• Tech Startups Germany (Video)

    doks. innovation enables indoor drone flights for next level digital logistics

    doks. innovation enables indoor drone flights for next-level digital logistics

    Inside a building GPS does not work. We use a combination of global mapping and local mapping… it is very very complex.

    Benjamin Federmann, CEO and Co-Founder doks.innovation

     

    The Founder

    In this interview, we talk to Benjamin Federmann (https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminfedermann/) the CEO and Co-Founder of Kassel-based drone startup doks. innovation (https://www.doks-innovation.com/). D oks.innovation is not a hardware startup, they only provide  Benjamin has spent some time after university in marketing and consulting for some smaller and also well-known companies like Leica.

     

    The feedback from the interviews I conducted was so good, I was sure I needed to found the company

    Benjamin Federmann, CEO and Co-Founder doks.innovation

    Patreon

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    The customer can ask almost any question and find the answer in our data.

    Benjamin Federmann, CEO and Co-Founder doks.innovation

     

    DueDash

    If you don’t like Patreon, there is DueDash. DueDash is a Social Network, for startups and investors. We have a group of supporters there as well. You can join the group there:  https://buff.ly/2R90PYp

     

    When we started with our first prototype, we crashed 30 to 40 drones.

    Benjamin Federmann, CEO and Co-Founder doks.innovation

     

    Affiliate Links

    Is your startup in need of a bank account in Germany? Try our partner affiliate Penta http://bit.ly/3bdHX3d

    Looking to open a bank account to shift between crypto and fiat? Try our partner Bitwala with this affiliate link here http://bit.ly/2w01Zye

    Our drone is a flying camera to collect data for the inventory management.

    Benjamin Federmann, CEO and Co-Founder doks.innovation

     

    The Startup

     

    The startup doks.innovation enables companies to monitor their warehouses via drones, which can fly indoors without smacking on any shelf or wall. Doks is not a hardware startup. doks.innovation provides only the ai software for the drones to enable them to fly indoors. On the other hand, they are also working closely with hardware providers, since they have very specific requirements for their drones. The drones are using cutting-edge drone hardware, which is not yet publicly available.
    The company is still small, but they have reference customers like Mars and BMW.

    Our clients have to press a button and come back 3 or 4 hours later. The data collection is totally automated. The customer can ask almost any question and can find the answer in our data.
    Benjamin Federmann, CEO and Co-Founder doks.innovation

     

    Venture Capital Funding

    doks.innovation is open to talking to new investors from Europe and the US. They are looking for the next financing round in Q1 2021 and to expand to the US in 2021.

     

    When we stared there was no hardware available for what we have been looking for.

    Benjamin Federmann, CEO and Co-Founder doks.innovation

     

     

    The Video Interview is set to go live on October 15th, 2020 19.00 CET Frankfurt/Paris/Zürich/Milano

    https://youtu.be/yi8SmEMuuj8

     

    Drones are good for land surveying, but are there areas where drones are currently not working? So I made more than 100 interviews in one and a half year.

    Benjamin Federmann, CEO and Co-Founder doks.innovation

     

    Further Readings / Additional Resources

    Learn more about Kassel here: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g187342-Kassel_Hesse-Vacations.html

     

    Feedback

    Reach out to us, here is our audience survey, to give us feedback, suggest topics, interview partners or just to say “Hallo!” https://forms.gle/mLV6mVKwGwKuut8BA

     

    The Interviewer

    This interview was conducted by Jörn “Joe” Menninger, startup scout, founder and host of Startuprad.io. Reach out to him:
    LinkedIn
    Twitter
    Email

    Cyreen provides consumer brands with brick and mortar analytics

    Cyreen provides consumer brands with brick and mortar analytics

    We analyze shopping behaviour based on the contact with an in-store commercial. Our system does not even know if you are male or female.
    Davide Scheidegger, Co-Founder Cyreen

     

    Cyreen establishes a data-driven retail media standard for consumer brands in supermarkets. Courtesy of Cyreen

    The Founder

    We talk to Davide Scheidegger (https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidescheidegger/), who is originally from Switzerland, but now lives in Wiesbaden, working with his other co-founders on their startup Cyreen (https://www.cyreen.de/). They provide with movement tracking of shopping carts and in-store-advertisements, analytics for brick and mortar retailers, as well as for retail brands.

     

    Enabler

    This recording was made possible by (Hessen Trade and Invest). Learn more about our enabler here: https://www.invest-in-hessen.com/

    Find all options to subscribe here:

     

    This is kind of the best advertisement in Germany, when you say: “Today you save 20%”
    Davide Scheidegger, Co-Founder Cyreen

     

    The Startup

    Cyreen is an analytics software for inside a brick and mortar retailer. The tool tracks (anonymized) shopping carts and analyze customer behavior in the market. They can also show advertisements to the clients inside the retailer on small screens and track their efficiency. Cyreen can also include outside parameters e.g. temperature.

    Cyreen is an award-winning start-up that provides transparent, measurable and close-to-purchase marketing solutions for advertisers. They successfully launched their first product C.A.P. (Connecting Ad-Impressions with Purchase) in several stores. With C.A.P., they have developed a high-end digital signage system. For the first time, detailed advertising effectiveness analyses for offline marketing are possible according to the online logic of Facebook & Co.

    We normally don’t talk to our clients directly, but via our ad & media agencies.
    Davide Scheidegger, Co-Founder Cyreen

     

    Davide refers to this advertisement of Wiesenhof, which they helped to measure in store

    Atze Schröder Wiesenhof, was one of the commercials measured by Cyreen in-store:

    https://youtu.be/7BZfmh7JM68

     

    More information on their tool CAP – Connecting Ad-Impressions with Purchase (Cyreen is the name of the company)

    https://vimeo.com/341804155

     

    A study by the University of St. Gallen. The link will open a PDF.

     

    We even tested the advertisement for ice cream in winter.
    Davide Scheidegger, Co-Founder Cyreen

     

    Patreon

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    DueDash

    If you don’t like Patreon, there is DueDash. DueDash is a Social Network, for startups and investors. We have a group of supporters there as well. You can join the group there:  https://buff.ly/2R90PYp

     

    Affiliate Links

    Is your startup in need of a bank account in Germany? Try our partner affiliate Penta http://bit.ly/3bdHX3d

    Looking to open a bank account to shift between crypto and fiat? Try our partner Bitwala with this affiliate link here http://bit.ly/2w01Zye

     

    Even though I have not been to Wiesbaden before, I fell in love with the city instantly. Mainz is not too far away and the wine is great.
    Davide Scheidegger, Co-Founder Cyreen

    The Video Interview is set to go live on September 17th 19.00 CET (Frankfurt / Zürich)

    https://youtu.be/iN0RgBpMYg8

    The Audio Interview will go live at the same time

    Subscribe to our podcasts here

     

    Further Readings / Additional Ressources

     

    Bahncard 100 https://www.bahn.com/en/view/offers/bahncard/bahncard_100-conditions.shtml

    German retailer REWE (as of end of 2019 they generated 62.7 bn Euros in revenue, almost 75 bn US$) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REWE_Group

    Herbert, a German male first name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_(given_name)#:~:text=From%20Wikipedia%2C%20the%20free%20encyclopedia,names%20with%20the%20same%20roots.

    Joe refers to the shopping list app BRING! https://getbring.com/#!/app

    ALDI and Lidl (the German discounters mentioned):

     

    We normally don’t talk to our clients … but to their ad agencies.
    Davide Scheidegger, Co-Founder Cyreen

     

    Feedback

     

    Reach out to us, here is our audience survey, to give us feedback, suggest topics, interview partners or just to say “Hallo!” https://forms.gle/mLV6mVKwGwKuut8BA

     

    The Interviewer

    This interview was conducted by Jörn “Joe” Menninger, startup scout, founder and host of Startuprad.io. Reach out to him:
    LinkedIn
    Twitter
    Email

    Quoscient helps to analyze, investigate and respond to cyber-threats

    This is the last episode before our summer break of this podcast. We will be back in September!

    QuoScient helps to analyze, investigate and respond to cyber-threats

     

    Attackers are devious… During the current health crisis, they are going after health institutions and hospitals. They don’t basically care that they are doing damage to people who have already health problems.

    Ioannis Bizimis, Co-Founder QuoScient

     

     

    The Founder

    In this interview, we are talking to Ioannis Bizimis (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ioannis-bizimis-6423527/https://twitter.com/defense_active), the Co-Founder, CFO, CRO, and  CISO of QuoScient.

    Ioannis has been an Investment Manager, project lead with Dow Jones, with MarkIt, an employee of Deutsche Bank and other well-regarded companies. He has a lot of experience and with this experience, he started to set up QuoScient.

     

    One of the biggest strategies [of hackers] is to come into your network and stay there and install as many backdoors as they can. They will use them when they need it.
    Ioannis Bizimis, Co-Founder QuoScient

     

    Patreon

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    It costs hackers just a few hundred Dollars or Euros to build up an attack campaign. The effort on the other side is thousands, sometimes millions to understand this kind of campaign.

    Ioannis Bizimis, Co-Founder QuoScient 

     

    Affiliate Links

    • Is your startup in need of a bank account in Germany? Try our partner affiliate Penta http://bit.ly/3bdHX3d
    • Looking to open a bank account to shift between crypto and fiat? Try our partner Bitwala with this affiliate link here http://bit.ly/2w01Zye

     

    The Startup

    QuoScient (https://www.quoscient.io/https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/quoscient)  is a cybersecurity startup, which recently split into three parts to better pursue their respective activities. Two of those entities are still headquartered in Frankfurt, one in Columbia, Maryland (close to Baltimore). They basically split along their business lines:

     

    [A company] first must understand what their most critical assets are and what are the [cyber] risks to those assets.

    Ioannis Bizimis, Co-Founder QuoScient

     

    Venture Capital Funding

    QuoScient has just raised venture capital. They may be looking at another funding round in the fall of 2020. If you want to keep posted, reach out to us.

     

    Threats can not only come from the outside. Capable hackers can also send you someone, pretending to work for you as contractor. … they do this professionally.

    Ioannis Bizimis, Co-Founder QuoScient

     

    The Video Interview is set to go live on July 2nd, 2020 19.00 CET

    https://youtu.be/qM_ngqKHuZ4

     

     

    Subscribe to our podcasts here

     

     

    Further Readings / Additional Resources

    Have a look at the other interview Joe refers to with IT SEAL:

    https://www.startuprad.io/blog/it-seal-helps-companies-to-train-their-employees-in-cyber-security/

    Feedback

     

    Reach out to us, here is our audience survey, to give us feedback, suggest topics, interview partners or just to say “Hallo!” https://forms.gle/mLV6mVKwGwKuut8BA

    This Month in German Startups – June 2020

    This Month in German Startups – June 2020

    Intro

    Today we are going to talk about German startups, in the process of producing vaccines for Covid19, the potential accounting fraud at Wirecard, startups in Frankfurt, Munich, Cologne and Berlin, and the 110th Birthday of Konrad Zuse, the inventor of the modern-day computer.

    Welcome to this month in German Startups by Startuprad.io – in a transatlantic news recording with Chris in New York City.

    Reach out to us

    Patreon

    If you like our podcast, consider supporting us on Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/startupradio

     

    Enabler

    This recording was made possible by (Hessen Trade and Invest). Learn more about our enabler here: https://www.invest-in-hessen.com/

     

    Find all options to subscribe here: 

    The Video Interview is set to go live on Thursday, June 25th 2020

    https://youtu.be/xRNMoOSm28Y

     

    The Audio Interview is set to go live on June 30th, 2020

    The Audio Podcast will be published next week. Subscribe to our podcasts here

     

    Housekeeping – Time to brag 

    Now it is official, Startuprad.io passed several milestones. 

    1. We reached more than 200.000 subscribers for our podcasts alone! 206.014 as of today! We count subscribers, who return at least once in 7 days to our RSS feed over 90 days.
    2. We managed to score more than 1.000 days in podcast charts (iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, and Chartable), actually, we made 1.026 days so far. https://www.startuprad.io/blog/startuprad-io-ranked-now-in-33-countries-and-1-000-days-in-podcast-charts/
    3. We now scored with PR China, Croatia, and Singapore in three more countries and now we made it in 33 countries in their respective podcast charts. We are also a steady member of chartable.com’s science and tech podcast charts, for the US as well as globally. https://www.startuprad.io/blog/startuprad-io-ranked-now-in-33-countries-and-1-000-days-in-podcast-charts/

    And again we have several interviews and blog posts for you. We will also have on July 1st our first live stream after corona. https://www.meetup.com/Startup-Couch-TV-Talks/events/271395382/

     

    Coronavirus / Covid19 

     

    Wirecard – This month’s top news in Germany

    Intro

    Wirecard is a company processing payments. The company works as an intermediary and guarantor between buyers and sellers and takes a commission on all transactions. They have about 5,000 employees and actually replaced Commerzbank (we will talk about them later) in DAX 30 (Germany’s equivalent of the Dow Jones Industrial Average 30). They are the first “fintech” to achieve this.

    The big problem now is that there are accounts missing, which should hold 1.9 bn Euros in cash. So these 1.9 billion are in their balance sheets, but they probably basically don’t exist. Let’s back up a bit, though.

    Find all the details in our dedicated Podcast recording (Audio, Video, and Blogpost):

    https://www.startuprad.io/blog/news-wrap-up-developing-wirecard-story/

    Ecosystem 

    • VC investments have declined by 20 percent worldwide due to the Corona crisis shows the latest report by Startup Genome https://buff.ly/3eoTdus 
    • There are approximately 900 fintech startups in Germany, of which almost 35% are headquartered in Berlin. No 2 are Hamburg and Frankfurt with 10.6% of the fintechs https://buff.ly/3egGH0v 
    • Ridepooling services are not looking good in Germany and the #coronavirus does not help. With a few exceptions no service provider generates profits and many backers may reconsider after the crisis https://buff.ly/3dopX6a 

     

    Startup Hubs

    #Frankfurt

    • Commerzbank is not really known across Germany as a big fintech investor. But this story tells how they invested in Marqeta via CommerzVentures. They invested in a 25 mn US$ round and now own (yes, there is some guesswork involved) approx. 3.5% of the company, now valued at 4.3 bn US$ – which leads to their share being valued at approx. 150 mn. This assumes CommerzVentures did not sell any shares in the meantime https://buff.ly/3dvn7gw
    • Bryter, a software toolbox – with locations in #Frankfurt, #Berlin, and #London raises 14 min Euros #VentureCapital https://buff.ly/2MrmN6m 
    • Wingcopter Awarded as Technology Pioneer by World Economic Forum – sUAS News – The Business of Drones https://buff.ly/2Azw8Hi 

    #Aachen

    #Munich

    #Cologne

    • Ford-owned Spin scooters head to Europe, starting with Germany with Cologne, Essen, and Dortmund – TechCrunch https://buff.ly/3dS2PxN

     

    Companies 

    • Researchers find exposed data on millions of users of #Berlin-based quiz app, TVSmiles – TechCrunch https://buff.ly/36ZotgX 
    • Klarna partners with Raisin to open savings accounts in Germany https://buff.ly/2BWujEy
    • Former Rocket Internet Managers start 468 Capital, a 170 mn Euros #deeptech #VentureCapital fund https://buff.ly/3d9zSMA
    • There is still life in the German-speaking startup scene. Proof here the #VentureCapital investments (in chronological order)
      • Homeday raises €40 million from Axel Springer and others for its hybrid real estate brokerage service – @tech_eu https://buff.ly/3hxYfXH
      • Berlin-based Contentful secures €71.3M funding to accelerate expansion; ropes in new CMO | @SiliconCanals https://buff.ly/3dc2k0l 
      • 83North, Microsoft|s M12 and Next47, Paua Ventures, EQT Ventures and Atlantic Labs invest 26 million Euro #VentureCapital in Wandelbots, a startup which has a tool to code for industrial robots https://buff.ly/3htkkXD #manufacturing #Germany #startups 
      • Berlin-based #fintech scale-up @smava secures €57 million in financing to maintain growth through economic downturn – @tech_eu https://buff.ly/36D3m47 
      • German #Healthcare #Jobs Startup Medwing Wins $30m Series B Round — Red Herring https://buff.ly/2AinHPW
      • Swiss SME Lending Startup Teylor Closes CHF 8 Million Funding / Expands to Germany https://buff.ly/30rMbBb
    • Sennder, a #Berlin-based logistics company, has acquired French rival Everoad to create one of the largest digital platforms for road shipments in Europe. https://buff.ly/3cJZpMd 
    • Vivid Money: How this new German #mobile #banking startup plans to challenge fintech moguls | @SiliconCanals https://buff.ly/37HGX62

     

    Happy 110th Birthday to Konrad Zuse

    Konrad Zuse was born on June 22nd, 1910. His greatest achievement was the world’s first programmable computer; the functional program-controlled Turing-complete Z3 became operational in May 1941. His company built more than 250 computers between 1949 to 1967 in Hessen. It was sold to Siemens in 1967.

    Zuse died on 18 December 1995 in Hünfeld, Hesse (near Fulda) from heart failure.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Zuse

     

    See you in September! We will be back with "This Month in German Startups" 
    with a summer news wrap-up end of September 2020. Enjoy your summer!

     

    Stay Ahead of the Curve

    This Month in German Startups – May 2020

    This Month in German Startups – May 2020

    If you are new to our podcast(s), we are wrapping up the startup news of the German-speaking area in a monthly recording from Frankfurt and New York. Have a look at our website www.startuprad.io or www.startup.radio and you will find all the links to our recordings and the articles we are quoting from there. Some of the source articles are in English, some are in German.

     

    Reach out to us

    Patreon

    If you like our podcast, consider supporting us on Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/startupradio

    Enabler

    This recording was made possible by (Hessen Trade and Invest). Learn more about our enabler here: https://www.invest-in-hessen.com/

    Together with our enabler, we are running a podcast called “Tech Startups Germany”, which will focus on startups at a Serie A stage or even more mature. You will also find all the videos we produce for this podcast on our YouTube channel www.youtube.com/startupradio. This podcast is available directly on our device as an audio and video podcast. Yes, Startuprad.io makes the first downloadable video podcast. Find all options to subscribe here: 

    Video Recording – YouTube (the video will premiere on Thursday, May 28th 19.00 CET / 1 pm Eastern)

    https://youtu.be/Yu_rojiz9mw 

     

    Housekeeping – Time to brag 

    • The current situation looks a bit better, so we feel ok with a tiny bit of bragging 🙂 We made it in Russia’s Apple Tech Podcast Charts (up to #121) and PR China Apple Tech Podcast Charts (up to #485). This gets the total to 30 countries!  We are also now on Patreon. If you like your podcast, become a patron! (www.patreon.com/startupradio)
    • We published again some cool interviews, where we wanted to highlight especially this month’s interview with IDA, where we talk to the CEO and Co-Founder Hamedo Ayadi of Intelligence Data Analytics. At the start of the coronavirus outbreak, 70% of their employees worked related to aviation, which was completely stopped by one phone call. He tells the story of how they changed strategy fast to survive: https://www.startuprad.io/interviews/ida-pivoted-fast-during-corona-before-70-of-their-employees-worked-with-aviation-companies/ 

    Coronavirus / Covid19

    • German government approves the corona aid package for startups. A two billion fund will add to private funding from the package (30% private, 70% public) this is called „Corona-Matching-Fazilität“ (CMF). The package was put together quite fast since the first announcement has been in mid-April. https://buff.ly/2zFr4jL There will be another pillar, called “Startup-Schutzschild” (startup shield), which will assist the instruments of Germany’s 16 states for startups, who have no backing by investors yet. 
      • Related we found news about two of the measures of single states: 
      • Bavaria: LfA sets up a new loan program for small and very small enterprises – Munich Startup https://buff.ly/3c3MBkp 
      • Hamburg: They call their program InnoStartup – Hamburg Startups https://buff.ly/2zPOLpp (some more information in the Hamburg Hub section)
    • Corona cases in Amazon logistics center in Winsen, Germany: Verdi demands to close the location https://buff.ly/3dipDGb
    • German unicorns like Dreamlines, Flixbus, Getyourguide, Homelike, Hometogo, Omio, Tourlane and Trivago write an open letter to Google to get 75 mn € advertisement money back https://buff.ly/3f2rFMF  the letter is also signed by the head of German startup association
    • 50% of startups have 6 months to live & other insights from our COVID-19 survey – Slush https://buff.ly/2Z6J0hG 
      • Highlights:
      • Startups will need to raise funds at any cost
        • The importance of networks at a new high
        • Recruitment at a halt, but existing staff is largely kept on
        • Remote work is taking a toll “ Working from home has put a strain on startup employees.”
        • As sales drop, new winners are emerging “B2C startups are doing better than those selling B2B, and pure D2C companies have actually experienced a net increase in sales.”Good news: (Chris)
    • KML Vision is an #AI startup from Graz, Austria. It claims, it’s software could recognize Covid-19 on x-ray pictures https://buff.ly/2SA3MT3 
    • In a podcast, Marc Cuban “Why Coming Out of The Pandemic Will Be The Best Time In The History of Mankind To Start A Business” https://buff.ly/2A5ujBd 
    • He was also guest on the show of our friends at “Remote Daily”, a format building a nice business community via daily Zoom calls. There he spoke about leadership in times of crisis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcO-HmOZpv4 
    • German online grocery store food.de sees the big impact of #COVID19 on its business. They signup increased 25fold https://buff.ly/2yDt8sg 

    Affiliated Links

    • Is your startup in need of a bank account in Germany? Try our partner affiliate Penta http://bit.ly/3bdHX3d
    • Looking to open a bank account to shift between crypto and fiat? Try our partner Bitwala with this affiliate link here http://bit.ly/2w01Zye

    Ecosystem 

    • German Venture Capital Barometer sets a new record low due to #Coronavirus. All indicators in the red. The business climate index for the German VC scene is calculated by the German VC and PE association (BVKAP) and KfW, the government-backed development bank https://buff.ly/2TBBfg5 The quoted specialist finds it likely the VC investors will focus on their portfolio and not make significant new investments 
    • VCs in Germany only finance 8% of startups co-founded by women.  That is 17% of their investments https://buff.ly/2YA04MP 
    • Startups banking in Germany: According to a recent analysis, approx 5% of startups in Germany have a bank account with neobank Penta. The younger the startup, the more likely they are to bank with a challenger bank. The share of established players with newly founded startups is shrinking fast, especially the share of Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank is holding up well. From the established players the German thrift organizations (Sparkassen) are the leaders in startup banking, but they are 385 institutions. Also, the Volksbanken, cooperative banks, are doing pretty well. The Volksbanken and Sparkassen are usually the only banks of which you will find branches outside of larger cities.  
    • More than 50 companies now have permits to trade in medical cannabis in Germany. This crowding leads to a decline in revenues, from „six-digit a month“ to „five-digit a month“ https://buff.ly/3ecdB1V 
      • Related:
        • More cannabis news: Deutsche-Startups has a list of 13 startups, headquartered in Germany working in the market https://buff.ly/3fMwJoI they only forgot Frankfurt-based cansativa https://buff.ly/2VT3gQT, the startup was the reason for a partial lockdown of the city, as they started out because their super-secure warehouse gave a false alarm. 

    Hubs

    This time we have to show a bit more on the less known places, where still interesting startups exist. As you know we like to highlight that here. Note on this section: The order of the articles and hubs is in the order we found them – no other particular order. 

    #Frankfurt (Rhine-Main)

    • The app Aliah supports communications in the hospital and takes away some of the burdens of the medical personal https://buff.ly/2KCssG2 
    • There is a webinar for the STEP program of the German-American Chamber of Commerce in New York City, which enables German startups to make a first “step” to New York. It will take place on June 30th form 14 – 15 CET. You can register here and startups from Hessen can apply for 1.500 Euros funding https://buff.ly/2ADFBg7 
    • Aareal Bank, Wiesbaden-based bank specializes in property financing, wants to sell shares in their IT subsidiary after pressured by an investor https://buff.ly/3dXeJGi

    Also Rhine-Main Area: Mainz

    • There is still business going on during Corona. Mainz-based Mailtastic (a GDPR conform marketing platform) completes exit („seven digits“) to New York-based Cognism https://buff.ly/2X5DpWl 

    #Munich

    • Seven digit Venture Capital investment for Erium, which helps to minimize errors in #manufacturing processes – Munich Startup https://buff.ly/2W20o5r 
    • Wikimedia Germany starts an accelerator program called Unlock in #Munich. All startups working towards an „open knowledge society“ can apply https://buff.ly/2zQ2Cw8 

    #Hamburg

    • Hamburg-based YogaEasy is booming like Netflix – Hamburg Startups https://buff.ly/35vGNO1  
    • Hamburger Corona Soforthilfe (HCS) is seen as a great success. Of the program 25 mn € are earmarked for startups (HCS InnoStartup), which already approved 2.3 mn Euros  https://buff.ly/2Xe1079  

    #Hannover

    • There are still startups founded during corona. Deutsche-Startups highlights 7, including one from Hannover https://buff.ly/3c2ELHz

    #Göppingen (close to Stuttgart) 

    • Permira sells TeamViewer shares worth $1.1 billion – Reuters
      The PE investor bought the German startup outright and listed them later at the Frankfurt stock exchange. Now they sold approx 20% of their stake https://buff.ly/36dV5Dd 

    #Düsseldorf

    #Zürich

    #Potsdam

    • German startup Flightright (a startup getting buying passenger compensation claims) sues Lufthansa due to open refunds https://buff.ly/36e5YoP 

    #Nürnberg

     

    Companies 

    • EIT Digital Challenge is looking for fast-growing European ‚deep-tech‘ companies, handing out 350k in prizes https://buff.ly/2wJwAKR
    • N26, #Berlin-based #fintech unicorn
      – felt first impact (lower transactions) in march
      – in April they sent 150 employees in government-backed Kurzarbeit (10% of their global workforce)
      • now they raise 100 mn US$, with a „steady“ valuation of 3.5 bn US$.  https://buff.ly/3b9dEtm  
        The news comes from the Vienna / Austria-based blog DerBrutkasten.at, they are usually very good, since both remaining founders are natives of Vienna (Valentin Stalf and Maximilian Tayenthal)  and moved with N26 from there to Berlin. The blog further speculates that the increase of their Series D (now 570 mn US$) – 1 ½ years after their initial Series D round –  suggests a short term need for the money. 
    • One of the former founders of #Berlin-based #todolist darling Wunderlist announces a new productivity app called Superlist https://buff.ly/3c8mE31 
    • Soundcloud founders start with a new mobility startup https://buff.ly/2YnMfB1
    • Porsche Invests in Berlin-based Blockchain Startup to develop Platform for Vehicle Management https://buff.ly/2WglSvr 
    • Jumia (started by #Berlin-based Rocket Internet): The e-commerce start-up that fell from grace via BBC Africa
      A year after its much-heralded debut on the New York Stock Exchange, e-commerce start-up Jumia has shut down in three African states, struggled to turn a profit and got dumped by its original owners,  https://buff.ly/2VNqclA?utm_source=-custom-by-source-0-
    • #Berlin-based „B2B Food Group“ with brands like Caterwings, Lemoncat, Monbanquet, and OrderIn retreats from the German home market as a consequence of #Covid19, to focus on other markets https://buff.ly/3d4kVw4 

     

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