Startup & Tech News from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland by Startuprad.io™

Welcome to This Month in German Startups in September 2021 by Startuprad.io - in a news recording with Chris (Back Home in New York) and me Joe, from Frankfurt am Main.  We recorded this new episode on September 28th. Note that there is also another episode of our unicorn tracker, getting published along with this episode. Have a look. This will be a bit longer recording. Best get a snack and a drink right now.  The summer was hot here in Germany in terms of startups, but not so much in terms of temperature. Since we have the weather out of the way. Let's talk startups:

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Find all links and show notes here: https://www.startuprad.io/blog/this-month-in-german-startups-summer-wrap-up-july-august-september-2021/

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We are not only spending 10 bn € on startups, but we also have 5-6 bn € from older programs. … in total 15 – 16 bn Euros

Thomas Jarzombek, MdB, Commissioner for Digital and Startups

In this interview we talk to Thomas Jarzombek (https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-jarzombek-a4227183/) a member of the German Parliament Bundestag, also the Commissioner for Digital and Startups of Germany and in charge of the newly started 10 bn startup program. Thomas is a member of the CDU, Christian Democratic Union, the party of chancellor Merkel. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Democratic_Union_of_Germany). Thomas has also been an entrepreneur before he was an elected official. He started out with implementing Windows 95.

Note: In the name tag in the YouTube video, we shorted this to “Digital commissioner”, due to the available space.

We also invest in rocket technology. We have been looking at what Elon Musk does with SpaceX and adapted some of his strategies.

Thomas Jarzombek, MdB, Commissioner for Digital and Startups

The new investment program is looking to invest 50% together with private investors, who also chip in the other half.

The program will invest in European VCs, focusing on Germany. They are looking for VCs, investing in Germany approx. the money they receive from the program.

The largest single investment will be as LP of the European Investment Fund, which will get 3 bn Euros (https://www.eif.org/).

HTGF will start a 4th fund with money from the program. Look in our show notes below for the interview with the CEO of HTGF. They raise funds with half of the money coming from the Government and half from private investors, which include already household names like Bosch, BASF, B. Braun, Boehringer, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Post DHL, Lanxess, RWE, SAP and many others.

We have patient money and I expect the money to be spent over the next 10 years.

Thomas Jarzombek, MdB, Commissioner for Digital and Startups

The Deep Tech Future Fund (https://deeptech-future-fonds.de/) is aiming to commercialize innovations from Germany. They are even investing in startups directly, who do not have a business model yet, for example working in quantum computing.

2 bn Euros will be managed by KfW in discretionary accounts to set up specific investment vehicles and their subsidiary Coparion (https://www.coparion.vc/). Part of the money will be managed in discretionary accounts. These vehicles can invest directly in startups.

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(BONUS) German Institutional Funds Will Not Invest Big Bugs in Cryptocurrencies

This is another bonus episode, where we cover interesting – behind the scenes – development in the larger German-speaking tech space. Recently there was a wave of excitement sweeping across the crypto blogs, due to an update in the German Investment Law (https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/kagb/). The reason: Investments of German institutional funds, since they could – theoretically – invest up to 20% in cryptocurrencies, starting on August 2nd, 2021. Joe gets together with Marco; a specialist lawyer and they talk about what is realistic. Instead of a large wave (theoretical max of ~400 bn €), as many blogs forecast, there may be only a small trickle (likely only millions over time).

Find all options to subscribe to our newsletter, podcast, YouTube channel or listen to our internet radio station here: Link https://linktr.ee/startupradio

Marco Zingler (https://www.linkedin.com/in/marco-zingler-14b2a390/) is a seasoned lawyer, with almost 10 years of experience in capital markets legislation. He also holds a degree in Finance. He, therefore, spent most of his career as a specialist for regulatory and investment law, covering for example the changes to the new German investment Law.

• Try the account of our Affiliate Partner Penta: http://bit.ly/3bdHX3d

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

Here is our publication calendar: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0?cid=MDEyaTI3YWs1MjVxaTNzbWdqbDh2OXRiaW9AZ3JvdXAuY2FsZW5kYXIuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbQ

Find all the links and show notes here: https://www.startuprad.io/blog/bonus-the-german-institutional-funds-will-not-invest-big-bugs-in-cryptocurrencies/

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This Month in German Startups - June 2021

Welcome to This Month in German Startups June 2021 by Startuprad.io - in a news recording with Chris (Back Home in New York) and me Joe, from Frankfurt am Main.

We are reporting live from Germany’s largest unicorn wave ever. We announce two new unicorns (Scalable Capital and Forto (formerly FreightHub)) and Germany’s first Decacorn Celonis, valued at more than 11 bn US$. The 2019 Unicorn Wefox raises large funding of 536 mn € (650 mn US$). About You IPOs for 23 €/share at 4 bn Euro (4.85 bn US$) AND Austria becomes a new most valuable startup with GoStudent (1.4 bn €, 1.67 bn US$), after they had their first unicorn only last month.

Plus SolarisBank is rumored to be in talks of a 100 mn Euro VC Deal, which would make them a unicorn as well, to buy up a competitor. Especially active in this frenzy of unicorn creation is Softbank from Japan and Tencent from China.

We have a special episode on the unparalleled unicorn creation, which is available on the same channels. If you want to know more about the new Decacorn and unicorns in Germany and Austria you want to listen to this episode as well. We keep here the coverage of unicorns to a minimum.

Note: This will be the last news recording before the summer break. There will be no regular news in July or August, but we will be back with news at the end of September, wrapping up the summer news.

We are soooooooooo looking forward to the summer that Joe even wears a Hawaii shirt. Be happy for your eyes if you are only listening to this podcast :-)

Find all options to subscribe to our newsletter, podcast, YouTube channel or listen to our internet radio station here: Link https://linktr.ee/startupradio

Find all links, texts, and show notes here on our blog post: https://www.startuprad.io/blog/this-month-in-german-startups-june-2021/

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Welcome to This Month in German Startups by Startuprad.io – in a news recording with Chris (from New York City) and me Joe (from Frankfurt am Main).

This is a Bonus Episode covering the Unicorn Stampede in German-speaking countries. This recording is from June 29th, 2021 and all-new unicorns, formed afterward will be covered in our next news podcast, to be published End of September!

You may remember that we had another bonus episode last month covering the rise of Berlin-based fintech Trade Republic to become Germany’s most valuable startup? There is already a new king in the country with Celonis becoming Germany’s first Decacorn (valuation above 10 bn US$, here even 11bn US$). We also see that all of these monster fundings are driven by international investors, especially Softbank from Japan and Tencent from China.

Find all links and show notes on our blog post here: https://www.startuprad.io/blog/bonus-this-month-in-german-startups-unicorn-stampede/

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“It’s our ambition to be present across the entire Eurozone in the next four months,” Christian Hecker according to TechCrunch

Welcome to This Month in German Startups - A bonus episode since we have a new king in town. Trade Republic just became Germany’s most valuable startup with a 900 mn USD funding round backed by investors like Sequoia.

Chris joins Joe for this episode.

Subscribe Here

Find all options to subscribe to our newsletter, podcast, YouTube channel or listen to our internet radio station here: Link https://linktr.ee/startupradio

Start in 2015 - at comdirect Startup Garage

The story of Trade Republic starts with the comdirect startup garage. comdirect is Commerzbank’s online broker, founded during the late 1990s. Commerzbank again is Germany’s 2nd largest listed bank.

So, the founding team Christian Hecker, Thomas Pischke, and Marco Cancellieri started out with the idea of a German RobinHood Trading app (What is today called a neobroker). The Garage helped at the start in 2015 but did back out at funding the startup. The team did not receive funding from comdirect Garage, because one million Euros was too much to invest in a company at a seed stage

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Find the whole story here: https://www.startuprad.io/blog/bonus-episode-trade-republic-becomes-germanys-most-valuable-startup-with-5-3-bn-us-valuation/

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Welcome to This Month in German Startups by Startuprad.io - in a news recording with Chris (Back Home in Germany) and me Joe, from Frankfurt am Main.

Today we are wrapping up May 2021 for you. We talk about the massive Trade Republic funding, making them Germany's most valuable startup. We are talking about SPACs again, Germany’s institutional funds investing in crypto, and 3 bn shots of the corona vaccine. As always, we have a great show for you!

Housekeeping - Time to brag

Stay safe everyone!

• We are very happy to have been      listed as No 4 on the Welp      Magazine list of "20 Best Start-ups Podcasts of      2021" https://welpmagazine.com/20-best-start-ups-podcasts-of-2021/

Top News

Trade Republic is now Germany’s most valuable startup with 5.3 bn US$

SPACs

In the US the largest wave of SPAC IPOs is already behind us, but in Europe, it is just gaining speed. Frankfurt Stock Exchange expects up to 20 SPAC IPOs in 2021. In all of Europe, they expect more than 30 https://buff.ly/3h0mMqS

Amazon Shops are still HOT

Berlin’s Razor Group raises $400M to buy and scale Amazon Marketplace merchants – TechCrunch https://buff.ly/2PVJULY

Germany rumored to open flood gates to Crypto Investments - Think again

'Damn Huge': Germany Opens Up to Institutional Crypto Funds - Decrypt https://buff.ly/3vvX3dU

Joe will talk about this soon - as soon as he gets to it - but the main point one has to understand in German institutional funds is that the investors are regulated and not so much the vehicles.

3bn Shots are coming

Corona vaccine producer BioNTech is looking to produce 3bn shots https://buff.ly/2RHzXlA

We just passed a small moment in History

80 years ago, on May 11th, 1941 german inventor Konrad Zuse started his Z3. This was one of today's first - maybe The first - modern-day computer. He developed it, to take over statistical calculation he found tiresome https://buff.ly/3eEJ3sB

Find all other show notes here: https://www.startuprad.io/blog/this-month-in-german-startups-may-2021/

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Welcome to Startuprad.io,

we cover the German-speaking startup scene since 2015 with our franchise. Since 2019, we eased access to the German-speaking startup scene further with our special interest podcasts Fintech Germany, Blockchain Germany, Deeptech Germany, and German Startup News.

We have been called "The Authority on German Startups" and are a Top 0.5% global podcast, according to Listen Notes. Chartable.com scored us in 2020 a global Top 100 Science Podcast, a global Top 150 Tech Podcast, and a global Top 750 Business Podcast.

You can learn more here: https://linktr.ee/startupradio

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The Upcoming Changes to EU Crowdfunding Rules for Startups

Find all options to subscribe to our newsletter, podcast, YouTube channel or listen to our internet radio station here: Link https://linktr.ee/startupradio

We talk to a former guest, Jamal El Mallouki (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamalelmallouki/), Managing Director (MD) and Co-Founder of Crowdfunding SaaS tech company CrowdDesk. He is also chairman of the board of directors of Germany’s Crowdfunding Association (https://www.bundesverband-crowdfunding.de/about-the-german-crowdfunding-association-bundesverband-crowdfunding-ev/).

He talks with us about the upcoming rules, which will harmonize crowdfunding for startups across the European Union.

• Learn how to grow your business using the numbers in your profit and loss and balance sheet: https://www.learndesk.us/class/5571076509663232/growth-by-the-numbers-real-small-business-finance-for-real-small-business-owners use our promo code: Access

The new Rules / European Crowdfunding Service Provider (ECSP)

Currently, Germany has national rules, getting retail investors without any prospectus to invest in startups. Each retail investor can invest up to 25.000 € in total. This limit does not exist for professional investors.  A startup can now raise up to 6 million Euros with crowdfunding.

These rules are about to change with upcoming EU rules. You can dig deeper in the rules with the links below. The main points are:

• Crowdfunding campaigns can now target retail investors across the EU. They can now scale up to the whole EU market.

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

Further Readings: https://www.startuprad.io/blog/how-crowdfunding-for-eu-startups-will-change-this-fall/

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Today we are wrapping up April 2021 for you. We talk about SPACs, which have been all the rage, but now they get to work. We bring you news about potential SPAC deals with Solarisbank, Infarm, Lilium, and Volocopter. The first three eying a valuation of more than one billion. Also, we have a Gorilla Unicorn.

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