Berlin remains one of Europe’s leading tech hubs, with Atomico’s 2021 State of European Tech report ranking the city second only to London in capital investment, after the startups combined $7.1 billion (about €7.3 billion) in 2021 alone. ) had collected. It has also been on a steady upward trajectory, with investment rising 150 percent year-on-year since 2017.
“We are finally reaping the benefits of an ecosystem that has been slow to develop,” said Bettine Schmitz, angel investor and founder of Auxxo, a venture capital fund focused on female founders. “Now we have a solid base of angels, investors and scaled startups producing experienced future founders or C-levels.” With many major ratings, such as N26 and Contentful, and new investors on the scene, Berlin is more vibrant than ever.
Julien Fredonie, head of strategic venture partnerships in Europe and Africa for Honda’s Xcelerator program, notes that Berlin is moving from an e-commerce and app powerhouse to a serious deep-tech hub: think hardware, AI, Web3, space , new materials, energy and biotech. “Berlin will become a leading climate tech hub in Europe,” he says. “It attracts global talent, with a great quality of life and an international mentality.”
Form
A pioneer in lab-grown cheese (that tastes really good), Formo was founded in 2019 by Raffael Wohlgensinger and Britta Winterberg and became Europe’s first cellular farm by using milk proteins to produce animal-free dairy products. “Through precision fermentation, our rewired microorganisms create nature-identical dairy ingredients, reducing the need for industrial dairy and removing some of the most harmful elements from our food system,” Wohlgensinger says. Lionheart Ventures, Happiness Capital and Albert Wenger helped raise €42 million, the largest venture capital round ever in European food tech. Now Formo’s focus is on scaling up production in its micro-organism dairies to bring products to market by 2023 and by 2030 to replace 10 percent of European dairy consumption. “Precision fermentation is used to make highly specialized compounds, not bulk ingredients like milk, so we are investing in large facilities to brew milk on a large scale,” Wohlgensinger says. Flavor remains its northern star – Formo has teamed up with Michelin-starred chef Ricky Saward to develop European specialties such as mozzarella and ricotta. formo.bio
Sarah Bechstein, co-founder of FORMEL Skin, a digital platform for dermatologists.Photo: Wolfgang Stahr
FORMAL skin
Sarah Bechstein’s desire to pursue a career in dermatology began with the severe acne she experienced in her teens. While studying at the prestigious Charité Berlin teaching hospital, one of her professors treated her acne flare-up with compound medications, which combine two or more medications for a more personalized treatment. “I knew this was the kind of treatment I wanted to offer my patients,” Bechstein says. “When the liberalization of telemedicine happened, I saw that this was my chance to make a difference in this broken system.” In June 2020, with co-founders Florian Semler and Anton Kononov, Bechstein launched FORMEL Skin, a digital platform for dermatologists to provide faster diagnoses for patients with chronic skin conditions. By means of a questionnaire and submitting photos, experts then formulate a personal treatment plan that is adjusted through regular check-ins. It has offered 150,000 treatments in Germany and Switzerland, with plans to expand beyond Europe soon. Its rates start at around $50 for a monthly subscription and it has raised $36 million so far from Singular, Heal Capital and Vorwerk Ventures. formalskin.de
enpal
Titled Germany’s first “green unicorn” after acquiring €150 million from tech investor Softbank in October 2021, Enpal was founded in 2017 and is now Germany’s largest supplier of solar energy solutions, with more than 12,000 homeowners in the books. The proprietary AI software plans the solar installation in seconds and a team of Enpal installers places the photovoltaic panels on roofs. With a subscription model starting at $49 per month to pay for panel lease and use, Enpal solves many of the pain points of solar adoption, from installation bureaucracy to high upfront costs. The Enpal Academy trains future solar system installers, and employees also get stuck, with 400 of the 1,000 employees trained and active in the installation. Founders Jochen Ziervogel, Mario Kohle and Viktor Wingert are committed to making renewable energy accessible to everyone, both at home and abroad, and aim to create an Enpal customer network to share energy for electricity, mobility and heating. enpal.de
Moss
Towards unicorn status, Moss is valued at over $500 million, less than two and a half years after launching in early 2019, with the latest funding led by Tiger Global Management and A-Star. It offers business credit cards that allow small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to track their spending. Transactions appear directly in the Moss dashboards and employees can generate virtual cards for online payments. After issuing 20,000 cards and processing 250,000 transactions in Germany and the Netherlands, founders Ante Spittler, Anton Rummel, Ferdinand Meyer and Stephan Haslebacher are now bringing the Moss model to the UK. getmoss.com
Stenon
Founded in 2018, Stenon eliminates the time-consuming hassle of sending soil samples to labs for testing, enabling farmers to make crop growing decisions faster and more efficiently. The startup creates the portable FarmLab soil analysis tool, which uses sensors to instantly generate parameters including soil temperature, moisture, nutrient content and pH. “Soil data is critical to making better decisions, increasing productivity, and operating sustainably at the same time,” said founder Dominic Roth. “Stenon is in a leading position in providing high-quality, real-time soil data and strives not only to provide growers with a high return on investment, but also to build out the global soil data layer to improve the food system. .” It is used by several hundred farmers in the German-speaking area and will be launched in the UK and California next year. Stenon has raised more than $26.8 million. stenon.io
April
The raging talent wars for knowledge workers mean that companies today are desperately looking for ways to attract and retain the best employees, triggering a major power shift between employers and employees. Apryl, the only pan-European fertility benefits platform of its kind, enables companies to support employees on their path to parenthood. Employee benefits include grants for care navigation, consultations, access to clinics and treatments such as egg and sperm freezing, IVF, adoption and surrogacy. It has raised $4.3 million. apryl.co
Raffael Wohlgensinger, founder and CEO of Formo.Photo: Wolfgang Stahr
mondoe
The Buy Now, Pay Later model is rapidly infiltrating the B2B sector, and Mondu is Germany’s star in the market. Founded in 2021 by Gil Danziger, Malte Huffmann and Philipp Povel, it aims to spread startup finances and offer flexible payment methods with net terms of 30, 60 or 90 days. , beauty and manufacturing industries. Just seven months into its $14 million starting round, Mondu raised $43 million in late May in a Series A led by US venture capital fund Valar Ventures. The next step: building on the 100-strong team and expanding to Austria before the end of the summer, after which more European markets will follow. mondu.ai
vay
Vay users can order a KIA Niro electric vehicle, remotely controlled by a human ‘teledriver’, and have it driven directly to their location. When they have driven to their destination themselves, they simply get out and warn the teledriver, who takes over again and drives the car away. Founded by Thomas von der Ohe, Fabrizio Scelsi and Bogdan Djukic in 2018, it raised $95 million in Series B financing at the end of 2021, led by investors Kinnevik, Coatue and Eurazeo, with La Famiglia and Creandum continuing their support. Vay will launch its fleet of remote-controlled cars in Hamburg, with investors claiming the service could be 60 percent cheaper than Uber. Vay also plans to expand its driverless-retal-meets-taxi service to logistics and deliveries. vay.io
Pile
Pile’s simple API platform enables existing fintechs, neobanks and startups to integrate crypto into their offerings via wallets or trading, handling the legal intricacies of smart contracts in the background. The goal is to make it easier and smoother for fintechs to diversify their own products, reduce acquisition costs and increase customer loyalty. Founded in May 2022, it has already raised €2.8 million in a pre-seed funding round with investors including Anthemis’ Female Innovators Lab, Barclays and Pitch founder Christian Reber. After leaving Penta, the B2B bank she co-founded, founder Jessica Holzbach has big plans for Pile: expanding the founding team from four to 12, trying faster international payment gateways, and developing tools to pay salaries in crypto. stack.capital
Alps
Founded by Isabel Poppek and Nils Vollmer in 2020, Alpas’ procurement software helps medium to large manufacturing companies find, compare and manage suppliers. For the time being, it focuses on industrial companies that purchase machine and electrical parts, making sourcing more transparent at the beginning of the value chain. By applying AI, the software is 10 times faster than existing players and streamlines the identification, comparison and management of existing and previously unknown suppliers. For example, if you’re looking for a radiator cooling fan, you can dive into detailed supplier profiles, get an automated quote that matches others, and anticipate potential supplier risks, saving you up to 40 percent of procurement costs. The alumni of Y Combinator include the German conglomerate BASF, the Swiss Federal Railways AG and Landis+Gyr among its customers. With investments from venture capitalist Ann-Kristin Achleitne and former Spotify CTO Andreas Ehn, it has raised $2.2 million to date. alpas.ai
