What started as a casual breakfast over Bavarian Weisswurst, with some doubts about whether anyone would show up, has grown into Europe’s leading startup festival.
Today, Bits & Pretzels draws 7,500 entrepreneurs, investors, and tech leaders under one roof. From September 29 to October 1, TFN was at Munich’s International Congress Centre for the second year in a row to soak in the energy and innovation powering Bits & Pretzels 2025.
In an exclusive interview with Tech Funding News (TFN), Andy Bruckschloegl and Felix Haas, co-founders of Bits & Pretzels, looked back on the festival’s origins: “We said, okay, we would like to make the startup scene in Munich visible. And then we said, okay, let’s initiate some kind of a founder’s sausage breakfast.”
From those early gatherings came a festival that now rivals some of Silicon Valley’s biggest tech events. This year’s keynote speakers range from Niklas Zennström, co-founder of Skype, to Thomas Wolf, co-founder of Hugging Face, and Katherina Reiche, a German politician and digital economy expert.
Here’s our take on what shaped this year’s edition.
The Rocket Internet effect and Munich’s rise
You probably can’t talk about Bits & Pretzels without mentioning Rocket Internet and the Samwer brothers’ outsized impact on Germany’s startup landscape. Their empire, known for rapidly cloning U.S. tech successes, gave birth to giants like Zalando and HelloFresh. And they still dominate the market.
“Some brands were instrumental in forming the German or European startups 15 or 20 years ago,” the Bits & Pretzels founders said. Yet, they don’t see themselves as “the next Samwer brothers.” Instead, they point out that today’s founders are very different from those in the Rocket Internet days. “They’re working on genuinely new ideas, not just copying what’s already out there. It’s a straightforward kind of entrepreneurship, but that in itself is quite an interesting shift.
Munich’s ecosystem mirrors this transformation. It ranks 17th on Dealroom’s global ranking, but leaps to fifth when judged by innovation impact per capita. The city is home to 838 startups that raised $2.42 billion in 2025, a 28.3% increase over the previous year.
“We don’t see any big competition here. We only see the competition against the USA, against China. So we really have to speed up against that,” the Bits & Pretzels founders noted.
AI, robotics, and space tech innovations
Though AI grabbed much attention, this year’s showcase was a reminder that hardware innovation is alive and well. For instance, GoodBytz, a robotic kitchen assistant, showcased a robot cooking Kaiserschmarrn, a traditional Bavarian dish consisting of shredded pancakes. And yes, we were marketing victims to try it!
Isento Robotics is tearing down traditional barriers with its ambitious project, the “pib,” short for printable intelligent bot. They aim to create a highly advanced humanoid robot whose designs are openly shared with the world, and whose parts can be mostly produced using a standard 3D printer.
Similarly, Emqopter is building the first ambulance drone designed for medical sample delivery. CEO and co-founder Dr. Nils Gageik explained to TFN their “polyautonomous” system, where drones are loaded and unloaded entirely by robots, navigating inside buildings without human hands.
Space tech, too, featured prominently. GAIA Aerospace, for example, works on reusable air-launch rockets for small satellites, while ELECTRON Aerospace pushes zero-emission electric aircraft for regional travel.
These developments align with Germany’s recent pledge to invest €35 billion in space and defence technologies by 2030. Ventech’s Nicolas Barthalon said this places Germany in fierce competition with France and the UK on the global stage.
The persistent female funding gap
Despite strong female-led startups, funding remains a challenge: only 4% of startups founded by women in Germany secure venture capital. Gregor Haidl, Principal and Head of HTGF Munich, noted, “Of the pitches we have received so far this year, only around one third included at least one female founder. While this shows there is still room for improvement, we see it as an opportunity to foster more diversity in entrepreneurship.
In our experience, part of the reason is that fewer women study, research and work in fields central to our investment areas, such as AI, robotics, industrial engineering, physics and computer science, and fewer start their own scalable businesses. Structural barriers and network effects can also play a role.”
Julia Rafschneider, co-founder of nuuEnergy, a heat pump installation and energy startup, adds, “We need to keep amplifying stories of female-led growth, not just funding rounds. By sharing the playbooks of how women founders build resilient, efficient teams, we set a benchmark for what healthy scaling can look like and that benefits the entire ecosystem.”
Bits and Pretzels backs these efforts with women-only meet-ups, targeted ticket programs such as their “300 tickets for women in tech,” and dedicated networking spaces. “We try with our initiatives to change it, to be part of that change. Today, 100 female founders met for honest talks, sharing experiences and building connections,” Bits & Pretzels founders said.
The road ahead?
Bits & Pretzels 2025 was a clear snapshot of where Europe’s startup scene stands today. Bold bets on emerging technologies sit alongside pressing social challenges, making collaboration more important than ever.
In a conversation with TFN, Yoni Assia, CEO of eToro, summed up the German startup ecosystem: “There’s no doubt that Germany is by far the most advanced community of fintech entrepreneurs. We definitely see a very strong ecosystem of tech, which in my view continues to create new start-ups, build new products”
As Europe works to close the gap with global tech giants, the festival’s mix of culture, community, and innovation feels like a call to action: to pick up the pace and fuel the next generation of startups, reaching all the way into space.
This article is part of our coverage at Bits and Pretzels, with TFN serving as an official media partner.
