This Month in German, Swiss, and Austrian (GSA) Startups — October 2022 Wrap-Up
Welcome to This Month in German, Swiss, and Austrian (GSA) Startups in October 2022 by Startuprad.io with Chris from Essen, Germany, and Joe from Frankfurt. We recorded this news episode on Thursday, October 20th, 2022.
As always: All news not yet included here will be published in our next news episode in our regular November wrap-up, which will be published on Thanksgiving (November 24th).
Our highlights:
Another one of our former guests gets a Snoop Dog investment. Quick delivery startup Gorillas seems to sell itself to competitor Getir, according to Bloomberg, despite an earlier announcement they are looking for more investments. Gadget rental service Grover adds 270 m € in venture debt, getting it close to 2 billion €. Our former guest Nuri (formerly Bitwala) had to file for insolvency, now investors jump ship and the company is wound down this year. Volocopter is sued by early crowdfunding backers, Home24 has a takeover offer from a brick-and-mortar furniture retailer and BioNTech takes on cancer. Also, Munich-based travel tech Holidu raises 100 m € in a combination of 75 m equity and 25 m debt funding.
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Top News
Europe’s Largest Cannabis Funding To Date
Europe’s largest cannabis funding to date: Snoop Dogg-backed German cannabis startup gets $37.6M Series B led by British American Tobacco https://buff.ly/3DXQecb
learn more about the Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 (German Startup Awards) founder Finn Age Hänsel in the interview here https://buff.ly/3RfDCjN
Gorillas May Soon Be Bought By Getir
Delivery Startup Getir in Advanced Talks to Buy Gorillas (Bloomberg) https://buff.ly/3VIUumE They write:
- “Proposed deal for Gorillas would be a mix of cash and equity
- The combination would give Getir, which is backed by Mubadala Investment Co. and Sequoia Capital, scale in key European markets including the UK and Germany.
- Gorillas had previously held talks with a number of competitors about the prospects for a merger or sale of its business, people familiar with the matter said previously.
- Chief Executive Officer Kagan Sumer said earlier this year that he planned to look for new financing to recalibrate the company to work toward profitability.”
Grover Takes Home 270 m €
As consumer spending tightens, yet appetites for tech remain the same, Berlin-based Grover sees an uptick in rental interest and is now bringing its debt funding to close to €2 billion to meet demand. Grover takes on more debt funding, this time €270 million from London-based M&G https://buff.ly/3ygmtQf
Our Former Guest Nuri (Bitwala)
Will be wound down. Despite seeing interest from investors, they could not get one to sign up. So the company will be shut down until the end of the year. The last day one can use a Nuri account is in mid-December. Neobank Vivid makes all former Nuri customers a good offer.
- Insolvency administrator of crypto startup Nuri sees interest in the platform and fintech sales capacities https://buff.ly/3RDeNyt
Learn more here: https://buff.ly/3BWXFzr - After the crypto markets did not turn positive, two potential investors in Nuri jumped ship, so the company will not emerge from insolvency but be wound down https://buff.ly/3yRGnSa
Volocopter Now Sued by Crowdinvestors
German unicorn Volocopter was sued by 177 former crowd backers, who feel they should have gotten “a fair participation”, especially since they backed the company very early https://buff.ly/3yFDhRd
We Mentioned Home24 on a Regular Basis
Now they stand alone time may be over. We talked in the past about lowering forecasts and the tough environments. Now XXXLutz — a traditional brick-and-mortar furniture store — made an offer to buy Home24 https://buff.ly/3S2zrZb
BioNTech Takes on Cancer
First, they took on Corona with their widely successful vaccine. Now the doctors are hopeful it could lead to new treatments for melanoma, bowel cancer, and other tumor types. The mRNA technology being used works by sending an instruction or blueprint to cells to produce an antigen or protein. In Covid, this antigen is part of the spike protein of the virus. In cancer, it would be a marker on the surface of tumor cells, which teaches the immune system to attack it.
Learn more on BBC: Could Covid vaccine technology crack cancer? https://buff.ly/3S7NrRl
TravelTech is Not Dead
Munich-based traveltech startup Holidu raises 100 m € for renting out vacation homes. The 75 m € Series E investment is led by VC 83North, other investors include Northzone, HV Capital, Vintage Investment Partners, and Communfund Capital. Holidu also raised 25 m € venture debt. The brother's Johannes and Michael Siebers will use the money for product development, geographic expansion, and acquisitions. https://buff.ly/3yX2TJk
Housekeeping & Time to Brag
No Updates here
Ecosystem
- German Startups on the Rise — Blog Post aggregating Germany’s most extensive startup survey 2022 https://medium.com/startuprad-io/german-startups-on-the-rise-311e9ab08f71
- 50% of Germans would pay more for products from the circular economy https://buff.ly/3LUDwgr
- MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Asset Legislation): What Europe’s crypto assets regulation means for the continent https://buff.ly/3TupC7h
Hubs
Here we want to highlight some hidden gems and cities of general startup interest.
Frankfurt
- Investor 3U makes 150 m Euro profits from their sale of Frankfurt-based WeClap to dutch Exact Group https://buff.ly/3ruCFtD
Munich
- DataGuard lands €61M to roll out its all-in-one compliance and security platform in new markets — TFN https://buff.ly/3RhFtEE
- Horst Brandstätter Group, the company behind the Playmobil toys, buys 25% of Munich -based traveltainment startup Kekz, which offers earphones for kids https://buff.ly/3S6bjEN
Heilbronn
The small German city of Heilbronn wants to be one of Europe’s prime AI hubs. They start with an incubator program https://buff.ly/3g3Yy0c
Saarbrücken
Saarbrücken-based ai startup Quantpi raises 2,5 m € in pre seed for their AI risk assessment. They are a spin-off of the Helmholtz Center for Information Security https://buff.ly/3MHhQon
Switzerland
- Swiss fintech startup Ledgy bags $22m in Series B round https://buff.ly/3BMFlHH
- Swiss-based Velas partners with GEM Digital to make blockchain tech accessible; raises €138M https://buff.ly/3rxf37q
Austria
- Austrian digital health Startup medudoc raises 2 m € seed funding https://buff.ly/3ry2fh7
- Vienna-based Saas company Infinica sold for 9,5 m Euro to Doxee from Italy https://buff.ly/3yPcfXm
General News / Tech News / Companies News Section
New VC Funds, If You’re Looking for Money
- PointNine Capital raises €180m seed fund (their 6th fund) to invest in B2B startups https://buff.ly/3SdXRj8
- Amsterdam-based Newion unveils new €130 million fund for early-stage software startups https://buff.ly/3CG3i5g
Fintech News
- This could be a case of either very bad or very good timing: Europe’s $9 billion digital bank N26 launches crypto trading service amid bear market https://buff.ly/3SpCDOM
- BitPanda 1) A recent article revealed more data about crypto unicorn Bitpanda. During the crypto hype, they grew by >700% and generated almost half a billion Euros in revenue https://buff.ly/3ry2ucd
- BitPanda 2) Before Bitpanda became a unicorn, N26 was looking into buying the neobroker in 2020 https://buff.ly/3eJanZC
- Munich Re buys insurtech startup Apinity from Allianz. The company offers a marketplace for IT services exclusively for insurance companies https://buff.ly/3ElabtV
- Check24 is a platform many consumers in Germany are using to compare everything from financial services to cell phone plans. They worked with fintech Raisin, but now kick them out and offer the service themselves https://buff.ly/3SJnyZe
- KKR-owned payment fintech Unzer leaves their home in Heidelberg and relocates some staff to Berlin https://buff.ly/3SV2MFS
General News
- Tier Mobility-owned Spin lays off about 10% of its workforce, exits two markets https://buff.ly/3EfwRf4
- Airtaxi Lilium has found weaknesses in its internal accounting and control functions. They are working on the problems https://buff.ly/3CtBkcF
- Delivery Hero founder Lukasz invests in compact particle accelerators https://buff.ly/3xWn3Td
Learn more about the founder Lukasz Gadowski in the interview here: https://buff.ly/3Rhoanl - Former Tesla manager Philipp Schröder expands with his green startup 1Komma5 to Australia, buying local Tesla partner Natural Solar for an undisclosed amount https://buff.ly/3ylW5ok
- Startup Milivié has to file for insolvency since not enough people wanted to buy a 570.000 € Beetle https://buff.ly/3MEYSyG
A Very Few And Selected Fundraisings
- Berlin-based Patronus picks up €27 million to support seniors in their daily lives https://buff.ly/3Cbw5wT
- Makersite, the AI & data platform that powers sustainable product and supply chain decisions at scale, secures 18M USD Series A https://buff.ly/3Tye2b8
- Immerok lands $17M to process streaming data Berlin-based Immerok has raised $17 million in a round led by Cusp Capital, 468 Capital, Cortical Ventures, and Essence VC https://buff.ly/3SWWhlJ
- Berlin-based ecoligo raises 10 m € in Series A funding for their Solar-as-a-Service offering https://buff.ly/3gjgFzy
- Workist collects €9M to automate document processing https://buff.ly/3CdPNtf
We will be back on November 24th with our November Wrap-Up! Yes, for our American audience, this is Thanksgiving Thursday!
Stay ahead of the curve
- How much equity should early employees expect from an early-stage startup? https://buff.ly/3rBHcdu
- The biggest opportunity in climate tech — in numbers https://buff.ly/3M7qJY9
- Fast Unicorns Frequently Fade https://buff.ly/3C9hHoW
- Credit Suisse Predicts Renewable Energy That Is “Too Cheap To Meter” By 2025 https://buff.ly/3VyUJ3v
- What Outperformers Do Differently to Tap Internal Talent https://buff.ly/3TdaETl
- Barriers to entry: a look at Europe’s (lack of) inclusive entrepreneurship programs https://buff.ly/3CzD2ZX
Transcript
[0:00] Music.
[0:16] And Live Events.
[0:22] Into this month in German Swiss and Austrian startups so it’s October 22
you are here with startuprad.io and this time with me Chris from Essen Germany because I’m on a Germany trip and Joe from Frankfurt as always.
How are you how are things in Frankfort.
From my old study which I haven’t left for quite a few days because I was until yesterday I was in isolation due to Corona so if I’m covering if I’m not up
to top of my game I’m really sorry guys I’m just recovering okay but your back.
Healthy and we are happy about that we are recording this episode on Thursday October the 20th in 2022 so things that happened after might not be a part of it as you know and as always
only has not yet included he will be published in our next news episode in our November wrap up which will be published on thanks
giving November 24th
so something more we looking forward to we hope you will enjoy your Halloween I heard this year you will be the first time that you go trick-or-treating with your two boys to scare the neighbors what’s your dress.
[1:37] I’ll be a Jedi Knight little Henry will be Yoda because he had now has the right size for costume there
and my youngest boy Ben will put him into pumpkin outfit maybe I come to him be Chewbacca.
[1:55] You’re always welcome Anonymous like no one knows maybe it’s some Chewbacca shows up behind you it might be me
so but moving on if we’re looking at what is happening in today’s episode we have a couple of highlights and then we will talk about mid more bit more in-depth moving along so another one of our former guests got a Snoop Dogg investment that we were something we will talk about the quick delivery startup
gorillas seems to sell itself to the competitor get here according to Bloomberg that
despite interleague announcement they are looking for more investment.
[2:34] Gadget rental service Grover it’s 270 million dollars in Venture debt getting it close to two billion euros our former guest newly formally bit Viola had to fire for insolvency
now investors jump ship and the company is wound down this year volocopter is sued by early crowdfunding backers home 24 has a takeover offer from a brick-and-mortar Furniture retailer chain and Germany and Bayou
and Tech takes on cancer also munich-based travel Tech Holly do raises 100 million euros in a combination of 75 million equity and 25 million depth funding let’s
talk startups but first couple of housekeeping notes as always you can tune into our internet radio station at
radio you can subscribe to all our things if you go to link tree so link through.
Dottie e / startupradio this way you get all the links and now you kick it off with who are our enablers.
[3:41] Exactly thanks Chris our enable us this show was made possible by hasn’t rated invest with a brand
invest — n — hessen you can learn more about them in the link provided in the show notes we also run a dedicated sub podcast with all interviews and using cooperation with them you can find it at
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come
Chris let’s dive a little bit into the top news and this is interesting because the second interview guests we had gets an investment from Snoop Dogg the first one was concert Eva
we talk
with them about it earlier this year and now Finn argh Hensel the founder of Sanity group also gets investment by Snoop
dark and.
[4:42] The headline goes Europe’s largest cannabis funding today Snoop Dogg back German cannabis startup gets thirty seven point six million euros be
led by British American Tobacco and just yesterday there was German news with a draft for cannabis legislation and legalization that came out basically saying well if it has a certain amount it has only a certain level of THC in it and it’s allowed if you own or buy less than 20 grams so Germany’s also definitely one of those countries where legislation seems to be moving and this is why you also see
the startup activity in that industry I guess.
[5:27] I do believe we have the news with the link with legalization proposal down here in the show notes I remember that I converted it even two answers and go.
Gorillas May soon be bought by get clear delivery startup get here from Turkey by the way is in advanced talks to buy gorillas
right Bloomberg quote a little bit from the article the proposed deal for gorillas would be a mix of cash and Equity so get your would put I would buy gorillas in a mix of
cash and
get here shares the combination would give get here which is backed by mobile investment Co and Sequoia Capital scale in key European markets including the coup UK and
Germany guerrillas had previously held talks with the number of competitors about the prospects for merger or sale of its business people familiar with the matter said
previously and chief executive Cog and Zuma said earlier this year that he planned to look for new financing to recalibrate the company
to work toward profitability.
[6:38] Arthur quite a frequent guest I would like to say is Grover the berlin-based company that rents out
gadgets now they take over home 270 million euro
has consumer spending tightens it appetites for Tech Remains the Same berlin-based Grover’s he’s not taking rental interest and is now bringing its debt funding to close to 2
build leaders to meet demand and as we said they took home 270 million euros from london-based m&g
as Chris already hinted our former guests new react the time we interviewed them called with Wala will be bound
down despite seeing interest from investors they could not get
I want to sign up so the company will be shut down until the end of the year I think I read last time you can use their account would be around mid of December the last day.
[7:41] Ah and you bag Vivid makes all for Mallory customers a good offer we have the news with insolvency with interested investors as well as the news that day
we’ll be bound down licked in the show notes both copter d air taxi company from pourcel is now sealed by crowd investors we talked in the past that they have not been very happy with
did Kill they did when they became unicorn they were more looking at the SPAC teal and really get a lot of money for
what they invested early in the startup but right now it looks like they will need to stick with the one percent
interest rate of their form Investments.
[8:28] So 177 of the former crop Becker’s very early-stage backers.
[8:34] Who feel they should have gotten a fair participation especially since the back to company early on are now suing them Chris.
This is about home home 24 you want to take it over not before I don’t say that not before I say that the.
Autonomous flying and volocopter thing as I say probably every month it’s such a weird industry to me good Lord I’m happy it quieted kind of down yes I we mentioned home 24 on a regular basis so it’s
basically furniture
and now they’re the stuff their time as a standalone startup maybe over and we talked already in the past about how they lowered their forecasts and how they are operating in a tough environment but now exist.
Notes it’s which is a traditional brick-and-mortar furniture store on the I would say more economic and of the market.
And when you’ve been visiting Germany it’s the ones with this like oversized red chair in front of it when you drive by always close to the other button that are just cause we’re talking about and I would say it is one of the most visible competitors to IKEA.
I would say and yeah holding holding up quite well in the end but they are they made an offer to buy home 24.
[10:02] Completely different industry though is bio and Tech which a lot of you may know by now obviously because of the covid vaccine and the next big thing they take on.
Is cancer the doctors are hopeful it could lead to new treatments for melanoma bowel cancer other tumor types.
And they are using the same mRNA technology which means like modified RNA which by the way the big competitor that they have moderna also just C stands for modified
RNA
so the MRNA technology is being used by sending an instructional blueprint to cells to produce an antigen or protein in covid this engine is part of the spike protein of the virus in cancer would be a marker.
On the surface of tumor cells which teaches the immune system then to attack it and we know of this obviously not.
Because we studied medicine but because the BBC explained it to us could covid vaccine technology crack cancer is the article.
[11:05] That we find about that found about that and then travel Tech is not dead munich-based travel Tech startup Holly do raises 100 million euros for renting out vacation homes the 75 million series
he investment is led by vcat Third north 83 North other investors include North Zone HV Capital vintage Investment Partners and common fund.
Capital.
I do also raised 25 million euros in Venture depth Brothers Johannes and Mackenzie bows will use the money for product development Geographic expansion and acquisitions
housekeeping in time to brag we kind of
we want to keep it humble this time around and just move on already to the ecosystem part of the show German startups are on the rise we have a blog post aggregating Germany’s most extensive startups survey of 2020
to that is actually a medium article written by our very own Joel.
[12:06] It seems to be an okay okay is guy then fifty percent of Germans would pay more okay.
[12:13] Excuse me I’m on are fifty percent of Germans would pay more for products from the circular economy and then Mica which stands for markets and crypto eggs acid legislation what Europe
yeah and came up with a draft and we have an article about what Europe’s crypto assets regulation means for the continent so if you want to know more
it’s also in there moving on to a couple of cities where the music is playing and that is the Hub section.
This month led by you.
[12:48] Yes the Oak Aged guy now takes over hop section you want to highlight some hidden gems.
And cities of General startup interest Frankfurt investor three you made obviously 150 million profit from the sale of Frankfurt based
we clap to Dutch exact group going a little bit more south to Munich
data card lands 61 million to roll out its all-in-one compliance and security platform in New Markets
and very interesting took me the news took me back to my childhood host crunch data group the company behind the blame will be the toys by 25% of munich-based travel tainment
cakes which offers earphones for kids they have something that is a little bit bigger than a coin and you just attach it next to one of the earphones and then plays what’s in there so kind of a competitor of the Tony box.
Yeah I’m Braun very small City close to stood guard.
[13:56] Wants to be one of Europe’s Prime AI hubs and they starting an incubator program now so
there you can really I think an American would think that is one of the suburbs even of Stuttgart so it’s a definitely like a tech and Engineering class that there
has a broken jaw broken based AI startup Quant P raised 2.5 million euros in a proceed for their AI risk assessment they are a spin-off of the helmholtz Centre for information security
and the booking not necessarily a big
place for now but also in an interesting position close to France which also brings us to another French language country Switzerland.
Since we also always look at the German language speaking part of other countries and in Switzerland we see that Swiss fin Tech startup let G backs 22 million Euro dollars in a series be around swiss-based Villas partners
so sorry swiss-based Vilas partners with GE M or gem digital to make blockchain Tech accessible accessible and they raised 138 million euros and Zurich based.
[15:09] We also had to request lechery sorry that was double twice mentioned article
Austria Austrian digital Health startup made you doc me to dock raise two million euros in seed funding
and the Vienna base software as a service company in Phoenix car with the sea was sold for 9.5 million euros to Doxie Doxie from Italy
doxey I pronounce the doxy because I said I thought it a lien and because it’s written D 0 x e0.
[15:44] That’s it for the hubs General news technews companies news.
Um first of all new VC funds if you are looking for money right now we have point nine Capital which raises 180 million euros.
Seed fund is their sixth fund to invest in B2B startups
and we have the amsterdam-based Navy on new we on maybe on I guess goes easier on from rolls easier from the tongue they unveiled a new 130 million euros fund for early-stage software startups.
[16:19] Now to your Forte fintech.
[16:24] Yes Finn take this could be a case of either bad or very good timing Europe’s 9 building digital bank and 26 londres kryptos.
Trading Service Inc
bear market then we do have two pieces on bit pattern and the ones a recent article revealed more data about crypto Union unicorn bit Panda during the group 2 hype they grew
more than seven hundred percent in generated almost half a billion Revenue in one year and the second piece of news on big Panda before.
[17:03] B Panda became a unicorn and 26 was looking into buying the new broker in 2020 we have the.
[17:12] Big reinsurance company Munich re they by the intro Tech startup MPT
from Aliens to company offers a Marketplace for IT services exclusively for insurance companies check 24 is a platform money consumers in Germany are using to compare
everything from Financial Services to cell phone plans they work with fintech Raisin but now kick them out and
offered the service themself and also KK are owned payment fintech
links are formally hated pay least their home in Heidelberg and relocate some stuff to Germany
going into a little bit more General news team ability owned spin lays off about 10% of it Workforce and
exits to markets and texe liliom has found weaknesses in its internal accounting and Control Function they are working on the problems delivery hero
founder Lukas Podolski invest in compact art particle
accelerators you could learn more about him in our interview.
[18:26] And former Tesla manager Phillips Road expand with a screen
paint cometh oomph 1 comma 5 to a spray Lea by local Tesla partner natural Salah for an undisclosed amount and startup Mille fille.
[18:44] Really famous TV has to file for insolvency since not enough people wanted to buy a 570.
Thousand Euro Beetle which is actually surprising I was basically the only one on the list.
[18:59] They told me they told me I can now disclosed but I’m waiting and we have a very you keep waiting yeah yeah
maybe it’s going to come yeah just maybe one little thing to adhere check 24 something that I’ve really used it regularly I really like it but for people not for me that’s familiar with the German Market you can think of checks and
24 bit like booking.com
because they also have Hotel stuff and hotel websites and travel websites and that also gives you an idea how sometimes the market or the the companies in the market not
I have such a high regard for it so yeah as it’s always the case with one of those comparison websites especially since they have so much power now just a little bit of background there.
[19:46] But to wrap things up we have very few and selected fundraisings that caught our eye we have berlin-based Patronus.
Which I mean we all know from Harry Potter
they picked up a magical 27 million euros to support seniors in their daily lives make us hide the AI and data platform that powers sustainable
product and supply chain decisions at scale secures 18 million u.s. dollars in a series A.
Mm Iraq a mohawk lands 17 million dollars to process streaming data.
And round LED by cusp Capital 486 468 Capital cortical Ventures and Essence VC.
Berlin based up equally go raises 10 million euros in a series a funding for their solar as a service offering so we might need to learn a new
saas.
Meaning and workers collect work hist excuse me collect nine million euros to automate document processing.
[20:53] And
by that I’m handing in my resignation for today automatically we will be back November 24th with our November wrap up we have some more news to stay ahead of the Curve.
Some of it is about unicorns how much Equity you should give your early employees and what out performers
do differently to tap internal Talent so a bit food for thought there but apart from that that was it from my.
[21:24] Prison cell like hotel room and as in Germany it was a pleasure I hope you all have a wonderful November getting cozy and ready for.
The end of the year.
[21:36] It’s bye From Me Goodbye by Chris was a pleasure bye-bye.
[21:45] Music.
