Foreign.
Your podcast and YouTube blog covering the German
startup scene with news interviews and
live events. Hello
and welcome everybody to our regular startup news. From the
startup and tech entrepreneurship scenes in Germany, Austria and Switzerland,
you have tuned in to the deep deep dive of our
startup news, the second part of our monthly news coverage
here at Startup Rate IO. You have listened
in the first part we were talking about the
general top news of this month and now we will
have take a closer look at some of the most interesting companies here.
First of all though, we
have a little look at the mood of the market, which we always do.
November felt like a bit like a market switching from sugar highest to
protein, we could say so a bit like fewer
flashy apps, more industrial AI, robotics, defense
systems, sovereign cloud capacity. It all
felt felt a bit more substantiated than we were probably used to.
And we see that across the D region, Deutschland,
Schweitz, Austria and Switzerland and Europe,
the story wasn't growth at any cost, but building
infrastructure that to make the next decade possible.
We see that AI is shifting and more from being a marketing
gimmick to a bit of an industrial backbone, capital flowing
accordingly accordingly. Even though word of caution obviously there's still
a lot of hopes in the market, I guess. And
we see that despite tighter conditions, the region is delivering
a surprising might with 1.8 billion
euros in fresh VC funds and more than 400
million euros in startup raises even after we cut everything
below 2020 million euros. So there's a whole
additional layer to this that we're not even counting.
Theme 1 AI becomes industrial infrastructure I already said
it. AI trans AI's transformation from a hype to a
hardware level infrastructure is accelerating. This month we are seeing that
Entropic is opening hubs in Munich and Paris.
Flexion raised big to power Humanoid
Autonomy and enterprises rushed for vertical AI
stacks in healthcare, robotics, logistics and fraud
prevention. Schwarz's group 11 billion euro
sovereign compute blitz that we talked about
in our first in the
first part of this overview. And
yeah, then we see that the message becomes clear. Compute
scarcity is now a strategic market. Not anymore a
technolog technical inconvenience.
Theme number two Deep tech and defense are
going mainstream. Europe is leaning
hard into 70 tech this month and the funding
flows are becoming more and more geopolitical.
We are seeing that Quantum Systems is marching toward a 3 billion
euro valuation. We already talked about this in the first part of this.
Reflex Aerospace is scoring a record
raise and Vienna is positioning itself more and more as a crypto 70
hub Multiple defense tech funds are launched
to fill the continent's strategic gap.
So yeah, this is just as a little
wrap up roundup in the beginning, but
you got two more themes right now that we are witnessing and
seeing right now for us too. Yes.
Fintech, Climate Tech and Industrial Tech tighten up.
Fintech continued its great normalization
arc. Berlin pushed for European leadership. Complaints
at trade Republica spiking at 133%.
Crypto platforms maturing into compliance first machines
and Swiss players raising institutional great treasury
rounds. Climate and industrial tech meanwhile delivers
some of the month strongest momentum. Ecommerce, energy
optimization, industrial inspection and manufacturing
automation all pulled in capital that once flowed into
consumer apps. Across our deep dive we track
400 plus million euros in fundraising even
with a hard cutoff. We did this the first time for this news
at 20 million. Otherwise we could talk for
hours. A polite way of saying the pipeline was
overflowing. For why the funding backdrop? Revisit our
regional breakdown Corrections,
layoffs and record founder wave.
Not every storyline was upbeat. Unfortunately
Insolvency hit, insolvencies hit Robotics,
Fintech and biotech, Personio and Job Rat
announced layoffs and regulatory pressure kept
rising across subscription models, mobility,
health, tech and financial services. But in true European
fashion, destruction came bundled with creation.
Entrepreneurship hit a multi decade high with
27000 plus new founders entering the
arena. The ecosystem is tightening, but it's also
maturing deeper, faster, more industrial.
Now buckle up. Our top stories ahead Got straight into
AI, Defense tech, Fintech Robotics and
sovereign clout Biotech. And a
surprisingly bullish capital cycle. Our sponsor A
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10, 2025. Two good news about
two of our former guests. Scavenger AI, a former guest has
secured 2.5 million in seed funding to bring AI
power business intelligence to Europe's mid market.
And our former guest Munich based Edu
Rino has won the finale Da Huam at Seven
Ventures Pitch Day 2025. Also we are now
officially scoring at number 78 in F6? S top
100 startups. This is amazing. Thank you for everybody who's taking the journey
with Keep in mind that there are millions of startups out there
and now let's go a little bit into the ad break and then Chris takes
over with the ecosystem.
Welcome back from the ads. And now let's have a look at
the ecosystem of the startup
scene influencing the startup scene worldwide in Europe and in the
Dach region. First off the worldwide news
we are seeing that authorities are have dismantled a major
international cybercrime network involved in large scale
Internet fraud and credit card theft. Suspects were arrested
across multiple European countries as well. The group is accused of running
sophisticated phishing malware payment card schemes
causing extensive financial damage to consumer and
businesses. We have a bit more about that in
Manager magazine. In Europe we see that
Politico is reporting that the European Commission is courting
top investors for a multi billion euro scale up
fund designed to bridge the growth stage financing gap and keep
more European tech champions at home instead of losing them to the
United States or to Asian buyers. This is something
that's a bit more crucial for later stage founders in Germany and
Austria and Switzerland. So we're because it's a region where Series
C + capital is often a bottleneck between
strong product market fit and global leadership.
This is something you can also explore in Venture capital Germany a global and
regional comparison in 2024 which is a post
on our website. EU startups is reporting
that European startups are rapidly building anti deepfake and
fraud detection solutions since we are seeing that AI
enabled fraud losses are surpassing 1.3 billion
euros with new companies are now
focusing on voice, video, ID verification and transaction
monitoring. This is especially important for the Dark
fintech and rectech founders since regulators are now
tightening their expectations and banks are looking for more
robust AI native fraud stacks
trending Topics highlights a powerful new founder wave across
Europe with almost 60% more people starting companies in 2025
than in 2023. 97,000 founders
launching ventures and that is all an all time high.
Reasons for that are lower entry barriers, from no code tools
to stronger founder networks and yeah
generally in all enabling entrepreneurship across age groups and
regions. More about that can also be found not only on trending
topics but also on our website. VC
Magazine analyzes how medtech startups in Europe are being
stress tested by tighter funding conditions and evolving regulation,
but they are also noting that resilient companies are still raising and bringing
products to the market. I found this approach
actually Pretty funny because they are stress tested by
tight funding conditions. You don't say tighter funding condition, you say the good
ones get stress tested. I like that approach. Yeah, I'm also being
stress tested constantly in this show. So the EU has
abandoned plans for blanket suspicionless
scanning of private messenger traffic
for child abuse material, dropping one of the most controversial
chat control proposals in the ongoing legislative package. So
yeah, to, to take a step back here. The discussion is always
okay, how much is how much can the
European Union can countries in the European Union and the authorities
scan without having a specific
suspicion against someone or and so yeah, we
are seeing now that there's a political discussion about this.
In an interview with Antifa German news channel we
heard that the automotive expert
Ferdinand Dudenhofer, having a reputation for decades
now as being one of the most knowledgeable experts of the
automotive industry in Germany, calls the dispute around
Dutch control chip maker Nix Peria, a conflict provoked by
the US linking export controls and ownership battles to
broader geopolitical power plays in semiconductors
disorient Important because we see here the vulnerability of a German
industry to foreign policy decisions in Washington and
Beijing and we are seeing that this is kind of the
backdrop for the Dach regions chip and hardware
startups trying to position themselves
as important players in de risked
supply chains. Moving on
from the European perspectives to specific perspectives
in Germany, Handel's Blood has an analysis
warning that the ongoing chip crisis could push Germany into a third
consecutive year of recession because we are
seeing supply bottlenecks and geopolitical frictions around players like Nick's
Peria and dark startups, especially in
mobility, robotics and industrial Internet of things
are now suffering from this macro pressure because it's
hurting customers but it also accelerates demand for efficiency
and reshoring. And as always a
brief look at the IFO Business Climate Index, the
Gescher Klima Index, Germany's premier business sentiment
barometer dipping to 88.1 points
in November from 88.4 points in October
and missing analyst expectations, all of it
confirming that German companies are losing optimism about
near term recovery. I'm not losing that optimism
because I will recover by handing it over to you.
I really, really had to laugh when you when you talked
about that. You were stress tested here in the Program
Manager magazine profiles Austrian pet
tech startup Tractive which now exceeds
1 billion euro valuation with its GPS
enabled smart colors that let owners track pets in
real time and monitor their activity. A
new analyzers reported by the broadcast and finds that European
deep tech startups could create up to 1 million
new jobs and add around 1 trillion in value to
the EU economy by 2030 if
funding volumes roughly tripled to 28 billion
annually. Tech funding News reports that
Vienna is emerging as a contender for Europe's next major
crypto hub, driven by regulatory
clarity, strong academic talent and a growing
concentration of blockchain startups.
Switzerland Startup Ticker reports that
172 million Swiss francs in fresh capital
has been deployed into swift growth stage startups across
multiple sectors including of course biotech, fintech
and industrial deep tech. The funding wave reflects sustained
investor confidence in Switzerland's ability to
translate strong research foundations into scale ready
companies. The General News
Tech News and Company News we are talking a little bit
about VC news and new funds. I'll just hit the highlights
here. As we said, more than 1.6
billion in new funding raised. Asperity
Partners has closed its debut debut
875 million euro fund
targeting Europe's next B2B tech
championship. Figun Ventures
has launched a US$250 million
fund dedicated to quantum technologies with backing from
Quarta Investment Authority. Start
Base reports that X Ange
X A N G E has reached a 200
million euros first close for its new new early
stage fund X Ange 5 focused on deep
tech, climate, fintech and software across Europe.
Also Start Base reports that Keen Venture Partners
has launched a 150 million euro fund
dedicated to European defense tech targeting startups
across the Buswell dual use, AI
drones, cyber and secure communications.
Armilla Fund 4 has reached its its first
close at 120 million euros to back early
stage tech companies across Iberia and Europe with focus on
deep tech, software and digital information. Oyster Bay
raises 100 million US dollar food fund
reported by Tech Funding News early
backer of Oatly they have closed a 100
million US dollar fund dedicated to sustainable food tech and
next generation Consum and
Rubio Impact ventures has raised 70
million euros towards a third fund targeting European
early stage startups in climate circularity and social impact
tech. EU also reports a new 1 million
euros ticket fund created by a coalition of European
founders to back early stage startups and more symbolically to work
towards Europe's first trillion dollar tech
company. A hundred spot feature of
former Formula one driver Nico Rosberg Stock fund
so umbrella font shows how the Formula one champion
is evolving from direct angel bets into startups
like Stark and N8N into fund of funds and co
investment strategies backing top tier VC firms.
Early Bird Health has promoted Dr. Rabab
Nasala and Dr. Christopher Masna to partners
deepening its specialty bench in biotech and data driven
health as it doubles down on scientific evidence.
Heavy thesis. Sequoia has launched
two new early stage funds for Europe and described the European
founders pool as stronger than ever. That's actually a good sign.
They're signaling that the firm sees structural depth in
seed and series 8D flow across the continent
VC markets in reports that Alex von Frankenberg, longtime
managing director of high tech Kronafor, also somebody that I
interviewed in Germany before in English a few years ago and
just recently on Startup Land where he actually talked about his new
book I have it here, Das Eligelt Bitcoin and
he has even signed it for me. That's awesome, isn't it?
He will become a venture partner at May Ventures. His move
brings one of Germany's most influential early stage investor,
responsible for backing hundreds of deep tech SaaS and industrial tech
startups in a new strategic role within Europe's
landscape. And unfortunately a little bit sad news.
Munich Re is shutting down its corporate venture capital arm, suspending new
investments and shifting innovation efforts towards internal
product development and strategic partnerships. And I hand over to
Chris with the deep tech news. He wrote a whole book into
into the book. So much nice.
Yeah. Looking at Deep Tech News Manager
magazine reports that Celonis is fighting to
regain momentum after tensions with SAP over product overlap and
market positioning with the unicorn Salonis
doubling down on its AI driven execution platform. Despite that
little in fighting, Celonis is now leaning into enterprise
expansions, sharpening its product roadmap and courting global customers
to reaffirm the category leadership. So we see here
that in the dark tech ecosystem, even top
tier software as a service scale ups must navigate competitive pressure
now. Handel's Blood interviews the CEO of
robotics giant Kuka who's arguing that
the company should actually be particularly strong in the
dark region and who is reflecting on competitive
pressures, reshoring and the need for more automation.
Stern German Weekly magazine is reporting that Munich
based Agile Robots will begin serial production of humanoid robots
called AG1 from early 2026 in
first and Feldbrook. The robot is designed with arms,
legs and a head and supposed to work alongside humans and other machines in
industrial environments and powered of course by
AI model trained on industrial data and a highly
precise robotic hands hand.
Business Insider and Grunda Sine covers peak AI
PE AI which has closed its third
multi million euro round within just a year, detailing both the funding and
the founders unusual high salaries
and the report also is illustrating both the continued appetite for AI
native startups in the German market and the emerging debate around
compensation expectations in companies that are still
very early on in their history.
Oberlanders so the like
Superior Court in the city of Dusseldorf has ruled that Amazon's
2022 price hike for prime memberships in
Germany was unlawful, finding that the price
adjustment clause in the contract was invalid because
Amazon could not unilaterally change fees without clear criteria
or explicit customer consent. So right now it look
as if millions of German prime users may be entitled to
refunds and Centrale nrw, which is kind of
the customer protection office of the state
government in North R Westphalia, is preparing a collective
action lawsuit, sending a signal to subscription based
platforms about being having to be more transparent about
pricing and their contracts. Antopic is
expanding its global footprint with new hubs in Paris and Munich. We
already hinted at this a bit. Aiming to serve fast growing
European enterprise demand for cloud powered
AI systems, the company is now planning to hire engineers, policy
specialists and go to market teams across the region.
Also here putting an emphasis on Europe, signaling that Europe is an
important additional market to the US and
maybe Asia. Moving on from deep Tech
to Defense Tech Handel's Blood published a Europe wide
map of leading defense startups spotlighting venture backed companies
in areas such as drones, space,
cybersecurity and AI across the continent, including
obviously several from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. And we are
seeing more about that also in Defense
Tech Germany. An article on our website
where 30% of VC said that they are already investing, 45%
said that they are planning to invest more
Biotech News we don't have anything specific right now, but there will be plenty
of news in the funding and MMA section. M and A
section, not the MMA section that is for
fighting, but I'm not going to fight
handing over to. You for FinTech FinTech news thanks
Chris Fa said. One of Germany's
largest newspapers looks at how Berlin wants to
become Europe's fintech capital, focusing on the city's dense cluster
of new banks, infrastructure startups and crypto players, plus
support from local politics and regulators. This
ambition builds on the narrative of Berlin as Germany's startup
powerhouse that you cover in the Rise of Berlin
startups. Germany's Startup powerhouse
Complaints against Trade Republic search by 133%
reports Business Insider Driven by issues around app stability,
order execution and customer support
response Times Business Panda Co founder Eric
Demut becomes Executive Chairman, Silicon
Canals reports he has stepped down into
his new role as Executive chairman, shifting from
operational leadership to more strategic oversight position
as company continues scaling its digital asset investment
platform across Europe. McMarkler points Steve
Simmons as new CEO, reports Manager magazine
the Real Estate platform has appointed Steve Simmons
in as its new CEO, bringing experienced leadership
as the company navigates a sluggish property market and rising
pressure on brokerage margins.
Baobab Insurance is expanding its operation and has appointment
Tim Fundlia to strengthen its leadership team
as company accelerates its digital insurance strategy.
The move supports Baobab's push into scalable technology driven
underwriting and customer service models.
Chris, you want to talk a little bit general news?
Yes, I do. T Online notes that the German
retail association HDE is expecting Black Friday sales in
Germany to decline for the first time, especially since
inflation and consumer caution are dampening the
spending Handels blood profiles
Celonis as it pivots from pure process mining into a broader AI
driven execution platform. We already talked about the competition with
SAP. More about that can be found on our website and on in the
Handel's blood story. The Byron
Fungarian the Bavarian broadcaster BR is
reporting that Bavaria is betting heavily on AI data centers,
debating whether a gigafactory scale campus could emerge as a
regional anchor for compute and cloud infrastructure that would have
major implications for Munich and Nuremberg area startups in
AI and high performance computing. And
that already makes me give it back to you
talking about creative destruction.
Creative destruction Totally very sad news from our former guest
Monkey trending topic report that Austrian savings app
startup Monkey has filed for insolvency
after failing to do financing ending a multi
year push to help customers build automated savings habits
and healthier financial behavior. Actually I remember
that the vast majority of the users of marquees have
been women which was totally uncommon
but nonetheless they could not make it work.
This is actually quite uncommon here at Startup. We have according
to podchaser More than 725
episodes live, not including our founders vault and we are
aware of only dozen or so companies that we have
interviewed as guests and that fight for
insolvency. Sexishte Profiles
Biotech founder Nadine Schmida Galfer, once celebrated
as Saxony's best female founder who is now taking her high
tech startup through insolvency and openly framing the
process as part of entrepreneurial reality.
VC Market Scene reports that German Bionic, the
Augsburg based robotic scale up known for its smart
exoskeleton has filed for insolvency after major
financing round collapsed. Business Insider reports
HR unicorn Personio is cutting staff with the piece,
focusing on what affected employees can do now in terms of
legal rights, severance and next steps in job
search for the Dach ecosystem. Layoffs at a
flagship like this SaaS player shows that even top tier
scale ups are tightening belts as the funding environment
normalizes despite Pacific still being profiled as a national
champion in pieces like German startups. Handelsblatt
reports that Freiburg based Jobrad, German's leading bicycle
leasing platform, is cutting 20% of its workforce
as demand normalizes after pandemic era heights.
Chris, you want to do some
fundraising and access the the fun news?
Yes, let's end on a high Note here.
So FMC has raised 100 million euros to
expand its advanced fiber manufacturing technology
targeting high performance applications across automotive, industrial and
sustainability driven sectors. The company wants to use
the money for in order to build more capacity for European supply
chains seeking lightweight, durable and low
emission materials. Berlin based biopharma company
144 so there's the number four,
then teen as in teenager and then the number the
digit 4 again has extended its Series
C round to 55 million euro to advance development
of Pro T Zoom up.
Proky Zoom up. That is a complicated word for the
antibody therapy for to prevent organ failure in acute and
critical care settings. The capital now is supposed to support late
stage clinical work and preparations for regulatory approval.
Target Spiegel reports that Berlin based software and care startup
Voice V O I Z e
has raised 50 million euros scaling its voice documentation tools to help
nurses and carers record information more efficiently.
Vienna based Recommerce marketplace refurbed closed the
50 million euro round to accelerate their European
expansion with a particular push into the uk strengthening
its AI driven platform for refurbished electronics and other
goods. Reflex aerospace raised also 50
million euros as policymakers are increasingly
viewing satellites at Europe's Achilles heel with the Berlin
based startup now aiming to deliver more agile, responsive spacecraft for
defense and secure communication. Del Vtech based in
Switzerland, raised $40 million to scale its AI
powered opt inspection platform for the electronics manufacturing
industry. The company uses computer vision and machine learning
to detect defects in highly complex
boards, providing faster and more accurate quality control than traditional
systems. Swiss fintech future
secured 28 million Swiss francs to build a
Bitcoin treasury platform that combines multi sig
custody, treasury tooling and advisory services
for institutional clients. Clone Based
Autonomy has raised $20 million in a seed round
to build AI digital workforces that automate complex
enterprise support and service workflows, with Macquarie
Capital Venture Capital leading the round
alongside Capnamic, NRW
bank and Tech Vision Fund. The
startup's agentic AI platform is designed to process dense
technological documentation with
claimed 95% answer accuracy
transcript reports that Berlin based Captain T Cell
Max Delbruck center spin out developing next generation
TCR T cell therapies for solid tumors
has secured a 20 million euro financing round.
The capital here is supposed to push its pipeline toward clinical development
in a segment considered particularly challenging even within cell
therapy that those are the funding rounds now
Talking about companies that go together M and A News
Yes, M and. A News Manager magazine reports that
Northern Data, already under public attention due to leadership ties
to individuals close to Donald Trump, has acquired a germ
cloud company as part of its infrastructure
expansion. The acquisition intensifies debate around
governance, transparency and geopolitical influence in Europe's
high performance computing landscape, especially given
Northern Data's growing role in AI and crypto infrastructure.
Astra Cica a, a large pharma company has
acquired Swiss biotech startup Six Peaks in a deal
worth US$300 million, adding
companies precision medicine and immunology technology
to its global pipeline. FA Set reports that
Walter Clovers has acquired burden based based legal AI
startup Libra, strengthening the Dutch information giants product
suite for automated legal research and
document analyzers. Chris, I would say we
call it a day. We have now recorded more than I think
almost an hour together here, right? It's a lot.
Yeah. So I want to get ready for my fake tofu
turkey. Fake fake turkey for
tofurkey, whatever. Enjoy that thing.
Don't know how you can do that, but nonetheless very, very
happy to have you on board. And we will be back with
the December news published
December 18th and later. Thanks guys. It was a pleasure.
Thanks to you all for listening. Bye.
That's all folks. Find more news streams,
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interviews@www.startuprad.IO.
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