While the Covid-19 pandemic after-effects and the tech downturn are here to stay for a while, still the European tech startup community is closing in on the investment gap with those from the US.
As per the Startup Heatmap Survey 2021, within Europe – Berlin proves to be founders’ favourite. It maintains a solid 39%of founders’ vote showing that more than every third European founder could imagine starting their company in the German capital. Those who do are being welcomed by a thriving startup community with an ever growing number of meetup participants (+8%) and growing availability of seed capital (+13%avg. annual growth). Not surprisingly, founders who say they want to startup in Berlin rate the access to funding, the helpful ecosystem and also value for money way above the European average. Also, after Brexit London had to pass the crown of the most popular startup hub in Europe to Berlin.
Already, there is an influx of capital in many Berlin tech startups with some notable ones being WorkMotion, Moss, Inne, and GetHenry among others. Having said that, TFN has listed some of the hottest Berlin startups that are moving up the growth trajectory in 2022.
Klang Games
Founder/s: Ivar Emilsson, Mundi Vondi, Oddur Snaer Magnusson
Founded year: 2013
Total funding: $77M
Belin-headquartered independent game development studio that develops next-generation games. Klang Games launched its first project – ReRunners: Race for the World for iOS and Android devices, which was well-received by the gaming press and the gaming community. The company strives to create sustainable products by providing unique playing experiences, utilising innovative technology, developing distinctive art styles and designs and building valuable communities.
Recently, the game development studio picked up $41 million in a Series C funding round co-led by Animoca Brands and Kingsway Capital along with participation from Anthos, Novator, Supercell, Roosh, AngelHub, and New Life Ventures. It will be used to expand the growth of Klang Games. In addition, the company appointed Isabelle Henriques as Co-CEO and COO.
Brighter AI
Founder/s: Marian Gläser, Patrick Kern
Founded year: 2017
Total funding: NA
Brighter AI works with the mission to protect every identity in public. Its leading anonymization solutions for video data are based on state-of-the-art artificial intelligence. Brighter AI’s Deep Natural Anonymization (DNAT) solution has received the European Privacy Seal (EuroPriSe), which is the only EU-wide, independent privacy seal for GDPR compliance.
A few weeks back, Brighter AI, named “Europe’s Hottest AI Startup” by Nvidia, raised a Series A round led by new investor Armilar Venture Partners to scale up its unique PrivacyTech solution for video and image data. Existing investors eCAPITAL and G+D Ventures also invested in this financing round.
Penta
Founder/s: Aleksandar Orlic, Igor Kuschnir, Jessica Holzbach, Lav Odorovic, Luka Ivicevic, Sir Gabriel Holbach
Founded year: 2016
Funding: $52M
Penta, a Berlin-based fintech platform for business banking is one of the leading startups in Germany. This fintech startup automates bank accounts and invoices and offers online cashless banking services to startups and SMEs.
Last year, the startup bagged €15 million in Series B funding that came from HV Capital, RTP Ventures, Finleap, Presight Capital, VR Ventures and ABN AMRO Bank.
Peaq
Founder/s: Julia Pönitzsch, Leonard Dorlöchter, Max Thake, Pavel Fomenko, Till Wendler
Founded year: 2017
Total funding: $9.6M
A deep-tech startup Peaq is developing decentralised infrastructure for the Economy of Things. The platform infrastructure is powered by its novel Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), the DAGchain. It is a high-performance DAG-blockchain hybrid DLT designed specifically for the Internet/Economy of Things. The platforms empower clients to own, govern and maintain the infrastructure they use.
Peaq, a Web3 network that offers decentralised infrastructure and tools to builders and users of decentralised applications, or dapps, for machines, raised $6 million in seed funding recently. Fundamental Labs led the funding round along with a slew of other investors and it is aimed to power an economy in which machines have used to create, govern and generate income from dapps for machine-generated.
Solarisbank
Founder/s: Andreas Bittner, Marko Wenthin
Founded year: 2016
Total funding: $424M
Europe’s leading Banking-as-a-Service platform, Solarisbank has a full German banking license and enables other companies to offer their own financial services. The platform offers digital bank accounts and payment cards, identification and lending services, digital asset custody and services provided by integrated third-party providers.
Last year, the fintech unicorn Solarisbank scooped €190 million Series D funding in an oversubscribed round led by Decisive Capital Management.
Dance
Founders: Alexander Ljung, Christian Springub, Eric Quidenus-Wahlforss
Founded year: 2020
Total funding: $34.7M
An e-bike subscription service, Dance, lets users pay a monthly fee that covers their bikes and provides an all-inclusive support package. The subscription includes a bike concierge, maintenance, and theft replacement insurance via the company’s own hardware and software that allows for fast repairs through its warehouse and logistics setup. The company’s mission is to make e-bike the primary mode of commute with its subscription service. Its frictionless subscription model includes a fully assembled e-bike delivered to their doorsteps within 24 hours.
Earlier this year, Dance secured €20 million debt financing from Triple Point Capital to further scale the e-mobility subscription service to Vienna, Paris, Hamburg and Munich over the coming months.
Enpal
Founder/s: Jochen Ziervogel, Mario Kohle, Viktor Wingert
Founded year: 2017
Total funding: $276
Enpal is a photovoltaics leasing firm that provides solar power systems for homeowners with no money upfront. Its product enables customers to reduce their electricity expenditure through a solar system and a green all-inclusive energy solution. It lets homeowners purchase solar systems for as low as €1 after 20 years of operation.
Late last year, the German solar photovoltaic and battery leasing unicorn, raised €150 million in Series C funding led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2.
Ultimate.ai
Founder/s: Reetu Kainulainen, Sarah Al-Hussaini, Markus Rautio, Jaakko Pasanen
Founded year: 2016
Total funding: $27.4
Ultimate.ai, a virtual customer service agent builder, frees (human) support agents from dealing with dull, repetitive stuff — so they can apply their (less limited) skills to more complex, consultative or emotionally demanding customer queries. It uses a customer service automation platform as an “AI-first” ‘no code’ tool for the purpose.
In December last year, Ultimate.ai closed a $20 million Series A round led by Omers Ventures with participation from Felicis Ventures and existing investors HV Capital, and Maki.vc.
Pitch
Founder/s: Adam Renklint, Charlette Prevot, Christian Reber, Eric Labod, Jan Martin, Marvin Labod, Misha Karpenko, Vanessa Stock
Founded year: 2018
Total funding: $136M
An enterprise software startup from Berlin, Pitch is a collaborative presentation software for modern teams. It changes the way presentations are crafted and knowledge is shared. Pitch focuses on real-time communication, smart workflows, and customisable templates and makes it easy for teams to work together to develop beautiful presentations. It is used by brands such as Slack and Framer.
In May 2021, the world’s first complete platform for presentations, Pitch, raised $85 million in Series B funding led by Lakestar and Tiger Global along with existing investors Thrive Capital and Index Ventures.
Micropsi Industries
Founder/s: Ronnie Vuine, Dominik Welland, Priska Herger
Founded year: 2014
Total funding: $40M
Micropsi Industries provides ready-to-use AI systems for controlling industrial robots to enable the automation of manufacturing processes that so far could not be automated. Its MIRAI robot control system enables hand-eye-coordinated actions for the automation of tasks that improve productivity in industrial environments.
Earlier this year, Micropsi Industries closed $30M in a Series B funding round led by Metaplanet, VSquared and Ahren Innovation Capital to expand operations in the US, ramp up sales efforts and expand to more robot platforms.
