution in financial supervisor financial
supervisor so they audited
N26 and revealed serious deficiencies
Gravira in fraud prevention and compliance
revising raising investor impatience and regulatory pressure.
The move also coincides with leadership reshuffles including
a new risk officer chief risk officer From Santander
replacing N26 outgoing Croatia
and together these developments mark a deep structural shakeup
at a company where we've had a lot of shakeups. I mean we are
we have been talking about them quite often now and
watching them from being a company where a lot of
people were expecting great things from
to something that right now feels as
if every month we come up with new with a
new talk about okay this is their next issue. And
the sad thing is that for example companies like a revolut
show that the new bank model can work so it's at
least right now is not working out as it could be.
Moving on to Switzerland where we see the cleantech scale up
Orange bet having secured a landmark
825 million euros allocation from the
European hydrogen bank. According to Moneycap, the
funding will be used to expand industrial scale
hydrogen production and infrastructure projects across Europe.
So Orange Bat is
going to become one of the largest single hydrogen allocations
tied to a dark based company.
Orange Bats Win underscores Brussels determination to
accelerate green hydrogen commercialization as part of
the EU's decarbonization strategy, and it also
positions the Swiss player alongside other continental leaders such as
Sunfire from Germany or H2 mobility
sunbed. Sorry. Orange Bat is targeting both industrial
energy users and cross border hydrogen corridors
and aims to become a central enabler of Europe's
clean tech transitions.
And that's it with the really Big Top
News section. And that leaves us
with our first little ad break.
Taking over after the ad break from Chris we
do we don't put anything here in housekeeping
and time to brag this month,
but there'll be more coming up. Talking about the
ecosystem here in Europe, the European
innovation council selects 40 startups for new
funding round reported by Silicon Canals.
They select the 40 startups from across Europe for
equity and grant support. The companies span
biotech, AI and sustainability, reflecting
EU level support for scaling deep tech. Several dark
startups are included, though not all
names were disclosed in this article. Two companies,
Quant Qwant and a
Ecosia launch, Stan St AAN
Europe's independent search index TechCrunch, reported
that French search engine Quant and German Echo search
provider Ecosia jointly launch Stan, a European search
index designed as a privacy first alternative to
Google. They aim to enhance Europe's digital
sovereignty and lay the groundwork for AI native
retrieval systems. The launch could reshape the European search and
ad tech market. The talk
going to Germany here the E4 business climate
index edges higher in July 2025
On July 25, 2025, the Ifo Institute in
Munich reported a modest increase in its closely
watched Business Climate Index, reflecting cautious
optimism in the German economy. Sentiment
improved in industry and services, but remained weak in construction
and retail. In other
news Dresden tops sum up 2025
cost ranking for founders Leipzig and
Bremen Follow Sum ups Analyzers of
71 German cities ranked Dresden number one for cost
efficient funding, citing low retail ren utilities
and competitive effective corporate tax.
Leipzig placed second, Bremen third while
Munich ranked last among the top 20 due to high rents
and utilities. But apparently you could still work
as a high rent startup hub. The study weights median wages,
unemployment, rents, utilities and effective corporate tax,
signaling cost advantages in East German hubs
for early stage teams. KFW
Kronungs Monitor meaning The
Founding Monitor 2025 reports stable
startup activity despite economic headwinds.
Munich Startup summarized The Kfw Kronungs monitor 2025
showing that the number of new businesses in Germany remains
robust. Early stage activity is supported by resilience
in tech and digital sectors. Even as macroeconomic
uncertainty of waits on financing
policymakers are watching indicators closely to
refine support schemes. German
GDP dips again Technical Recession looms in
Q2 2025 Tageschauer it's like the
main news source in Germany, right? Everybody watches
Tageschauer 8 in Germany. It's the law. You have to watch the
law. Yeah. They reported that Germany's economy shrank by
0.2% in Q2 after flat Q1 meeting the
definition technical recession. Exports and
industrial output weakened while private consumption
stagnated despite easing inflation. The
downturn adds pressure to fiscal debates and heightens
importance of startup innovation driven growth narratives in the D
region. Berlin to set new financial rains for
Rails for defense startups to speed procurement
and scale. Handels Blood reported the federal government
will establish funding procurement vision meaning
Rails to help defense tech startups commercialize faster.
Aligns with dual use momentum and NATO
related demand to use. Didn't we just have something with
lilium like that? No new budget timelines versus
our priority entry. Germany clears
the path for remote operated driving pilots
opening the door for tailor up for teleoperation
startups. German authorities signal the go
ahead for remote control driving pilots establishing the
framework for teleoperation in logistics and mobility. The
policy shift could benefit companies building teledriving
stacks, remote op centers and safety cases
align with EU rules. The article does not name specific
startups. And Chris, you know what's very interesting? We
actually talked about it. I talked with lawyer about it
inside Germany's autonomous driving law in
2021 because this was
within the frame of a law. So we have been quite ahead of the curve
here. But Chris, you looks pretty Bavarian. You want to
take over Bavaria here? It's. It's a unique thing that they are highlighted here.
I mean you're white and you're dressed in white and blue too.
But yeah, I mean autonomous driving this is also a story that is
with. Has been with us forever and we've been promised that we are so close
to finally actually making it work way more apparently works
pretty well on the US west coast. But so far, I mean
sure, if you went back in the archives that you
would be able to find
assumptions, promises that would have said okay, in
2025 there will be autonomous driving everywhere
and not much, not much has happened.
Yeah but we, we've already discussed it in 2021.
So there will be one person ahead of a lot of screens and if,
if any autonomous driving vehicle gets into trouble,
a human driver from a center takes over. That was basically
the idea we discussed in 2021 and now it seems to
become reality, at least in ports. There also was a huge
report in Guardian based on reporting I think even for
hundreds platform Germany about how
nonchalant Tesla actually deals with
really deadly crashes and the car taking over when
the drivers don't really want it. And then actually a
lot of times the people who are
the, who survive, who are the
survivors of the of the dead people probably never
get answers for what actually happened in the car and why the crash
happened, why it accelerated. It was really, it was a really disturbing reading.
Anyway, Bavaria,
we established it already. White and blue state in the German
south passes a landmark resolution
to unlock foundation capital for startups NVC funds.
The Bavarian parliament approved a pro startup resolution
to invest in startups MVC funds. A little policy
tweak that aims at attracting more
endowment capital into dark venture markets.
Austria, to the south of Bavaria and to the
south of Germany. There we see
what they call a Grundave founders wave,
meaning there's a clear uptick in new company formations in Austria,
despite the macro headwinds, a surge indicating
resilient founder activity, improving access
vehicles, public co funding corporates and regional initiatives.
We have in the show notes details split for different
sectors and seed series totals. Vienna based
Allocator1 launches a fund of funds for
European VC. It's a
platform designed to channel institutional money into
European VC funds and the startup model aims to
diversify LP risk and simplify access to
venture investment investments. Switzerland,
as we say in geography, to the left of
Austria, west of Austria
has no. You just said to the left, Chris.
Yeah, that's what we say. Pinterest launches a new
AI tech hub in Zurich in order to strengthen their Dach
region footprint and also
signaling a major investment in local research and development. The
hub will focus on personalization, generative AI and content
safety. And this,
our dear friends, is already the end of
part one of our startup news. We
will be back in three days. For
those of you who listen to us on day one, if you download
us later, you can also wait three days. But you can also just go into
your app and download the second part if you want to.
So thanks for now and we'll hear you
soon. Talk soon. Bye guys.
That's all folks. Find more news, streams,
events and
interviews@www.startuprad.IO.
remember, sharing is caring.
Sam.