By the way, Chris, do you have any fancy, Thanksgiving traditions since you I I do believe that's your 10th 10th year in New York City. Right? Oh, 11. 11? Yeah. Oh, congratulations, man. Any cool traditions there? You know, I was usually invited to a family, but so far the invite hasn't come in 2 days before Thanksgiving. So I'm not gonna like, I'm not gonna talk about it. We will see. But I have, Friendsgivings going on. That is
cool. By the way, we're going back to the roots. I have done a lot of early podcasts with a, cup of peppermint tea, and I'm going back to this. Chris, I do believe we're here for this month in GSA Startup November 2024, and you are the one who takes the lead. Right? So let's go. Welcome to our new, November 2024 wrap up with news from the startup and tech entrepreneurship
scenes in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Our startup news are recorded with me, Chris, in New York City, back from a Europe trip, only yesterday. So, my mind is all over the place in terms of time. And Joe is joining from Frankfurt officially. Hello, my friend. Hey. How are you doing, guys? Today's news cut is November 20th. This month, we cut a bit a bit earlier for three reasons. Number 1, there are a lot of news. Number 2,
our next news will be published shortly before Christmas. So this is then only around, 4 weeks away. Everyone is in the final sprint of the year. And 3, due to travel plans. As always, though, all news not included will be in our next news wrap up. News cycle is picking up considerably. Last month, we plowed through 20 pages of raw, unstructured news we had collected, and, now we have 36 pages to go through. And, it will be a surprise for you listeners how many of them
actually made it into the show. But we, needed to cut it seriously, so you can have a brief news overview. First of all, happy Thanksgiving to all of you who celebrate today. We were hinting at it already. For me, I know it has a problematic past and, history. But for me, being thankful makes it my most favorite holiday, actually. Yeah. That that's something I took with me as a tradition from the US, and it's actually very great, week to kick
off, Christmas season. Plus, we do do on Friday a Thanksgiving turkey here in Germany with my family as well. Let's, there have been a few questions, a few outreaches to us. And so I would like to set our news in perspective a little bit. We're relying on other sources, mostly in Germany here that we put together and give you a brief overview in 30 minutes or less. That's our goal. We check those Switzerland, normally, sources like friendly
Russian news spots does not make the cut. This also means we cannot cover everything, especially in a month where there's a lot of news. We have to drop articles and coverage. Yes. We have News piece and blog posts for us and other sources that contradict each other. This is unfortunately reality, and we're trying to give you a real picture of what is going on rather than a closed world view, especially in terms of VC numbers, IPO, and m and a volumes nor source ever matches the others.
Yes. That is mapping for us as well. Right, Chris? Yes. With our own blog posts, we try to give you a broader view of the overall picture as well as with these news. Think about them as small piece of a bird's eye view, especially in our blog post that's where we try to cover something nobody else does, especially focused on GSA. With our regular Startup interview, we zoom in much further. This should give you a great piece of a great picture of what is
going on in regional startup scene. And our news is just a starting point for all of you who are doing this for professional reasons and are serious about it. That's why we provide a source link. And also we know around 80% of you out there are listening to this for professional reasons. So, Chris, as always, you are our highlights guy.
Yes. That is true. So, also, as always, we saw in the past couple of weeks, many significant challenges and breakthroughs in the countries that we covered, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. About a couple of them, we will talk a bit more in-depth. Let me just give you, like, a very brief overview about
some of the highlights. First off, German air taxi pioneer Lilium filed for insolvency, underscoring the funding difficulties in the, electrical electric vertical takeoff and lending sector, while Volocopter navigated similar headwinds with a new CFO appointment. We see that Fintech giant Solaris is is reportedly exploring options to raise funds or sell itself after a sharp decline in user accounts. And, we also found more optimistic news.
The, GSA region saw successes like Vienna's Cubicure achieving a €79,000,000 exit and Berlin based Quentun Quentun raising a €135,000,000 to develop a variable device for diabetics. This is the worst sentence for, for German. Develop a wearable device for diabetics. Marking a step forward in text out of news Chris, I do my best to make it hard for you. V and
w. After 11 years, it's still a struggle. As said before, we threw out most fundraising announcement announcements below €10,000,000 or US dollars, but we still have almost a quarter 1,000,000,000 in new funding in, this news update today. European Startup show continue to show
resilience despite a challenging funding environment. We have Atomico's, Startup of European Tech 2024, which says that the continent now hosts 35,000 early stage Startup ups, a fourfold increase in the past Tech, and, putting cities like Berlin and Vienna on the map as global innovation hubs. Highlights this month include out of Alpha's AI partnership with Deutsche Bank and 415 Capital's a €150,000,000 fund announcement
for medical innovation. So, yeah, we see that Europe's influence in the Startup scene is growing. Investors are being attracted even in the middle of political and economic uncertainty. So let's get going for more with more updates. First off, though, you have some scheduling to announce. Yes. Expect the next news to drop every Thursday a month, and our last regular news episode will go
live on December 19th. We have to take a little break during the holidays and be back around January 9th with the next news going live on January 30th. There are only a few exceptions for, to this rule. They include the summer wrap up on Labor Day each year. 1st Monday is September where we wrap up July August. Chris, I do have a question for you. I'm already done with my Christmas present shopping even before the black week. How about you? Are you listening to this chopper? Nervous
laughter on my end. Of course, I haven't shopped anything yet. And, yeah, what can I say? I all I'm saying is, I guess, it's different when you have children. On average, Germans will spend €533, something like 550, 560 US dollars for all the Christmas presents according to a IDW study. Our podcast, video and audio will go live during different times on Thursday, November 29th. As always, we try to publish our, our audio podcast very early 6 AM Germany time, and the video podcast goes live in,
during noon. Our enablers, this recording is supported by HDI and the enterprise Europe network and, our partner Modern News where you can get 2 free SEO pieces a month. Chris, heading over to the top five news. Let's do it. So, I already hinted at it. Air taxis are still writing headlines, and, Volocopter got a reprieve with government funding. Lilium, though, in Germany did not and had News to fire had now had to file for insolvency now despite being IPOing and Nasdaq in the
past. If you're reading between the lines here, it seems as if funding for both has dried up a bit, and Volocopter has treated its early backers badly enough. So that crowdfunding may not be an option right now. You can be sure, though, that Lilium also took a look at issuing new shares, but had to decide against it. So yeah. I mean, it's still, like, a wild sector to me because no one really knows when it will finally take off. But, still,
yeah, I don't know. It seems like it seems like it's also an industry that is so much connected to the the times we live in and probably with so much criticism against airlines in general in terms of climate change. How big is the hunger actually for these, like, you know, for for these kind of of companies? Volocopter also considered a SPAC deal that fell through in 2021.
So, yeah, we really see that both companies are struggling to get funding for their the air taxi plans to get to mass production. And, yeah, on top of it all is that that way of transportation is not really, really approved yet anywhere else. So, or anywhere. So it's a tough job. But, yeah, since we are the hopeful podcast here, we obviously appreciate them fighting on for their big dream. Lilium, as we said, filed for insolvency amid financial struggles. We have some more, in-depth
analyses in our show notes about this. The German air taxi manufacturer, had several unsuccessful attempts to resolve its cash crisis, despite their plans to revolutionize urban travel with the eVTOL aircrafts. The company, faced significant funding challenges and regulatory hurdles. The shares have plummeted. The anticipated €100,000,000 loan from German state owned bank KFW was blocked, and that further exacerbated their financial woes. They are also looking for
investors in Saudi Arabia now, it seems. And, they also face a potential class action lawsuit in the US. Investors are alleging that they were misled about the company's financial health and technological capabilities. So, yeah, we also see that they have legal challenges moving forward, which definitely makes funding even harder. Volokopter, though, on the other hand, I already said it, appointed a new CFO in the middle of all these industry challenges. His name is
Oliver Fogelgesang. It's a strategic move that the, company uses to navigate landscape in urban air mobility, because also, obviously, this guy needs to, strengthen the financial leadership within the company and also secure necessary funding and uphill battle there too, definitely. Moving on to a different Austria, Aleph Alpha partners with Deutsche Bank to enhance AI capabilities. Aleph Alpha being a leading AI Startup up, now in that strategic partnership with, like, a very
traditional German bank. I guess in the eighties or seventies, you would say this is like the epitome of German industrial and and and, company pride. The collaboration aims to leverage all of Alpha's advanced AI models to enhance the bank's services, particularly in natural language processing and a data analysis. So, they're looking to make significant steps in integrating AI into the, financial services of a big traditional company like
Deutsche Bank. Zolavers, the, Berlin based Tech firm, has experienced a significant decline in its account numbers, dropping from nearly 8,000,000 during high times to now only approximately 2,000,000 at last disclosure. So basically losing 75% of the customers. The reduction is primarily due to the loss of major clients, including Trade Republic and Vivid Money. They have
transitioned to other banking partners. But despite the setback, Solaris remains committed to its banking as a service model, focusing on partnerships and technological innovation to regain its market's position. The company is actively seeking new collaborations to expand its service offerings and enhance customer experience. Yeah. They are either raising funds or selling the bank outright.
So it's a bit of a troubled story here, leading to a bigger scope where we can see that also the, political scene offers or provides uncertainty for Startup in Germany because the, German coalition government collapsed, as many of you might know. Basically, the Germans woke up the day after the, US election to Donald Trump winning the election, and they went to bed with their own government falling apart. That was must have been quite a wild Wednesday for the Germans.
And now we see that the end of that coalition government, which was the Social Democratic Party, the Green Startup, and the, Pro Business Liberal Party, that this end of this coalition introduced a significant uncertainty as experts anticipate delays in funding programs like the €12,000,000,000 win initiative, which was potentially could be postponed until 2026. This also obviously disrupts financial planning and growth prospects for emerging companies, and it underscores the need for a stable
government to foster innovation and economic development. So troubling times here as well or turbulent times at least. Those are the big stories that we have. Let's talk about ourselves. Yeah. I do believe that's also a big point in, we will later see that the business climate also took another dive. I do believe this uncertainty and that there is currently no government in full power right News. We'll have an election, I do believe, in February. Right,
Chris? Sometime in February. Tech. Because the Liberal Startup left a 3 party ruling coalition. And, you can really tell that the the economy would be in need now of a government funded stimulus program. But since they don't have a majority any anymore, that is going to be a pretty bad winter, I do believe. Housekeeping and time to brag. We are dissecting Atomico's report report state of European
Tech 2024. It has a mere 366 pages, and we're currently crafting a series of posts on our blog to give you the most important information in bite sized pieces. We found a pretty high level, article on FA set, Frankfurt, Algemeine Zeitung, one of Germany most circulated newspapers. I would say this is a translation. The future might look brighter for Europe according to state of
European Tech reported by Atomico. The report highlights that Europe's currently boast that Europe currently boasts 35,000 early stage tech Startup ups more than any other region worldwide. This is a fourfold increase over the past decade. More entrepreneurs have launched in new startups in Europe than in the US. 2024, 16,000 individual founders were found in Europe. For the report, There's also significant progress in Startup funding at
least in the early stage. In 2015, London was the only city in the global top Tech start up hubs by funding race for early stage start ups. This year, London has claimed the 2nd place globally with Berlin and Paris joining the top Tech. According to Atomico, Europe's investment in Startup are growing faster than in any other region. Over the past decade, the average annual growth rate of Startup funding in Europe has been
13% by comparison. The US saw an average growth of 8% and China lacked with just 2%. They also are pretty upbeat. Atomico rights, we're seeing more startups, more ambitious ideas built to solve harder problems. The overall universe of companies has grown 4.7 times in the last decade, with as many early stage companies as any other any other region and a eightfold increase in growth
stage firms. As we said, have a look at our blog. I do believe we're currently at a stage where this is dissected into, 16 different blog posts. If you're interested working with us, reach out, subscribe, and follow on our link Switzerland I hand over the ecosystem to Chris again. I feel as if I get to do all the good parts today. So, first off, let's look at, worldwide the worldwide ecosystem for Startup ups. We found a couple of articles and analyses there that we think are worth talking
about. Forbes.com, for example, writes about the question or asks the question if the, software as a service era might be ending, the, article is about rethinking software's role in modern business. Sifted has a couple of VC predictions for the Q4 of 2024, which we're right in the middle of. What Startup and investors need to know, you can find the link in our show notes. Then we have the 3rd annual ESGF ESG Fintech, 100 highlights. Sorry.
The 3rd annual ESG Fintech 100, which highlights innovators transforming sustainability in finance. And we see the Global VC investments in impact Startup fell by 25%. It's a tough year for sustainable innovation, it seems. And, Pioneers Post has a bit more about that. Zooming in on Europe, deep tech, opportunities are showing there. Deep Tech innovations in Europe hold a €9,300,000,000,000 potential, says an article in trending topics. Question is, are we ready
to unlock it? The European Space Deep Tech Innovation Center is here. An article about this is on Startup, so in Switzerland. And, VC funding for Tech in Europe seems to be going quite well. They hit a record, number this year, so women's health innovation seems to be thriving. Zooming even further in Germany, Munich is becoming Europe's hub for investor education, shaping the future of funding, says Wiesseemagat Sinpunkt. De. Germany's economic advisers predict a challenging year ahead.
Question remains is if Startup can weather the storm. So, yeah, the German economic outlook being still being rather grim and the Germany economy in general having much more trouble than other industrialized western countries. We should we may add that, this, forecast is from the, like, economic adviser council of the Germany federal government. So, yeah, smartest people we have for the these questions, probably Yep. Apart from you.
And, related to this is also, the e for business climate index that we talk about in each of our shows. Sentiment there is that companies in Germany feel even heavier, so the, outlook has become gloomier, and the index fell from 85.7 fell to 85.7 points down from 86.5 points in October. German Startup formation declines, so meaning fewer startups founded in, are founded in Germany right now. Question is, what can rejuvenate the ecosystem in 2025,
says hanersblatt.com. Business Insider has a an article in which experts predict a surge in IPOs, for next year. So, well, like, where they raise the question. So question is, are start ups ready to go public? Tech Parks in Germany are the subject of an article on transcript.de and their need to have their own ecosystem. So, in to thrive. We see that unicorn sightings dwindle as market valuations adjust,
says, Ephardzet. So the, biggest conservative newspaper in Germany, question there that they raise is if the Startup bubble might be deflating. And in Lower Saxony, Germany is getting especially in Lower Saxony, Germany is getting into the weed business. The first legal cannabis distribution begins there. Yeah. And everyone is wondering. So it's pretty heavily regulated, but everyone is wondering whether this can become a relevant business. And we would like to highlight Munich
here. Yeah. Since we said they have a, investor training hub, I would say we cut this, please, because we have it up front. It's twice. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah. Okay. That's also twice. Yeah. That's also twice. Okay. Okay. So then I will just yeah. So then I will just after the cannabis, I will just say this. And that's it for the ecosystem. Now, you can move on and talk about some of the most important hubs and what's going on in specific cities in Germany. Mhmm. Talking about,
highlighting some hidden gems here. Frankfurt Rein MainScavenger AI has already made significant, headlines here. They've been also guest with us, and they land some major clients for its innovative software. Learn more atkodkasten.com Tech in the interview from us. I Voca, raises £200,000,000 funding with German headquarters in Frankfurt, to support small businesses with flexible financing. So that means their headquarters in London and their German headquarter is in Frankfurt.
SME get get a boost. The company has 400 employees spread across London and Frankfurt. Emma Mattresses. Yes. Known from our interviews. UK regulators use matcher, Emma Mattress Startup for misleading marketing transparency in advertising is under scrutiny there. And we do have oop. Hang on. We do have the Dutch News bank, Bank News offers equity trading. The block, Finance Forward learned that the custody feature is made possible by Frankfurt based Jinmon in the
background. Burden based analytics packs €8,000,000 interestingly, we just had an interview with them last week. We talked before the interview about the, fundraising, but we could not, we could not tell about it because it was not announced yet. So it's not part of the interview. Passau, my muesli, what would you say? Is there an equivalent in US? It's basically, putting together your
favorite breakfast cereals. Their valuation plummeted to €30,000,000, which is pretty good because many Startup would aspire to be valued at €30,000,000. But a former stock market hopeful was rumored at a 250 million valuation at the IPO. So that is quite a drop. Lehr in Oost Friesland. Chris, how to explain Oost Friesland? It's on, on the very northern it's on the shores of Germany of the North Sea. Right? It's it's it's pretty flat.
It's it's very flat. And, actually, a very good friend of mine teaches business at their, university. Okay. Industrial software firm, Futero, acquires Orga Data, signaling a new growth in the sector. Chris, you are the Austria guy. Yes. So, also a couple of hub news in Austria. I already spoke about Cubicure because they had a €79,000,000 exit. It's a Vienna based 3 d printing Startup. And, yeah. So congratulations to them.
That's quite a significant number. We see that, the, a medtech company in Steyr, an Austrian state. Good lord. Looking for the word. So, the Austria Tech company filed for insolvency with €16,000,000 in debt. Quite a blow for the health tech sector there. We see that Bitpanda is exploring a potential Frankfurt IPO. It's, Bitpanda, as a little reminder, is an Austrian crypto company. And we see that the green Startup center that Austria opened a green start up center
in Leopin. Leopon. I have to apologize if any Austrians are listening, and I don't know how to pronounce their city. Chris, don't worry about it. You you told us you're still jet lagged. Yes. No particular news from Switzerland now, but we will get to get back to a couple of big fundings there later on because now we are moving on to the general news section, with VC News and new funds in case someone is looking for a for money.
As always, justice election. We already talked about that Germany sees a decline in active start up investors. We see that Berlin's, start up scene faces also venture capital shake up. Question is here how to evolve how to navigate that evolving investment landscape. Manager Margot Zinn has an article about this. Nico Rosberg, former Formula 1 driver, his venture fund is investing in Tourlane and MetKitDOG. We have couple of articles about this. And,
Impact VC is expanding into Germany. They are launching a, an own chapter pushing sustainable develop sustainable investing there. And 415 or 415 Capital announced a €150,000,000 Tech fund to support, breakthrough innovation in Tech. Moving on to green Tech. Yes. Chris, I hear sirens in the background. I know. Of the hook for the bagel today. The new mic can't to hide it. BASF to build the world's largest heat pump pushing the boundaries of sustainable
energy. Going to the Tech News as was said, Bitpanda considers an IPO in Frankfurt this time. N26 revenue milestone, they hit €440,000,000 in revenue, but still keep growing. Tech, Cupix, raises €25,000,000 from Tech, the Fintech accounts, also Deutsche Bank amongst its investors, and finance.net sold including News broker. Finanzen.net, the website sold including its News broker
by Axel Springer in a strategic shift in fintech. According to the report, the transaction is valued around €400,000,000. Trade Republic expands, they're exploring new opportunities, launch a crypto app, Alpha Link, and RightCapital struggles, file for insolvency. They struggle to find new investors to keep operating. Going into general news, Kaufland and Google partnership. Kaufland has, for me, been always a pretty conservative retailer, but they now partner with Google for tech forward
initiative. Amazon exits food delivery in Germany. Amazon shut down its grocery delivery in Germany, but they are now partnering with Knuspa. So how how would you translate Knuspa Klus? Like, crispy? Yeah. Something like this. Yeah. They partner with Knuspa not really for delivering fresh food, but packaged food. Tech loses market share in Germany. They struggle to maintain their mortgage, their market share in Germany as
competition heats up. Cantaneo acquisition, planned engagement network acquires Munich Cantaneo for 195,000,000 US dollar. Startup talent challenges. Start ups crave international talent, but visa delays hold them back. German court whose Facebook users affected by data breach are eligible for compensation, but in Germany, that won't be that much. Related to that, MITA's €797,000,000 fine from the EU for antitrust antitrust violations, big Tech, bigger consequences. Volkswagen
partners with Rivian. They bet 5.8 1,000,000,000 US dollar on a Rivian partnership to enhance software capabilities. Volkswagen has been quite in the news because they are doing pretty bad, and hopefully, their bet will work. Accessible ecommerce giant, Iable, proves accessible online stores Thrive with Thrive revenue inclusion Switzerland b to b SaaS rising stars. Sift that ranks Europe's top b to b SaaS Startup for 2024, who is climbing the charts. There are 9 startups from Berlin, 2 each from
Vienna and Munich. There's one startup from Zurich, Dusseldorf, Kriesen, Kiel, and Ludgards. Going a little bit into the, the creative destruction. No insolvency, but cutting head down head count here. Personius lay offs, they lay off 115 employees. Green energy, green energy hydrogen Startup h h two e files for insolvency. EV supplier Quantron files for insolvency. And lift Lyft Heroes, Lyft Hero, they they they are an elevator elevator, startup. They
file for insolvency. Aufzugheld aufzughelden is it called in Germany. Another tough chapter in, in the book of a hardware Startup. Chris, you wanna do the high notes. Right? More like tragic heroes, I guess. So, yeah, successful fundraisings and exits, as always, just a small selection selection. Now, basically, our threshold has become, €10,000,000 Swiss francs or US dollars or more. So let me just,
like, gallop through a couple of them. Monterosa Therapeutics inks a $1,000,000 $1,000,000,000 deal with Novartis. They are, working on targeted protein degradation. Alentis there Chris, what one reason this didn't make it into the headlines or into our oval count, this is potentially worth 1,000,000,000. That's why it is there. But Yes. Good clarification. Allentus Therapeutics secures a $181,000,000 in series d funding, a biotech
company. The exploration company raises a $160,000,000 for reusable spacecraft development. Berlin's QUANTUN secures a 130 €5,000,000 to develop wearable for diabetics. Blacklane attracts Saudi Arabia's PIF in its latest funding round worth €60,000,000, working on global expansion there. Aignostics, Tech Gnostics raises $34,000,000 in a series b to advanced AI powered pathology. Ocean Loop gains backing from the European Investment Bank, EIB, advancing sustainable aquaculture.
Tourlane raises €25,000,000 as Sequoia keeps faith in travel Startup. Question here is if the whole industry might be rebounding, so the industry being travel Tech. Localstack secures $25,000,000 to advance its clouds dev its cloud developer platform. Klim secures €22,000,000 to expand its regenerative farming platform globally. Agriculture here meeting innovation, I'd say. Zurich based Tech, Widen, w y d e n, secures $16,900,000 to fuel goob global growth. They
are a company working in wealth management. Media Air, lends €12,000,000 to scale its AI driven medical imaging solutions. HTGF, also €12,000,000 to, finance for as a financing round for, to advance AI driven medical imaging solutions. Oh, that's also the same. Mhmm. Good lord. The the News was that they're just leading, but we just take it out. Yes. Madhu cut this out after the media funding announcement. Thank you. Dunia Dunia AI secures $11,500,000
to revolutionize data analytics. Tot 0 or 20, I guess, raises €11,000,000 in seed funding to revolutionize battery recycling. But a huge problem in the future of mobility, I'd say. Validation Cloud raises $10,000,000 to enhance blockchain infrastructure. Tech x y t, gets €10,000,000 in funding. It's a German data analytics firm, in order to come up with a smarter insight. So it's an
an analytics company. Validation Cloud secures another $10,000,000 to scale blockchain infrastructure, and Deutsche Bank invests in Qplix, q p l I x, in order to innovate wealth management platforms. And that's all I got for you for the fundraisings and the exits. Is that it? That's it. I do believe that's right, man. We do have a few articles. Stay ahead of the curve. Plus, as I said, we have upcoming series of more than 10 blog posts for the,
Atomico survey. So stay tuned, everybody. Keep safe, and enjoy your Christmas time. We will be back shortly before Christmas. Plus, I did send out today's email, for the for participation in the Fintech review, so that will be also coming along shortly before the holidays. Thank you, everybody. Chris, it was a pleasure as always to work with you. Thank you. Once again, happy Thanksgiving. Bye. News.