Startuprad.io™ – Europe’s Voice on Startups, VC, Innovation & Growth

On last Thursday the first Startup Grind event took place in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. We got the chance to conduct an interview with Christopher Oster (@C_Oster1), who has co-founded Wimdu in Berlin back in 2011, which among others was backed by Rocket Internet. This year Christopher co-founded clark.de, a digital insurance platform, which secured its second round of financing.

Plus, we bring you an interview with Osman Sacarcelik (@OsmanSac), who is the Chapter Director of Startup Grind Frankfurt.

Tune in and find out more about Christopher's life as serial entrepreneur, the insurance market in Germany and why Osman started Startup Grind in Frankfurt.

This time we bring you two interviews with Entrepreneurs we met at the Euro Finance Tech event, which took place on 19 November in Frankfurt / Germany:

Thomas Ackermann of Blockchain Industries from Berlin is out to change the computing behind the Blockchain and therefore Internet of Things. His company in turn is in the process of building a 4 times more powerful supercomputer than the fastest one today. They want to offer their computing power in the cloud and look for Venture Capital Funding.

We talk to Ben Bilski from Naga Group, who is a new FinTech incubator, in operations since 4 month. They now have a location in Frankfurt and there want to grow within 18 months their first FinTech unicorn. They are open to be contacted many ways and look only for FinTech ideas in B2C space who are scalable to billions in revenues. They have the founders of Varengold Bank, CMC Markets and Ben himself former ecommerce entrepreneur with Angelplatz.

Hey, We are back with a new episode of our monthly startup news podcast show. Tune in and enjoy the latest startup news from Germany.

Show notes:

German Startup Monitor 2015 has been published in the break between News.

http://www.n24.de/n24/Nachrichten/Wirtschaft/d/7339298/deutsche-startups-sind-zuversichtlich.html

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Startup-Monitor-2015-Gruender-sind-international-zufrieden-maennlich-und-brauchen-Geld-2823923.html;

http://www.gruenderszene.de/allgemein/deutscher-startup-monitor-2015

Unicorns:

Venture investor Bill Gurley predicts startup failure http://ow.ly/SAgds

Salesforce billionaire and angel investor Marc Benioff says unicorn startups are a 'huge mistake' http://ow.ly/UdUO1

2015 – The year of the dead unicors http://ow.ly/Rod2v

A New Unicorn Was Created Every Four Days In Q3'15 http://ow.ly/UhPi8

Xing becomes a unicorn http://ow.ly/SA1Mn

Investments/Stock Exchange:

Goverment development bank KfW wants to invest one billion Euro in German startups

Eine Milliarde Euro für Start-ups - WiWo Gründer http://ow.ly/SzRVH

Scout24 group was listed

Scout24 IPO price set at 30 euro-per-share http://ow.ly/UweWe

US based ACI Worldwide buys Munich based pay.on http://bit.ly/1PpE7E9

Kleiner Perkins invests in Berlin based Startup Relayr http://bit.ly/1LRMdmH

Zencap

Victory Park Capital gives Zencap 230 mn EUR http://ow.ly/RG4cJ

Zencap in our german Interview - Startupradio.de http://ow.ly/SAhAT

Funding Circle acquisition of Zencap http://ow.ly/UwdYj

Funding Circle and Zencap merge http://ow.ly/UweL4

Next Media Accelerator

introduces first cohort http://ow.ly/SCgdJ

HelloFresh in the news

Revenues and more here http://www.gruenderszene.de/allgemein/hellofresh-umsatzsteigerung-q1-2015

No IPO for Hello Fresh http://ow.ly/Uo4HV

200mn Euro for French BlaBlaCar

http://www.gruenderszene.de/allgemein/blablacar-200-millionen

Fintech

Paydirekt is the Paypal clone of German banks http://ow.ly/QYxVX

Knowhow for those with vision:

NYTimes thinks that for Delivery Startups 1999 (pre dotcom bubble) is back http://nyti.ms/VC4VsP

Good News for Europe, where €3.47 billion in venture capital have been raised in Q2 http://bit.ly/1JLrIbK

BitDrones gives you another take on virtural reality with interactive flying microbots http://ow.ly/UsBM6

One brief how-to-guide on how to turn a startup into a global giant http://bbc.in/1SvRDpU

Some good news for refugees on how entrepreneurs and aid groups are helping them with digital tools http://on.mash.to/1WLi7nU

More news on smart cars and car tech: Who are the investors piling money in them and where does it go? http://ow.ly/Up7o9

An attempt to predict the success of a startup on the concept alone http://ow.ly/S2GQt

Need to watch: 5 TEDTalks for every entrepreneur http://entm.ag/1XPQQE2

TEDxRheinMain also has some interesting videos, like "Disruptive Economy" http://bit.ly/1icoJ1x

Stanford Graduate School of Business on design thinking http://ow.ly/SA0p5

The Economist makes a case that patents hinder innovation http://ow.ly/SA1CK

Bronte Capital: Really great to put this in perspective: Amazon vs. Alibaba it is shocking how big they are, even compared to Amazon http://ow.ly/SA2hi

This Episode is a teaser of the upcoming FinMeetsTech event for FinTech startups that will take place on 06.10.2015 in Frankfurt’s School of Finance & Management. Briefly, the event will provide the platform for round-scope experience exchange between startupers and experienced entrepreneurs, as well as bankers and lawyers in the field of finance. It’s rich and extensive program is best packed in one day and is definitely worth to visit for entrepreneurs that already have a business plan, product prototype or are working on it. A highlight of the event is a chance to check and stress-test startup’s business model by experts and more experienced business fellows.

The event is organised by the incubator Gründermaschine, recently founded in Frankfurt am Main by Maximilian Voigt, one of its co-founders. He is sharing in next 10 minutes other upcoming event highlights and uncovers the Gründermaschine mission.

Fin Meets Tech event, 6th of Oct.2015

We talk to Markus from Startup Germany about the upcoming Startup Weekend FinTech (September 27th – 29th) in Frankfurt. We talk about the format, what to expect and the great location on the 30th floor of one of the skyscrapers in Frankfurt, the Silver Tower.

In addition to that we will live broadcast a video stream, partnering with Livestream.watch in order to bring you the pitches, teams, mentors and judges.

If you want to get free tickets, just leave a comment below. We will give away 2 free tickets for the event.

The last startup news before the summer break. We will be back end of September.

We talk with Christian Fahrenbach (@CFahrenbach), who is a freelance journalist living in New York City, the startup news from Germany for the month of May.

Show Notes:

Zalando has a new method of recruiting

Concierge Services taking off in Germany – Example HEYBOB from Frankfurt

New media accelerator in Hamburg

Windeln.de, a baby supplies shop, IPOs at Frankfurt Stock Exchange

eCommerce SaaS Shopify from Canada lists in New York and Toronto at the same time, set up by two German founders

Drivy acquires Autonetzer

Joern mentions an analysis of the conversion rate during the interview http://www.manager-magazin.de/unternehmen/artikel/a-1036000.html

Know-how for those with vision:

Mastering the VC Game: How to Raise Your First Round of Capital - YouTube http://ow.ly/MXbOU

Social Entrepreneurship 101: Building Companies That Make a Difference http://ow.ly/Nla7l

Algolia, the Trojan Horse that is eating away at Google's search business http://ow.ly/NnLB0

Brand Building Is Everyone’s Responsibility http://ow.ly/Nl9XM

In-House Teams Or Outsourced Services for Startups? http://ow.ly/NnLi6

Are European yollies more hampered by financial barriers than their US counterparts? http://ow.ly/Nl9it

From 0 to $1B - Slack's Founder Shares Their Epic Launch Strategy - First Round Review http://ow.ly/NvSvt

This time we got the opportunity to visit the creators of the smart sportswear ANTELOPE in Frankfurt, the maker of the first wearable 2.0. The embedded electrodes in the ANTELOPE suit allows you to make your workout more effective. But the target group is not only limited to athletes. Most likely everyone could use the ANTELOPE suite for example, people who suffering from back pain or too much belly or for rehabilitation purposes after injuries. Tune in now and find out more about the entrepreneurs behind the smart sport suit.

Hi everybody, this time we are talking with Eldar (https://twitter.com/cheffunky) about the startup news form Germany and the World in April. Eldar also speaks about being a foreign student in Germany and shares his thoughts on the Frankfurt Start-Up Scene. Tune in now to learn more.

We talk to Edwina Johnson, the COO of of Startupbootcamp’s FinTech Track. She explains the pitch event called FinTech Fast Track and we talk especially about the upcoming FinTech Pitch Event in Frankfurt am Main on the 28th of April. Please note there are also FinTech Fast Track events in other cities around the world (Dubai, Zurich, Tel Aviv, London, …). Applications from all FinTechs are invited, especially women founders are very much encouraged to apply.