"Klana is all built beautifully around the consumer. … but many merchants also want a B2B checkout and here Klana decided to partner with the leading provider in the space [Billie.io]."Matthias Knecht, Co-Founder Billie.io

“I was raised in Germany, with a stint at Columbia University before moving to McKinsey. After working for them,” says Matthias (https://de-DE_.linkedincom/in/-matthiasknecht), “I left and started Zencap.” This company was eventually acquired by Funding Circle where he spent only one year of his time there; then on into Billie — together with cofounder Christian.

"Hiring is currently one of our main challenges. Our doors are wide open."Matthias Knecht, Co-Founder Billie.io

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Billie’s business is disrupting the B2B market by allowing consumers to buy now and pay later. Their investors include Klana — one of Europe’s largest Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) companies for this sector with over 50 million clients across 500+ brands worldwide!The company also integrates seamlessly into Klana’s systems so that all client transactions can be done through Billie's platform while still enjoying advanced features such as payment encryption and loan pre-payment options which not only make financial services more accessible but give buyers peace of mind when making large purchases or taking out short term loans.

Website: https://www.billie.io/

Crunchbase: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/billie-io

Twitter: https://twitter.com/billiegmbh

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/billie.io/

Billie is one of the most successful startups in Germany and they have raised more than 140 m US$ from investors like Creadum, Global Founders Fund (Rocket Internet), Dawn Capital, Speedinvest, Klana, Tencent, and Picus Capital. It sounds like Billie may become soon a unicorn with all these hints being dropped about their future success.

Learn more at www.medium.com/startuprad-io 

Welcome to This Month in GSA Startups in April 2022 by Startuprad.io — in a news recording with Christian Fahrenbach ”Chris” from New York City today and me Jörn Menninger “Joe”, from Frankfurt am Main. This recording is sponsored by Invest-in-Hessen and Startupraven.com. It is in radio syndication with our very own station www.startup.radio, the blog Fundscene, and our partner IBGR.Network.

We recorded this new episode on Monday, April 25th, 2022. The next news will go live on the 26th of May, the day we celebrate fathers day in Germany. For this reason, we have at this date two publications: the news and an episode on men’s health.

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

We also partner with the EU-Startups Summit and Artic 15 you get a discount at both events with our codes in the show notes www.medium.com/startuprad-io. You can meet Joe in person in Barcelona at the EU Startups Summit on May 12th and 13th.

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• EU Startups STARTUPRADIO20

Despite slightly declining global VC investments GSA still generates Unicorns. This time we welcomed Grover and Choco officially into the league. Swiss Beqom is not confirmed, but also a massive investment. Apple and Porsche are rumored to work together on joint projects. Gorillas is looking for funding again, after raising a billion US$ (850 m Euros) in September 2021. Germany’s second most valuable fintech Mambu had to publish numbers. The corona patron registration app Luca first boomed during the lockdown, then their data protection was questioned, now they pivot to a fintech with the backing of investors including the Wefox founder.

Let’s talk startups:

Find all the links and show notes on our blog www.medium.com/startuprad-io

This time we do not interview an entrepreneur or investor from GSA, but we speak to Daniel. His startup equidam helps to value startups. He shares exclusive data with us on the GSA startups.

"We helped to value more than 130.000 startups."Daniel Faloppa, Founder and CEO equidam

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"A lot of news around is just about the best startups. This gives entrepreneurs the wrong impression on the valuation of what is possible."Daniel Faloppa, Founder and CEO equidam 

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"One of the central questions of entrepreneurial finance is how much is my startup worth?"Daniel Faloppa, Founder and CEO equidam

We hear from Daniel Faloppa (https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielfaloppa/), originally from Italy, but set up equidam (https://www.equidam.com/) in the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. This time we talk about startups and their valuation.

Daniel is originally from Italy, but his studies also took him to Glasgow and Rotterdam, where he set up his company.

"Valuating startups is really a dark art."Daniel Faloppa, Founder and CEO equidam

Find the graphics with the exclusive data on our blog post on medium.com/startuprad-io  

CO2 is a very clean way to produce biopolymers.Fabiana Fantinel, MD and Founder CO2BioClean

This is our first in-person interview since the breakout of the corona pandemic in early 2020, made possible by Hessen Trade and Invest with their brand Invest-In-Hessen.com.

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We start with CO2 and at the end of our process … there are polymers that can be used like plastics.Fabiana Fantinel, MD and Founder CO2BioClean

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:

Tech Startups Germany

When you have something biodegradable, it will be lasting less than 6 months in the water.Fabiana Fantinel, MD and Founder CO2BioClean

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We interview Fabiana Fantinel (https://www.linkedin.com/in/fabiana-fantinel-33a24110/), an Italian, who founded her company CO2Bioclean (https://co2bioclean.com/) in Frankfurt. She has a Ph.D. in Chemistry and her Post-Doc at the Max Planck Institute brought her to Germany. She also holds an MBA.

Our process is already patented. … currently, our efforts are in working on the scalabilityFabiana Fantinel, MD and Founder CO2BioClean

The startup CO2Bioclean is a green startup. They use CO2 to turn it into polymers that can be used like plastics but are biodegradable. The startup just received EU funding to start a small-scale plant to improve its patented process and work on its scalability.

Our material will last less than one year in the environment.Fabiana Fantinel, MD and Founder CO2BioClean

Received 6.6 mn Euros in total from European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator https://www.deutsche-boerse-cash-market.com/dbcm-de/newsroom/fokus-news-list/EU-Accelerator-f-rdert-drei-Bio-konomie-Start-ups-2914060 They will use the funding to start a first production facility to demonstrate the technology at industrial scale.

There will be additional funding round to start the production at an industrial stage, likely starting in 2023.

There is no microplastic from our material lasting for years in the ocean.Fabiana Fantinel, MD and Founder CO2BioClean

Find all links and show notes on our blog www.medium.com/startuprad-io

"We want to create a world-class ecosystem for biotechnology."Felix Wälder, Project Coordinator BioTech-Hub Mainz

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We not only focus on the bio part, but we also see the importance of the tech aspect in developing biotechnology products.Felix Wälder, Project Coordinator BioTech-Hub Mainz

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We want some of the next big ideas to be developed in Mainz and enable them to grow in Mainz. Felix Wälder, Project Coordinator BioTech-Hub Mainz

The City of Mainz has a very long history, founded by the Romans on the right side of the river Rhine in the 1st century BC. It is the native city of Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the movable type printing press. The city is the capital of the German state of Rhineland Palatine and home to several universities, including the research-heavy Johannes Gutenberg University (JGU).

Great brains came to Mainz and gathered around great minds … translating their knowledge in products [the COVID vaccine]Felix Wälder, Project Coordinator BioTech-Hub Mainz

The city is also home to a growing biotech cluster including spinoffs of the JGU, especially BioNTech, known as the brains behind the BioNTech Pfizer corona vaccines. The company is a smashing success, to a degree that this company alone increased the German GDP by 0,5% (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-economy-biontech-idUSKBN2FB15A). Note that Germany has the 4th largest GDP in the world.

This success fills the coffers of the city with money, which in turn they will invest in turning the city into one of the world’s premier biotech and tech hubs.

We want startups and investors to come to Mainz, become successful here, and stay here.Felix Wälder, Project Coordinator BioTech-Hub Mainz

Our guest today is Felix Wälder (https://www.linkedin.com/in/felix-w%C3%A4lder-b22a63100/), who works for the City of Mainz’s utility holding company ZBM. Felix’s studies also took him to the University of North Carolina Wilmington. ZBM provides many services for the city and also takes the lead for the Biotech-Hub Project (https://www.zbm.mainz.de/biotech-mainz/). Felix is the project coordinator for BioTech-Hub Mainz.

NOTE: We made a little mistake in the name tag, Felix is not an MD for the City of Mainz, but for the ZBM.

We will coordinate within the city and give startups, investors, and interested parties all the answers they need.

Felix Wälder, Project Coordinator BioTech-Hub Mainz

We completely changed our website setup and moved our blog to www.medium.com/startuprad-io, where from now on you can now find all of our blog posts

Welcome to This Month in German, Swiss and Austrian (GSA) Startups in March 2022 by Startuprad.io — in a news recording with Chris — not from New York City today and me Joe, from Frankfurt am Main. This recording is sponsored by Invest-in-Hessen and Startupraven.com. It is in radio syndication with our very own station www.startup.radio and our partner IBGR.Network.

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.

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/

The best way to identify investors and cooperation partners for early-stage startups. Sign up for early access here: https://startupraven.com/

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: 

Find all links and show notes here: https://medium.com/startuprad-io