Munich, Germany · Venture Capital 10xDNA is a Munich-based deep-tech venture capital firm founded by serial entrepreneur and Die Hoehle der Loewen judge Frank Thelen. The fund focuses on disruptive technologies across artificial intelligence, quantum computing, space technology, synthetic biology, and energy. It targets companies whose technology has the potential to scale by an order of magnitude versus incumbents, backed by Frank Thelen's three decades of operating experience across consumer software, mobile, and deep tech.
Hamburg, Germany · Startup 1KOMMA5° (named for the 1.5°C climate target) is one of Europe’s fastest-scaling energy transition companies, reaching unicorn status in roughly 21 months. Based in Hamburg, the firm tackles the “last mile” of decarbonization by combining a roll-up acquisition strategy with a software-defined energy platform. Instead of only selling solar panels, 1KOMMA5° acquires local installer businesses across Europe and digitizes them to deliver end-to-end home electrification — solar, batteries, heat pumps, and EV chargers — with consistent quality and financing. The company’s differentiator is Heartbeat, a proprietary energy management system that turns these assets into a virtual power plant. Heartbeat orchestrates when batteries charge or discharge based on real-time spot prices and grid conditions, allowing households to capture savings from dynamic tariffs and to export power during peak demand. In 2025, the system expanded to automated trading of household energy, making “free” electricity periods during windy or sunny hours a tangible consumer benefit. This blending of hardware deployment and energy-software automation allows 1KOMMA5° to capture margin both on installation and on recurring software and energy services. Founder Philipp Schroder (former Tesla country director and Sonnen executive) used his industry network to skip early accelerators, and the company instead embedded itself in the Hamburg Startup City ecosystem. Its acquisition engine is relentless: by buying regional market leaders, it locks in the most scarce resource in the sector — skilled installers — while rapidly expanding geographic reach. By early 2026, 1KOMMA5° had expanded beyond DACH into the Nordics, Spain, and Australia, positioning itself for a cross-continental footprint ahead of a public listing. The company has signaled an IPO-readiness push, backed by record turnover reported for 2024 and an expansion into branded hardware components to increase margin and supply-chain resilience. Its investor base blends strategic and growth capital: Porsche Ventures provided early backing, G2VP brought Silicon Valley cleantech expertise, Eurazeo and eCapital added European growth capital, and Norrsken VC underscored the impact thesis. In 2026, 1KOMMA5° is a case study in how Europe can scale climate tech through operational execution rather than pure technology — a disciplined roll-up with a software heart that turns millions of households into coordinated energy assets.
Berlin, Germany · Event Europe's #1 AI summit for business, bringing together 3,000 business leaders, AI pioneers, and enterprise innovators. They share real-world cases, proven implementation strategies, and the lessons behind successful AI initiatives that help organizations turn AI ambition into enterprise-wide transformation and competitive advantage.
Friedrichshafen, Germany · Event Europe's largest general aviation expo, drawing 30,000+ visitors and 600+ exhibitors to Friedrichshafen. Features a dedicated e-flight expo for electric and hybrid propulsion startups. Day tickets about EUR 45. Key for founders in electric flight, autonomous air mobility, avionics, and lightweight materials seeking OEM partnerships.
Munich, Germany · Event Organisator Organizer of Aerospace Tech Week Europe, a specialized B2B conference and exhibition covering aerospace connectivity, avionics, and operations technology. Held annually in Munich since 2017, the event draws hundreds of aerospace engineers, OEMs, and suppliers to discuss next-generation aircraft systems and digital transformation in aviation.
Munich, Germany · Event B2B aerospace technology conference in Munich focused on digital aviation systems, avionics, connectivity, flight operations software, and testing workflows. High-value venue for deep-tech founders in aviation software, satellite communications, drones, and aerospace manufacturing partnerships.
Munich, Germany · Startup Agile Robots is a Munich-based robotics company founded in 2018 as a spin-off from the German Aerospace Center (DLR). It builds robots that combine precise force-torque sensing with AI-driven computer vision to handle delicate industrial tasks such as assembly and inspection. Backed by investors including the SoftBank Vision Fund, it manufactures both robotic arms and complete automation systems and is one of Germany's most valuable robotics startups.
Berlin, Germany · Event AIDAQ is one of Europe's largest conferences on artificial intelligence, data and quantum technologies, convening thousands of attendees, hundreds of speakers and many sessions across multiple tracks. It brings together business, policy and science leaders. It is highly founder-relevant, featuring a DeepTech Pitch, a free startup showcase area for selected AI and quantum startups, and a deep-tech founder network.
Heidelberg, Germany · Startup Aleph Alpha is a Heidelberg-based artificial intelligence company founded in 2019 that develops large language models and enterprise AI infrastructure with a focus on sovereignty, transparency and data protection for European governments and regulated industries. Its Luminous model family and PhariaAI platform target on-premise and mission-critical deployments. The company raised a large Series B round in 2023 backed by investors including Bosch, SAP and the Schwarz Group.
Munich, Germany · Person Alexander Rinke is Co-founder & Co-CEO of process-mining giant Celonis. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Alexander leads process-mining giant Celonis.
Freiburg, Germany · Startup Accelerates cancer immunotherapy development with its HLA-Compass platform, a large quantitative database of HLA peptide presentation. AI-driven analytics predict off-target toxicity and support target discovery for safer, more precise therapies.
Essen, Germany · Event Germany's leading trade fair for nursing and elderly care services, attracting care providers, hospital managers, and technology vendors. Features exhibitions on care-tech, assistive robotics, and patient monitoring innovations. Day tickets cost about EUR 30. Particularly relevant for HealthTech and robotics startups targeting the aging population sector.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Amorelie was founded in 2013 in Berlin by Lea-Sophie Cramer and Sebastian Pollok as a sexual-wellness e-commerce brand aimed at mainstream, design-conscious consumers. ProSiebenSat.1 began investing in 2014 and acquired a majority stake in 2015, with the company valued at close to €100M by 2018. Both founders had exited management by 2020, and the business was subsequently sold on to the EQOM Group.
Munich, Germany · Person General Partner at Earlybird Venture Capital, where he leads investments in AI, software infrastructure and fintech. He is well known for data-driven venture research and writing on how machine learning is reshaping early-stage investing in Europe.
Munich, Germany · Person André Schwämmlein is Co-founder & CEO of the long-distance mobility company Flix (FlixBus). A founder in the German startup ecosystem, André leads the long-distance mobility company Flix (FlixBus).
Berlin, Germany · Person André Zayarni is Co-founder & CEO of the vector-database company Qdrant. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, André leads the vector-database company Qdrant.
Berlin, Germany · Venture Capital Angel Invest is a Berlin-based super-angel fund founded in 2018 by Jens Lapinski and Jenny Apostel, positioning itself as one of Europe's most active early-stage investors. The fund targets pre-seed and seed-stage European technology startups, writing roughly €100k–€125k cheques across dozens of investments per year. Lapinski previously led Techstars Berlin, and the fund's portfolio companies have collectively raised hundreds of millions in follow-on funding.
Berlin, Germany · Accelerator Antler Berlin is the German branch of Antler's day-zero venture-building model, designed for people who want to start companies before they have a finished team or fully formed idea. Instead of operating like a conventional accelerator that waits for startups to apply, Antler brings together selected founders, operators, and domain experts, then structures an intensive process around co-founder matching, problem discovery, validation, and early company formation. The Berlin program matters because it plugs into one of Europe's deepest pools of technical, industrial, and cross-border startup talent. It is especially relevant for B2B SaaS, climate, and deep-tech founders who need both an initial company-building framework and access to follow-on capital. In ecosystem terms, Antler Berlin sits at the very beginning of the funding pipeline, upstream from seed funds and growth investors. That makes it a useful counterpart to more established accelerators and incubators already in the directory, broadening coverage of how new startups are formed in Germany before they become visible to mainstream venture capital. It also reinforces the directory's mapping of institutions that shape founder formation, not just later-stage company financing.
Munich, Germany · Event Organisator Munich program operator for Antler's pre-seed founder residencies and investment cohorts. Antler Munich is an event organiser based in Munich, Germany. Organising events in the Accelerator Programs, Artificial Intelligence, Deep Tech space.
Munich, Germany · Accelerator Pre-seed accelerator and VC program for founders in AI, data, and deep tech. The spring 2026 application cut-off passed on February 27, 2026 for a March 9 cohort start; applications continue on a rolling basis for subsequent 2026 cohorts. Typical Antler offer includes early investment and startup-building support from day zero.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Arbio Group is a Berlin-based proptech company that operates an AI-native operating system for managing short-term rentals and serviced apartments across Europe. It combines full-stack property management services with technology to automate core operations including dynamic pricing optimisation, guest communication, accounting, and distribution across booking platforms, while keeping human oversight for hospitality quality. The company has grown partly through strategic acquisitions of existing property-management portfolios, and serves property owners and managers across the DACH region and beyond.
Munich, Germany · Startup Provides software that helps municipalities plan, coordinate and measure climate-protection efforts, integrating energy and emissions data so urban planners can track progress toward climate-neutrality goals. Works with 40+ German cities.
Hamburg, Germany · Person Arne Blankerts is Co-Founder of thePHP.cc, a Germany-based software consultancy specializing in PHP architecture, clean code, and software quality best practices. He is a recognized speaker and educator in the PHP and broader software development community, with expertise in software design, refactoring, and dependency injection. Blankerts has contributed extensively to open-source PHP tooling and regularly presents at major PHP and software conferences across Europe and internationally. He co-leads thePHP.cc alongside PHPUnit creator Sebastian Bergmann.
Munich, Germany · Startup ARX Robotics is a Munich-based defence technology company building autonomous mobile robotics and digitalisation platforms for European armed forces, founded by former German Bundeswehr officers. Its products include the Gereon RCS tracked reconnaissance robot, the Hector autonomous wheeled platform, and Mithra OS, a software system for modernising existing military vehicle fleets. The company positions itself around strengthening Europe's technological resilience and sovereignty in defence. In 2025 it expanded its Series A round to a total of 42 million euro, with backers including HV Capital, Omnes Capital, the NATO Innovation Fund, Project A and Speedinvest.
Frankfurt, Germany · Startup asgoodasnew is a Frankfurt-based re-commerce platform specializing in professionally refurbished consumer electronics including smartphones, laptops, tablets, and wearables. Founded in 2012, the company offers devices graded by condition with up to 30-month warranties, providing a trusted alternative to buying new. asgoodasnew handles its own refurbishment and quality assurance processes in-house, differentiating it from pure marketplace models. The company has grown steadily in the German and European market and is part of the broader circular-economy movement alongside Back Market and refurbed, helping reduce electronic waste across Europe.
Berlin, Germany · Startup AUTO1 Group is Europe's leading digital automotive platform, founded in Berlin in 2012 by Christian Bertermann and Hakan Koç. The company connects used car buyers and sellers across Europe through its B2B platform AUTO1.com for trade dealers and its B2C brand Autohero for consumers. Listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange since 2021 (ticker: AG1), AUTO1 Group has a market capitalisation of approximately €5.5 billion as of May 2026 and employs nearly 7,000 people.
Munich, Germany · Person Bastian Nominacher is Co-founder & Co-CEO of process-mining giant Celonis. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Bastian leads process-mining giant Celonis.
Nuremberg, Germany · Event World-leading organic food trade fair with the Novelty Stand for trendsetting products. Price: about EUR 32-74 depending on booking phase. Essential for organic and plant-based brands seeking retail listings.
Mainz, Germany · Startup BioNTech is a Mainz-based biotechnology company founded in 2008 by Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci, a husband-and-wife team of immunologists, alongside Christoph Huber. Originally focused on individualized mRNA cancer immunotherapies, BioNTech gained global prominence through its partnership with Pfizer to develop one of the first approved COVID-19 vaccines (Comirnaty), which generated tens of billions in revenue. The company is publicly traded on NASDAQ and continues to invest heavily in its oncology pipeline, infectious disease vaccines, and next-generation mRNA therapeutics.
Berlin, Germany · Event Organisator Germany's leading digital industry association representing over 2,200 companies in the digital economy. Bitkom organizes startup visibility formats including the Innovators' Pitch competition and the hub.berlin conference, connecting early-stage founders with established tech corporates and policymakers shaping Europe's digital landscape.
Munich, Germany · Event Organisator Leading founders festival held annually during Munich's Oktoberfest week, connecting over 5,000 founders, investors, and startup enthusiasts for networking and learning. Founded in 2012, Bits & Pretzels features high-profile keynotes, workshops, and a renowned pitch competition that has become a fixture of the European startup calendar.
Munich, Germany · Event Europe's premium founder festival at ICM Munich, blending high-signal startup networking with curated investor access and Oktoberfest culture. The event limits attendance to maintain quality, with thousands of founders and investors and structured matchmaking for fundraising and partnerships.
Freiburg, Germany · Startup Black Forest Labs is a German AI research lab focused on generative visual intelligence, describing itself as a frontier lab for models that understand, reason, and act in the world. It is best known for the FLUX family of image generation models, offered via a playground, an API, and open-weights releases on platforms like Hugging Face and GitHub. The FLUX models have been widely adopted across open-source and enterprise platforms. In December 2025 the company raised a $300M Series B at a $3.25B post-money valuation, co-led by Salesforce Ventures and AMP, with participation from a16z, NVIDIA and others.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Blockbrain builds private enterprise AI assistants that connect to internal knowledge tools such as Slack, Notion, Google Drive, and email. The platform creates context-aware internal search and answer workflows to reduce information fragmentation and speed up employee access to institutional knowledge.
Regensburg, Germany · Startup Regensburg-based startup applying neuroplasticity research to music learning, helping adult beginners develop instrumental skills through scientifically-structured daily practice sessions of 20–25 minutes. Its AI adapts lesson pacing to each learner's progress and retention patterns. Raised a €2M seed from HTGF.
Heilbronn, Germany · Accelerator Opened 2018 with Dieter Schwarz Foundation support. Runs an Incubator for idea validation and a 12-week Accelerator for investor readiness; notable mobility and AI startups. Support: training, mentorship, foundation grants. Scope: Regional (Heilbronn-Franken).
Berlin, Germany · Startup CarOnSale is a Berlin-based B2B digital marketplace for used-car wholesale trading across Europe. Licensed car dealers and OEMs use the platform to list, appraise, auction, buy, and sell used vehicles to professional buyers. Beyond the auction itself, CarOnSale operates an integrated software ecosystem that bundles ancillary services such as vehicle inspections and reports, logistics and transportation, financing, pricing algorithms with guaranteed pricing, and payment processing, aiming to streamline cross-border transactions between dealers. The company is also Mercedes-Benz's partner for marketing lease returns and demonstration vehicles in Europe.
Munich, Germany · Person German entrepreneur and investor, founder and owner of the Munich-based Maschmeyer Group and a long-running investor on the TV show Die Höhle der Löwen (the German Shark Tank). He runs the investment arms seed+speed Ventures and Alstin Capital, and previously founded and led financial-services firm AWD.
Berlin, Germany · Event Customer service and contact center event centered on AI, automation, and CX tech. Price: expo-only often free/low cost; congress passes about EUR 1500+. Good for chatbot and voice automation startups.
Munich, Germany · Startup Celonis is a Munich and New York-based enterprise software company that pioneered the field of process mining – technology that analyzes a company’s IT event logs to visualize and optimize its business processes. Founded in 2011 by three friends (Alexander Rinke, Bastian Nominacher, and Martin Klenk) out of university in Munich, Celonis bootstrapped in its early years and landed Siemens as a key pilot customer for its process analytics tool. The software proved invaluable in identifying inefficiencies in processes like order-to-cash, procurement, and inventory management. By 2015 Celonis was the leader in this niche, and it partnered with SAP which resold Celonis as SAP Process Mining by Celonis. Venture capital soon followed: Celonis raised $27.5M in 2016 (Series A) then $50M in 2018 (Series B). Its growth was massive – from €1M ARR in 2012 to well over €100M by late 2010s. In 2019, Celonis raised $290M at a $2.5B valuation, making it a unicorn. It wasn’t done: by June 2021, Celonis announced a $1B Series D round valuing it at $11 billion, one of Europe’s largest software funding rounds. And in 2022, Celonis reportedly reached a $13B+ valuation, firmly cementing it among Europe’s most valuable private tech companies. The company’s product evolved into the Celonis Execution Management System (EMS), which not only discovers processes but also suggests and implements improvements (sometimes via RPA bots or triggering workflows). Celonis counts thousands of enterprise customers – including Siemens, BMW, Coca-Cola, Uber – and its software helps them save billions by cutting throughput times, reducing errors, and optimizing resource use. With dual HQs in Munich and New York, Celonis has aggressively expanded in the U.S., competing with companies like IBM’s process mining. The firm is also eyeing an IPO; CEO Rinke has mentioned that Celonis is positioning itself for a public listing when market conditions are right. In the meantime, Celonis keeps growing (estimated $400M+ ARR in 2023) and acquiring smaller tech startups to bolster its platform. Celonis epitomizes the success of enterprise software from Europe – deeply technical, essentially creating a new category, and achieving decacorn status within a decade.
Berlin, Germany · Venture Capital Cherry Ventures is a Berlin-headquartered seed-stage venture capital firm founded in 2012 by Filip Dames, Christian Meermann, and Daniel Glasner, three serial founders who previously built and exited companies in the Rocket Internet orbit and wanted a fund that operated like an ex-operator first-round partner rather than a traditional generalist. The firm has grown into one of the most consistently visible seed funds in Europe, with over EUR 750 million under management across five generations of funds and a portfolio that includes FlixBus, GetYourGuide, Auto1 Group, Forto, Infarm, Flink, Juni, and Choco. Cherry invests from EUR 500K to EUR 4M at pre-seed and seed across consumer, marketplaces, B2B SaaS, fintech, and climate tech, and opened offices in London, Paris, and Stockholm during the 2021-2023 expansion cycle. It is one of the relatively small group of European seed funds that regularly competes head-to-head with US tier-one firms on European first checks.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Choco is a Berlin-based food supply chain platform founded in 2018 by Daniel Khachab, Rogerio Da Silva Yokomizo, and Julian Hammer. The company provides an AI-powered digital ordering and inventory management platform connecting restaurants with food distributors and suppliers, aiming to reduce food waste across the supply chain. Choco reached unicorn status in 2022 with a $1.2 billion valuation and has raised over $300 million in funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, Coatue, and Left Lane. The platform links over 10,000 suppliers with more than 15,000 restaurants across Europe and North America.
Berlin, Germany · Person Christian Bertermann is Co-founder & CEO of the used-car marketplace AUTO1 Group. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Christian leads the used-car marketplace AUTO1 Group.
Munich, Germany · Person Christian Bruch is President and CEO of Siemens Energy, a global technology company focused on the energy transition with revenues exceeding €35 billion and approximately 100,000 employees across 90 countries. He assumed the CEO role in 2020, guiding the company through its spin-off from Siemens AG and subsequent restructuring efforts including challenges within the Siemens Gamesa wind turbine business. At ONS 2026, he chairs the Strategic Conference Committee, shaping the programme agenda for one of the world's largest energy forums in Stavanger.
Frankfurt, Germany · Person Christian Eggers serves as President for the Central European region at Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing and AI infrastructure division of Alibaba Group, one of the world's largest technology conglomerates. In this executive role he oversees business development, enterprise partnerships, and cloud adoption strategy across Central Europe, making him a key decision-maker in the regional enterprise technology ecosystem. He is a confirmed speaker at AI Summit Budapest 2026, where he represents Alibaba Cloud's cloud and AI portfolio for European markets.
Berlin, Germany · Person Christian Hecker is Co-founder & CEO of the mobile broker and bank Trade Republic. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Christian leads the mobile broker and bank Trade Republic.
Berlin, Germany · Person Co-founder and General Partner of Earlybird Venture Capital (founded 1997). Based in Berlin, he invests across deep tech, fintech and enterprise software and has been a board member and backer of multiple European category leaders over Earlybird's 29-year history.
Berlin, Germany · Angel Investor Christian Reber is a German entrepreneur and prolific angel investor best known as the founder of Wunderlist (acquired by Microsoft in 2015) and Pitch, a collaborative presentation platform. With deep experience building productivity and design tools, Reber actively invests in early-stage SaaS, design, and developer tooling startups across Europe. His operator background gives him credibility with technical founders, and he frequently provides hands-on product and go-to-market mentorship to his portfolio companies. Reber is part of Berlin's influential network of founder-angels who reinvest their exits back into the ecosystem.
Speyer, Germany · Startup Speyer-based deep-tech startup building a SaaS platform for green hydrogen production optimisation and virtual power plant management. Its AI-driven platform helps hydrogen producers manage electrolysers, balance supply and demand, and participate in energy markets. Available on the SAP Store.
Berlin, Germany · Event Berlin-based conference exploring how creative industries are being transformed by digital technology, AI, and new business models. Brings together designers, media innovators, and creative entrepreneurs from across the Nordics and Europe. Strong for startups at the intersection of creative tech, content platforms, and digital media.
Rust, Germany · Event Internet infrastructure event hosted at Europa-Park. Price: about EUR 400-600 standard (often free with codes), EUR 1200 VIP. Strong for hosting, cloud security, and SaaS infrastructure startups.
Berlin, Germany · Event Organisator co-matter is a Berlin-based research-driven creative studio that develops strategies, media, and publications at the intersection of technology and culture. It co-founded Techfestival Copenhagen in 2017 alongside Thomas Madsen-Mygdal and a team of designers and entrepreneurs, and produced the Copenhagen Letter — a manifesto for humane technology signed by over 5,000 tech leaders. The studio works with clients including Mozilla Foundation, WeTransfer, IKEA/SPACE10, and Samsung on cultural intelligence, community strategy, and editorial projects.
Kiel, Germany · Coworking Space COBL is opencampus.sh's coworking café concept, situated at Legienstraße 40 in central Kiel — a location distinct from the Wissenschaftspark campus and positioned to serve founders, students, and remote workers who prefer working in the heart of the city rather than on the science-park periphery. The venue blends the café and workspace formats: members can work over quality coffee specialties in an environment designed to encourage informal exchange and networking. Beyond day-to-day workspace, COBL offers separately rentable rooms for small team meetings, workshops, and events, making it a flexible option for early-stage founders who need meeting infrastructure without a full-time office commitment. As part of the opencampus.sh family — which also operates StarterKitchen and fablab.sh — COBL members gain a natural introduction to the wider Kiel founder community, the Gründungsstipendium SH advisory network, and the annual Waterkant Festival ecosystem. The venue is particularly accessible for founders affiliated with Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel and Muthesius Kunsthochschule, both within cycling distance of Legienstraße. The coworking café model keeps overhead low, meaning pricing is at the accessible end of the Kiel spectrum. Pricing tier: €.
Düsseldorf, Germany · Startup Cognigy is a Düsseldorf-based conversational AI company founded in 2016 that builds an enterprise platform for AI agents and voice and chat automation, letting large organisations handle customer service across phone, chat and messaging channels. Its low-code platform integrates with contact-centre systems and large language models. In 2025 Cognigy was acquired by the customer-experience software company NiCE.
Paderborn, Germany · Startup conmeet offers AI workflow automation for SMB craft and construction businesses. It processes inbound messages from channels such as email and chat, drafts responses, supports scheduling, and streamlines quote preparation so teams can reduce office overhead and focus on delivery work.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Contentful is a headless content management system (CMS) that enables enterprises to manage and deliver digital content across websites, apps, and devices via API. Founded in Berlin, the company serves over 4,000 customers including Spotify, Chanel, and Urban Outfitters. Contentful was valued at $3 billion after its 2021 Series F and is one of Europe's most successful developer-tools companies, bridging content management with modern composable architecture.
Tuebingen, Germany · Startup CureVac is a biopharmaceutical company based in Tuebingen, Germany, founded in 2000 as a pioneer in mRNA technology. The company was one of the earliest to explore messenger RNA as a therapeutic platform, long before mRNA became a household term during the COVID-19 pandemic. While its first-generation COVID vaccine candidate underperformed in clinical trials, CureVac pivoted to next-generation mRNA technologies and partnered with GSK on a second-generation COVID vaccine and other infectious disease programs. The company is publicly traded on NASDAQ and continues developing its proprietary mRNA optimization platform.
Berlin, Germany · Person Daniel Khachab is Co-founder & CEO of the AI food-supply-chain platform Choco. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Daniel leads the AI food-supply-chain platform Choco.
Munich, Germany · Person Daniel Metzler is Co-founder & CEO of the orbital-launch company Isar Aerospace. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Daniel leads the orbital-launch company Isar Aerospace.
Munich, Germany · Person Daniel Wiegand is Co-founder & CEO of the eVTOL air-mobility company Lilium. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Daniel leads the eVTOL air-mobility company Lilium.
Berlin, Germany · Person Vice President of the Bundesnetzagentur (Federal Network Agency), Germany's regulator for electricity, gas, telecommunications, post and railways, with a focus on digital infrastructure and AI governance. She is an announced speaker at the 2026 AI, Data & Quantum Summit (AIDAQ) in Berlin.
Solingen, Germany · Startup Dash0 is an OpenTelemetry-native observability platform for software engineering teams. Because it is built directly on the open OpenTelemetry standard, it ingests logs, metrics, and distributed traces from any stack, vendor, or environment without requiring proprietary agents, positioning this openness as a way to avoid vendor lock-in. The product covers application and infrastructure performance monitoring, log management with filtering and search, distributed tracing, and Kubernetes monitoring. It was founded by Mirko Novakovic, who previously founded the observability company Instana.
Munich, Germany · Event Munich-based conference on applied data science, machine learning, and AI in the enterprise, with talks from data leaders at BMW, Siemens, Allianz, and top European scale-ups. Strong focus on real-world ML use cases, data engineering, and MLOps. 2,000+ attendees. Tickets EUR 450-990.
Berlin, Germany · Person David Nothacker is Co-founder & CEO of the digital road-freight platform Sennder. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, David leads the digital road-freight platform Sennder.
Berlin, Germany · Person David Schneider is Co-founder of the fashion e-commerce giant Zalando. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, David leads the fashion e-commerce giant Zalando.
Berlin, Germany · Event Organisator Organizer of Deep Tech Momentum, a Berlin-based marketplace event pairing deep-tech founders with specialist investors and corporate innovation teams. The curated format focuses on sectors like quantum computing, advanced materials, and AI, offering structured matchmaking sessions to accelerate fundraising for science-driven startups.
Berlin, Germany · Event Deep-tech marketplace event at Wilhelm Studios Berlin covering AI, Web3, photonics, and advanced manufacturing, culminating in Berlin's Deep Tech Award ceremony. Especially relevant for R&D-heavy startups seeking patient capital and strategic industrial backers.
Munich, Germany · Startup DeepDrive is the Munich startup that convinced major automakers to rethink the electric motor itself. Its core innovation is a patented dual-rotor motor architecture. In a traditional motor, a single rotor spins inside a fixed stator. DeepDrive's design spins both the internal and external rotor simultaneously, delivering higher torque density and substantially better efficiency. The practical outcome is compelling: EVs can achieve roughly 20% more range with 50% less motor weight, while reducing bill-of-materials costs.
By 2026, DeepDrive has moved beyond impressive prototypes to industrialization. The company has reportedly secured series nominations with eight of the top ten global automakers for platform launches in 2028–2029. That level of OEM validation is rare at this stage and signals confidence in both the performance and manufacturability of the design. The company is now focused on building automated production lines in northern Munich to scale output for fleet testing and pre-series runs.
A particularly strategic application is the in-wheel motor. Because the dual-rotor unit is compact and lightweight, it can fit inside the wheel hub, freeing up interior volume and enabling fully flat skateboard platforms. That creates new possibilities for autonomous shuttles and urban delivery vehicles where maximizing passenger or cargo space is paramount. It also allows for advanced vehicle dynamics such as torque vectoring without complex drivetrain components, improving both safety and handling.
DeepDrive is a classic spin-out from the UnternehmerTUM ecosystem at TU Munich, with early validation support from the XPRENEURS incubator. Its investor base blends strategic automotive capital with deep-tech venture funding: Leitmotif led the Series B, BMW i Ventures provides rare early-stage OEM participation, Continental's corporate VC is a strategic partner for braking and chassis integration, and UVC Partners and Bayern Kapital anchor local support. In 2026, DeepDrive is one of Europe’s most promising hardware deep-tech bets: a motor breakthrough with clear OEM pull, manufacturability momentum, and the potential to reshape EV platform design.
Cologne, Germany · Startup DeepL is a Cologne-based AI translation company founded in 2017 by CEO Jarosław Kutylowski. Renowned for its neural machine translation quality, DeepL quickly surpassed competitors in accuracy and nuance. The company’s cloud platform serves over 100,000 business and government customers worldwide, including enterprises like Zendesk and Deutsche Bahn. DeepL achieved unicorn status in 2023 with a €1 billion valuation and continued to grow explosively – by early 2025 it had raised $410 million (led by investors like Index Ventures and Atomico) and reached a $2 billion valuation. In late 2025, reports emerged that DeepL is considering an IPO amid surging revenue, which doubled year-on-year to $185 million in 2024. DeepL’s core product is an AI-driven translator supporting 30+ languages, used for real-time document and content translation. The firm also launched DeepL Write to improve monolingual writing and an AI Agent to automate business tasks. As of 2025, DeepL is recognized as one of Europe’s premier AI startups, combining cutting-edge NLP research with a fast-growing SaaS business. The company’s success – valued at $2 billion and poised for a public offering – underscores Europe’s strength in deep-tech innovation.
Berlin, Germany · Startup deepset is a Berlin-based AI company founded in 2018 that helps enterprises build custom natural-language and LLM applications. It created Haystack, a widely used open-source framework for retrieval-augmented generation and LLM pipelines, and offers a commercial enterprise platform on top of it for building production AI agents and search systems.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Delivery Hero is a Berlin-based global online food ordering and quick-commerce company founded in 2011 and listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange since 2017. The company operates food delivery platforms in more than 70 countries under local brand names and employs over 40,000 people globally. As of May 2026, Delivery Hero has a market capitalisation of approximately €13.7 billion and Uber has increased its stake to 19.5%, though no completed takeover has occurred. Delivery Hero is one of Europe's largest publicly listed tech companies.
Munich, Germany · Event Organisator Organizer of DevOpsCon conferences focused on cloud-native engineering, container orchestration, CI/CD pipelines, and modern software delivery practices. Held regularly in Munich and Berlin, the event attracts thousands of platform engineers and architects seeking hands-on workshops and case studies on scaling DevOps culture.
Munich, Germany · Event Major software engineering conference on cloud architecture, CI/CD, Kubernetes, observability, platform engineering, and secure DevOps practices. Valuable for DevTools startups targeting technical buyers and for startup teams recruiting senior backend and cloud talent.
Düsseldorf, Germany · Event Organisator Digital Innovation Hub Düsseldorf/Rheinland, a regional ecosystem builder connecting startups, corporates, SMEs and universities. It organizes Future Tech Fest (formerly Digital Demo Day), the centerpiece of Düsseldorf Startup Week, plus matchmaking, accelerator and venture-clienting programs across North Rhine-Westphalia.
Cologne, Germany · Event Deutsche Telekom's flagship digitalization event transforming downtown Cologne into a tech campus, featuring 300+ partners and 50,000+ attendees. Strong for B2B SaaS, IoT, cybersecurity, and cloud startups targeting SME digital transformation.
Bonn, Germany · Accelerator Digital innovation hub founded in 2017 for the Rhineland region offering structured accelerator programs, mentorship, networking, and investor access to digital startups. Focus on digital transformation with alumni in cybersecurity and enterprise software. Scope: Local (Bonn/Rhineland).
Bonn, Germany · Innovation Hub Founded 2017 as a digital innovation hub for the Rhineland region. Runs structured accelerator programs with mentorship, networking, and investor access; alumni include cybersecurity and enterprise software startups. Support: accelerator program, coworking, corporate partner access. Scope: Local (Bonn/Rhineland).
Munich, Germany · Event Organisator Organizer of DLD Munich, an influential international innovation conference series founded in 2005 by Hubert Burda Media. Each January, DLD convenes around 1,500 global thought leaders, investors, and tech executives for curated discussions on digital trends, AI, science, and the future of society and business.
Munich, Germany · Event DLD Munich 2027 brings together 1,500+ pioneers from tech, business, science, and culture for three days of ideas and connections in Munich. The annual flagship conference runs immediately before the World Economic Forum in Davos, making it a key gathering point for global leaders. The 2027 edition dates are publicly announced on the official site with attendee notifications opening shortly.
Munich, Germany · Event Flagship innovation conference in Munich spanning tech, business, and science, with strong participation from French VCs and Next40 founders. Attracts high-profile speakers and senior decision-makers from across the European tech ecosystem. Particularly valuable for founders seeking visibility with corporate innovation leaders and cross-border investors.
Berlin, Germany · Event Organisator Organizer of DMEA, Europe's leading digital health and healthcare IT trade fair held annually in Berlin. Drawing over 16,000 attendees and 700 exhibitors, DMEA showcases innovations in electronic health records, telemedicine, AI diagnostics, and hospital IT infrastructure, serving as a key meeting point for healthtech startups and health system leaders.
Berlin, Germany · Event Europe's largest digital health trade fair at Messe Berlin, spanning healthcare IT, procurement, interoperability, and compliant medical software rollout. Includes the 'DMEA fuer Health Startups' program, the DMEA nova Award startup finals, and DMEA Sparks pitch visibility for early-stage health-tech companies.
Cologne, Germany · Event Europe's leading digital marketing and tech expo, drawing 40,000+ martech, adtech, and e-commerce professionals to Cologne every September. DMEXCO combines a conference track with a massive expo floor where agencies, SaaS vendors, and publishers exhibit. Key topics include programmatic advertising, retail media, AI-driven personalization, and privacy-first marketing. Tickets EUR 99-499.
Berlin, Germany · Person German politician serving as Federal Minister of Research, Technology and Space, and previously Minister of State for Digitalisation. A long-standing advocate for Germany's digital and deep-tech agenda, she is an announced speaker at the 2026 AI, Data & Quantum Summit in Berlin.
Berlin, Germany · Event Pure B2B expo for e-commerce service providers. Price: free with B2B registration and approval. High ROI for startups selling logistics, payments, marketing automation, or retention tools.
Essen, Germany · Event Europe's defining energy industry fair with Smart Energy and innovation sectors. Price: about EUR 75 day ticket or EUR 225 for 3-day pass. Great for renewable energy, smart metering, and grid intelligence startups.
Essen, Germany · Accelerator E.ON:agile is the corporate accelerator and innovation unit of E.ON, one of Europe's largest energy utilities, based in Essen. It runs a structured programme for early-stage energy and cleantech startups, offering funding, mentoring and access to E.ON's business units and customer base to pilot and scale new energy solutions.
Berlin, Germany · Venture Capital Earlybird Venture Capital is one of Europe's longest-standing and most active venture firms, founded in Berlin in 1997 by Hendrik Brandis and Christian Nagel. It manages roughly €2.5bn across two active platforms — the flagship Earlybird technology fund (Fund VIII closed at €360M in 2026, its largest to date) and Earlybird Health (€173M second fund, 2024) — from offices in Berlin, Munich and London. Earlybird writes initial tickets up to €12M, concentrated at pre-seed and seed with follow-on into Series A and beyond.
The firm targets Western Europe — Germany, the UK, France, Italy, the Nordics, Austria and Switzerland — with CEE coverage via a dedicated venture partner. Its focus has shifted toward AI and foundation models, software infrastructure and deep tech (space, fusion, photonics, quantum), alongside its independent health platform. LPs include the European Investment Fund, sovereign wealth funds, global pension funds and British Patient Capital.
Across 29 years Earlybird has produced landmark outcomes including Peak Games (sold to Zynga for ~$1.85bn, 2020), UiPath (NYSE IPO 2021, from the Digital East franchise that later spun out as Bek Ventures), Trendyol (Alibaba, 2018) and ImCheck Therapeutics (up to €1bn, 2025), and counts N26, Aleph Alpha, Isar Aerospace, Aiven, Payhawk and Wefox among its portfolio. In 2026 it introduced a perpetual active-ownership governance model keeping ownership with active partners.
Berlin, Germany · Event Organisator Organizer of Ecosummit Berlin, a climate-tech investor and founder matchmaking event focused on decarbonization and deep tech. Active since 2010, Ecosummit brings together 500+ climate-tech founders, VCs, and corporate sustainability officers for curated deal-flow sessions, making it one of Europe's longest-running green innovation conferences.
Berlin, Germany · Event Climate-tech and green economy matchmaking event at Flussbad Campus (Reethaus), focused on AI-accelerated decarbonization across energy, sustainable buildings, green mobility, and deep tech. Startup Pitch tickets are typically around EUR 600 + VAT and include a guaranteed short on-stage founder pitch in front of active climate investors.
Berlin, Germany · Accelerator EIT Climate-KIC — now operating as Climate KIC — is Europe's leading climate innovation agency and accelerator, founded in 2010 as one of the European Institute of Innovation & Technology's first Knowledge and Innovation Communities. Headquartered in Amsterdam and active across 50 countries, it has supported more than 2,300 startups generating €1.1bn in investment, 15,000 jobs and 790 new products over 15 years, transitioning to an independent public-benefit foundation in 2025.
Its flagship ClimAccelerator is a multi-stage, equity-free programme offering up to €95,000 in grant-style support plus coaching and investor matchmaking, spanning cleantech, clean energy, circular economy, sustainable cities and agri-food. In Germany the DACH hub runs from the EUREF-Campus in Berlin-Schöneberg — home to the Green Garage climate incubator — alongside a Munich node. Alumni include Climeworks (Switzerland), tado° and Thermondo (Germany) and Ÿnsect (France).
Berlin, Germany · Accelerator EIT Digital Accelerator is a pan-European programme backed by the EU's European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), supporting deep tech scaleups with tailored business development, investor introductions, and international customer acquisition since 2012. It operates across 18 European cities and a San Francisco hub, and has supported nearly 300 startups that collectively raised €1.5 billion, with over €100 million directly facilitated by the Accelerator. Focus areas include AI, cybersecurity, digital industry, digital health, and fintech.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Berlin-based EdTech startup building an AI-powered training and knowledge platform for frontline teams in the energy and climate-tech sector. The platform helps employers close skills gaps, combat the shortage of qualified workers, and deliver bite-sized training that field employees can complete on mobile.
Munich, Germany · Startup Munich-based startup deploying turnkey battery energy storage systems for German commercial and industrial SMEs. Its full-service model covers planning, financing, installation, and operations, enabling clients to cut electricity costs and earn additional revenue through energy arbitrage. Raised €25M seed in June 2026.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Enpal is a Berlin-based cleantech company founded in 2017 that sells and rents residential solar panels, batteries, EV chargers and heat pumps on a subscription model, bundling hardware, installation and financing into a fixed monthly fee. It became Germany's first cleantech unicorn in 2021 and operates a virtual power plant that aggregates its installed base. Revenue surpassed one billion euros in 2025.
Hamburg, Germany · Person Eray Basar is the CEO of IMG.LY, a Hamburg-based software company specializing in AI-powered creative editing tools and developer SDKs for photo and video manipulation. Under his leadership, IMG.LY has grown into a leading provider of embedded creative technology used by companies globally to integrate design capabilities into their products. He speaks at the intersection of artificial intelligence and creative tooling, and is confirmed as a speaker at Forward Festival Berlin 2026.
Munich, Germany · Event Global congress for clinical microbiology and infectious diseases at Messe Munich, drawing 15,000+ clinicians, researchers, and industry buyers from 130+ countries. Registration about EUR 600-900. Ideal for diagnostics, AMR, and medtech startups with clinical data seeking KOL validation, hospital pilots, and pharma partnerships.
Dusseldorf, Germany · Event Retail tech hotspot integrated into EuroShop 2026. Price: about EUR 70 day ticket or EUR 120 full event. Focus on checkout-free stores, AI analytics, and omnichannel payment systems.
Dusseldorf, Germany · Event The world's largest retail trade fair, held triennially in Dusseldorf and attracting 90,000+ visitors from across the global retail ecosystem. Showcases immersive store tech, analytics, digital signage, and next-generation checkout solutions. Day tickets cost about EUR 70-120. Essential for retail tech startups seeking enterprise pilot opportunities.
Heidelberg, Germany · Startup Clinical-stage biotech developing therapeutics for neuropsychiatric disorders. Lead program Deraphan targets agitation and aggression in Alzheimer's disease dementia and is in Phase 2/3. Raised EUR 51M Series B in 2026.
Berlin, Germany · Support Organization EXIST is the German federal government's flagship programme for promoting university-based entrepreneurship, operated by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action. Running since 1998, EXIST provides two main grant instruments: the EXIST Business Start-up Grant (up to EUR 3,000/month per team member for one year) for student and researcher teams developing a business plan, and the EXIST Research Transfer grant (up to EUR 250,000 plus materials) for deep-tech spin-offs from universities and research institutions. Over 4,000 startups have received EXIST funding, and the programme has become a cornerstone of Germany's academic entrepreneurship infrastructure. EXIST also supports universities in building entrepreneurial cultures through its EXIST Potentials programme, which funds entire university startup ecosystems.
Munich, Germany · Startup AI-driven materials-discovery platform spun out of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) that accelerates identification of novel materials by up to 90%. Clients including Audi, Airbus and Infineon use it to focus R&D on the most promising candidates.
Kiel, Germany · Coworking Space fablab.sh, located at Fraunhoferstraße 2–4 in Kiel's Wissenschaftspark district, is the city's first open-access high-tech fabrication workshop and functions as both a community makerspace and a hardware prototyping hub for startups and SMEs throughout Schleswig-Holstein. The facility is operated under the opencampus.sh umbrella and is closely connected with the MakerCube Re:Invent initiative, a partly EU-funded digital-fabrication programme designed to bring professional manufacturing tools to startups, craftspeople, and student teams. Equipment includes FDM, SLA, and SLS 3D printers, laser cutters, cutting plotters, five-axis CNC milling machines, and 3D scanners capable of capturing objects up to three metres in diameter. Open Lab Days run every Thursday from 11:00 to 19:00, providing walk-in access for members of the public and registered users alike. The MakerCube programme supplements the standing facility with expert consulting, mentoring, and structured workshops. The space targets hardware founders seeking rapid physical prototyping without committing to factory tooling, researchers requiring bespoke instrumentation, and vocational learners acquiring digital-fabrication skills. Access for qualifying participants in MakerCube programme is free of charge; general membership fees are available on enquiry. The lab's proximity to opencampus.sh's StarterKitchen coworking space creates a natural pathway for founders moving from software ideation to physical prototype. Pricing tier: €.
Berlin, Germany · Innovation Hub Factory Berlin is one of Europe's most prominent startup and innovation campuses, operating from two locations in Berlin: the original Factory Mitte (in a renovated brewery near the former Berlin Wall) and Factory Goerlitzer Park in Kreuzberg. Founded in 2014, Factory Berlin provides coworking and office space to startups, scale-ups, and corporate innovation teams, but its primary value lies in its curated community of over 3,500 members and its extensive event and programming calendar. Tenants and alumni include SoundCloud, Uber's Berlin office, and numerous venture-backed startups. Factory's community team runs mentorship circles, industry salons, investor matchmaking, and cross-border programs connecting Berlin founders with ecosystems in Silicon Valley and Asia. The campus has become a symbol of Berlin's tech scene and a standard stop for visiting delegations exploring the European startup landscape.
Nuremberg, Germany · Event Windows, doors, and facades trade fair with an Architecture & Technology forum. Price: about EUR 30-50. Good for smart glass and energy-efficiency hardware startups.
Cologne, Germany · Event World's largest fitness and wellness trade show, held in Cologne with 150,000+ visitors and 1,100+ exhibitors. Covers wearables, health tracking, connected gym equipment, and sports nutrition innovation. Day tickets cost about EUR 40-90. Highly relevant for HealthTech and wearable startups targeting the fitness industry.
Stuttgart, Germany · Startup Online proofing and approval software founded in Stuttgart in 2014, centralizing review, feedback and sign-off of creative assets like videos, PDFs and designs.
Munich, Germany · Startup FINN is a car-subscription platform serving consumers and businesses with an all-inclusive monthly model that bundles insurance, maintenance, and roadside support. The company has expanded B2B fleet workflows with automated management tools and EV-focused offerings for employee mobility programs.
Flensburg, Germany · Coworking Space Flensburg Coworking is a purpose-built shared workspace serving the founders, freelancers, and remote teams of Flensburg — the northernmost major city in Germany, situated on the Flensburg Fjord some 85 kilometres north of Kiel and directly on the Danish border. The venue markets itself with the tagline "stadtnah und mitten im Grünen" (city-close and amid greenery), signalling a location that balances urban accessibility with a calmer, nature-adjacent setting that distinguishes it from the denser coworking scenes of Hamburg and Kiel. Flensburg's cross-border character — with strong commercial ties to southern Denmark and a significant Danish-speaking community — gives the space a naturally international flavour that benefits founders targeting the Nordic market or building Danish-German partnerships. The city hosts Europa-Universität Flensburg and Hochschule Flensburg, both of which feed entrepreneurial and technical graduates into the local founder ecosystem. Flensburg Coworking provides desk and office workspace, meeting facilities, and community programming tailored to the small but active northern Schleswig-Holstein startup scene. The space fills a clear gap in Flensburg's infrastructure, which otherwise lacks the density of coworking options available in Kiel or Lübeck, making it the natural first stop for early-stage ventures and digital nomads operating in the border region. Pricing tier: €€.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Flink is a Berlin-based quick-commerce grocery delivery company founded in 2020 by Christoph Cordes, Oliver Merkel, Julian Dames, Saad Saeed, and Nikolas Bullwinkel. The platform delivers everyday groceries in an average of 35 minutes through a network of dark-store hubs, operating in Germany and the Netherlands across 100+ cities serving 22.5 million people. In March 2026 Flink raised $100 million in a Series C round after reaching EBITDA profitability, remaining one of the last independent quick-commerce operators in Europe after rivals Gorillas and Getir exited.
Munich, Germany · Startup FlixBus, operated by Flix SE, is a Munich-based global travel technology company founded in 2011 that provides affordable long-distance bus and train travel across more than 40 countries. The company partners with over 1,000 independent bus operators, handling network planning, pricing, booking, and customer service while the operators run the vehicles. Flix SE also operates FlixTrain in Germany and internationally, and Greyhound Lines in North America. The company has served over 500 million travellers since its launch.
Munich, Germany · Startup Mobility platform offering intercity bus and train travel founded in Munich in 2011. Operates across Europe and North America (acquired Greyhound in 2021) under parent Flix SE.
Munich, Germany · Person Florian Seibel is Co-founder & CEO of the dual-use drone maker Quantum Systems. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Florian leads the dual-use drone maker Quantum Systems.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Forto (formerly FreightHub) is a Berlin-based tech-enabled freight forwarding platform founded in 2016 by Ferry Heilemann, Michael Wax, Fabian Heilemann, and Erik Muttersbach. The company provides digital management of international sea, air, and rail freight shipments with real-time tracking and supply chain visibility through its platform. Forto serves major enterprise customers across Europe and Asia from 21 offices and has raised over $610 million in funding, reaching a valuation of $2.1 billion.
Berlin, Germany · Event Organisator Creative network and event company behind the Forward Festival series, a touring two-day conference for design, branding, motion design and creative leadership that has run since 2015 across cities including Berlin, Vienna, Munich, Zurich and Hamburg, drawing thousands of designers and agencies.
Berlin, Germany · Event Forward Festival is a two-day creative conference bringing thought leaders across design, motion design, typography, branding and art onto multiple stages with talks, workshops and networking. It draws over a thousand creatives and industry professionals from across Europe. For founders it is a strong venue for brand and design inspiration, creative talent sourcing, and connecting with agencies and studios.
Munich, Germany · Person Francesco Sciortino is Co-founder & CEO of the stellarator fusion-energy startup Proxima Fusion. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Francesco leads the stellarator fusion-energy startup Proxima Fusion.
Bonn, Germany · Angel Investor Frank Thelen is one of Germany's most recognized tech investors and serial entrepreneurs, widely known for his role as a judge on the TV show Die Hoehle der Loewen (the German equivalent of Shark Tank). Thelen founded several technology companies before launching 10xDNA, his deep-tech venture capital fund focused on artificial intelligence, quantum computing, space tech, and synthetic biology. As an angel investor, he has backed dozens of early-stage German and European startups, bringing operational experience from building and scaling software companies since the late 1990s. He is a vocal advocate for bolder tech ambition in Germany and frequently speaks on digital transformation policy.
Berlin, Germany · Accelerator Community hub bridging France and Germany with market-access programming and the Franco-German Tech Lab. Strong focus on deep tech and Industry 4.0 partnerships with German corporates.
Munich, Germany · Accelerator La French Tech Munich is one of three German chapters of the global French Tech network, connecting French and German entrepreneurs, investors, and corporates in Bavaria. Its programs focus on helping French companies enter the Bavarian market and German companies expand into France, offering mentoring, networking workshops, and recruiting events. The community operates alongside French Tech Berlin and La French Tech Düsseldorf as part of the French government's international startup promotion initiative.
Berlin, Germany · Event Global fresh-produce trade fair with a Smart Agri focus and dedicated startup day. Price: about EUR 48 day ticket or EUR 88 permanent pass. Best for agri-tech founders selling to growers, distributors, and retailers.
Düsseldorf, Germany · Event Future Tech Fest, the rebranded Digital Demo Day, bills itself as Germany's largest B2B startup expo and conference and is the highlight of Düsseldorf Startup Week. It brings hundreds of national and international tech startups together with corporates, SMEs, investors and universities for an expo, pitch battles, curated matchmaking, venture-clienting and workshops, drawing several thousand attendees.
Cologne, Germany · Event The world's largest gaming event by attendance, with a major business area (gamescom biz) hosting B2B meetings, publisher showcases, indie booths, and investor matchmaking alongside the consumer expo. Cologne draws 300,000+ visitors and is the primary annual meeting point for European game studios, publishers, and platform teams. Relevant to startups in gaming, entertainment tech, AR/VR, streaming, and creator economy. Tickets from EUR 20 consumer, EUR 100+ business.
Berlin, Germany · Venture Capital La Famiglia is a European seed-stage venture capital firm founded in 2016 by Jeannette zu Fuerstenberg, with offices in Berlin, Paris, and London. The firm bridges the gap between European industry corporates and technology startups, leveraging a network of 200+ family-owned enterprises as LPs and advisors. La Famiglia invests EUR 500K to EUR 3M at pre-seed and seed in B2B SaaS, fintech, and marketplace models. Notable portfolio companies include Personio, Solarisbank, Forto, and Pile Capital. The firm manages over EUR 250M and provides unique access to industrial pilot customers and distribution channels.
Munich, Germany · Accelerator German Accelerator is a non-equity programme launched in 2012, financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, that helps high-potential German startups expand into international markets. Starting with a Silicon Valley office in 2012, it expanded to New York (2014), Boston (2016, with a life sciences focus), and Singapore (2018), and has supported over 600 startups that have collectively raised more than $13.5 billion in funding. The programme provides individually tailored workshops, expert mentorship, and access to investor networks at no equity cost to participants.
Berlin, Germany · Support Organization The German Startups Association (Bundesverband Deutsche Startups e.V.) is Germany's leading advocacy and networking organization for startup founders, established in 2012. With over 1,200 member startups and corporate partners, the Startup-Verband lobbies the German federal government on policy issues critical to founders, including employee stock option reform (ESOP), immigration for tech talent, and venture capital regulation. The organization publishes the annual German Startup Monitor, the most comprehensive survey of the country's startup ecosystem, and runs numerous programs including regional chapters, industry working groups, and the German Startup Awards. It plays a central convening role connecting founders with policymakers, investors, and corporates across Germany.
Berlin, Germany · Startup GetYourGuide is a Berlin-based travel experiences marketplace founded in 2009 by Johannes Reck and Tao Tao. The platform connects travelers with curated tours, activities, and attraction tickets in destinations worldwide, offering everything from skip-the-line museum passes to multi-day excursions. GetYourGuide has raised over $900 million from investors including KKR, SoftBank, and Temasek, reaching a valuation above $2 billion. The company serves tens of millions of travelers annually and has expanded into branded 'Originals' experiences operated under its own quality standards, positioning it as the leading European alternative to Viator in the tours and activities category.
Berlin, Germany · Event Organisator Organizer of GITEX Europe, a global-scale tech conference and exhibition focused on AI, cybersecurity, and digital finance. Launched in Berlin in 2025 as the European expansion of the Dubai-based GITEX Global brand, the event targets 30,000+ attendees and brings together startups, scaleups, and enterprise buyers across multiple tech verticals.
Berlin, Germany · Event Berlin edition of the global GITEX brand focused on sovereign AI, cybersecurity, and digital finance, connecting European startups with international buyers and investors. The event uses tiered passes (from low-cost expo tickets to premium access) and features Supernova startup competitions, with reported equity-free funding prizes up to EUR 100,000.
Berlin, Germany · Event Organisator Organizer of Greentech Festival, a major Berlin sustainability and climate innovation conference and exhibition co-founded by former Formula 1 champion Nico Rosberg. Since 2019, the multi-day festival has attracted thousands of attendees to explore green technology showcases, startup pitches, and award ceremonies celebrating environmental innovation.
Berlin, Germany · Event Major sustainability-focused exhibition and conference at Messe Berlin, founded by Nico Rosberg, showcasing climate innovation across mobility, circular economy, and supply chains. Exact 2026 dates are to be announced.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Berlin-based AI startup fighting disinformation by analysing the origin and publication context of images and videos to make reliable authenticity assessments. Built on a multi-agent framework of proprietary fine-tuned models developed in collaboration with DFKI. Won the SPRIND Deepfake Detection Challenge Award.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Grover is a Berlin-based technology rental and subscription platform founded in 2015 by Michael Cassau. The company lets consumers and businesses rent electronics such as laptops, smartphones, gaming consoles, and smart home devices on a monthly subscription basis instead of buying them outright. Grover promotes a circular economy model by refurbishing and re-renting returned devices multiple times. The company raised over $1 billion in equity and debt financing and operates across Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Spain, and the US. It partners with major retailers including MediaMarkt and Samsung.
Munich, Germany · Person Gundbert Scherf is Co-founder & Co-CEO of the defence-AI company Helsing. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Gundbert leads the defence-AI company Helsing.
Munich, Germany · Person Hanno Renner is Co-founder & CEO of the HR software unicorn Personio. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Hanno leads the HR software unicorn Personio.
Hannover, Germany · Event The world's largest industrial trade fair, Hannover Messe draws 130,000+ visitors and 4,000+ exhibitors across AI, robotics, hydrogen, and Industry 4.0. Young Tech Enterprises offers startups subsidized booths and pitch stages. Tickets EUR 35-80. Essential for deeptech founders seeking pilot customers among global manufacturers and energy firms.
Berlin, Germany · Event Organisator Organizer of specialized life-science summits including the mRNA-Based Therapeutics Summit Europe series. Hanson Wade has been producing senior-level scientific conferences since 2008, convening researchers, pharma executives, and biotech founders for deep technical discussions on drug discovery, gene therapy, and emerging therapeutic platforms.
Munich, Germany · Startup Helsing is a defense technology company building AI software systems for democratic governments and armed forces in Europe. Its platform fuses data from radar, drones, optical and infrared sensors to provide real-time situational awareness and operational decision support. After major growth financing in 2025, Helsing expanded across core European defense programs and into autonomous systems, including the HX-2 platform.
Munich, Germany · Person Co-founder and General Partner of Earlybird Venture Capital, which he started in 1997. One of Europe's most experienced venture investors, he focuses on deep tech, fintech and insurtech and has helped build Earlybird into a ~€2.5bn multi-fund platform backing companies such as N26, Isar Aerospace and Aleph Alpha.
Bonn, Germany · Venture Capital High-Tech Gruenderfonds (HTGF) is Germany’s public-private seed investor. In 2022 it launched HTGF IV with about EUR 493m, backed by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs, KfW Capital, and 45 corporate LPs including BASF, Bayer, Bosch, and SAP. HTGF focuses on high-tech, industrial tech, chemistry, and life sciences and is a cornerstone early-stage fund in Germany.
Dresden, Germany · Event Organisator Dresden-based deep-tech ecosystem builder and organizer of HighTech Venture Days, an invitation-only investor matchmaking event pairing selected European hardtech and deep-tech startups with international venture capital, corporate VCs and family offices across semiconductors, robotics, energy and advanced materials.
Dresden, Germany · Event HighTech Venture Days is an exclusive, curated matchmaking event pairing selected European deep-tech and hardtech startups with international VCs, corporate VCs, family offices and industry leaders. Focus areas span semiconductors, robotics, advanced materials, renewable energy, mobility, space and defense. It emphasizes one-on-one investor meetings over a traditional trade-fair format, built directly for capital-seeking founders.
Landshut, Germany · Startup Industrial IoT data platform (formerly dc-square) founded in 2012 in Landshut, providing an MQTT broker, edge gateway and stream governance to connect operational data for clients like BMW and Ford.
Cologne, Germany · Startup HRS Group is a Cologne-based corporate hotel solutions provider founded in 1972 that has transformed from a traditional hotel booking service into a technology-driven platform for corporate travel management. The company provides enterprise hotel programs, meeting and event booking, payment solutions, and rate auditing tools to large corporations. HRS manages hotel programs for many Fortune 500 companies and processes billions of euros in hotel spending annually. While not a startup in the traditional sense, HRS has reinvented itself through technology, building an enterprise platform that competes globally in the corporate lodging space.
Berlin, Germany · Event Invite-focused networking and portfolio event hosted by High-Tech Gruenderfonds at STATION Berlin under the 2026 theme 'Next European Tech Renaissance.' Known for high-efficiency 1:1 investor-corporate-startup meetings and strong syndication opportunities.
Berlin & Krakow, Germany · Incubator Founded 2012. Deutsche Telekom's tech incubator focused on 5G, IoT, and AI with campuses in Berlin and Krakow. Support: corporate seed funding, infrastructure access, expert mentoring, and co-creation pilots with Telekom. Notable alumni include IoT ventures integrated into Deutsche Telekom. Scope: International.
Munich, Germany · Venture Capital HV Capital (formerly Holtzbrinck Ventures) is one of Germany's most established venture capital firms, investing from seed to growth stage across European technology companies. Founded as the VC arm of the Holtzbrinck publishing group, HV Capital manages over $2 billion and has backed iconic European companies including Zalando, Delivery Hero, FlixBus, and FINN. The firm focuses on technology-enabled business models and is a cornerstone investor in the DACH startup ecosystem.
Berlin, Germany · Event Organisator Organizer of IFA Berlin, one of the world's oldest and largest consumer electronics trade shows, running since 1924. Each September the event attracts over 180,000 visitors and features startup-focused programs like IFA NEXT, giving hardware and smart-home founders a global stage alongside major brands and media coverage.
Berlin, Germany · Event Flagship global consumer electronics trade show at Messe Berlin and a major launch platform for hardware and smart-home products. Startup-focused programs such as IFA NEXT help early-stage teams access media, distribution, and manufacturing partners.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Infarm was a Berlin-based indoor vertical farming startup founded in 2013 by brothers Erez and Guy Galonska along with Osnat Michaeli. The company deployed modular hydroponic farming units inside supermarkets, restaurants, and distribution centers, growing herbs and leafy greens close to the point of consumption. At its peak, Infarm raised over $600 million from investors including Atomico, Balderton, and LGT Lightstone, and operated across Germany, France, the UK, and North America. The company restructured significantly in 2022-2023 after rapid expansion outpaced unit economics, making it a cautionary tale in European agritech about scaling hardware-heavy models.
Munich, Germany · Event Jewelry and watch trade fair with the Trendfactory forum on retail tech, 3D printing, and wearables. Price: about EUR 34 early online to EUR 79 on-site.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Inkitt is a Berlin-based reader-powered book publishing platform founded in 2014 by Ali Albazaz. The platform uses AI and reader engagement data to identify commercially promising stories from independent authors and offers publishing deals to the most successful ones. Inkitt also operates GALATEA, a mobile storytelling app that has reached significant consumer traction globally. The company has raised multiple funding rounds including a Series C led by Khosla Ventures.
Berlin, Germany · Event InnoTrans is the world's leading trade fair for transport technology, held biennially in Berlin. It showcases rail vehicles, infrastructure, public transport, tunnel construction and mobility software to tens of thousands of trade visitors and thousands of exhibitors from over 100 countries. It is a key venue for mobility and rail-tech founders seeking OEM and operator partnerships.
Munich, Germany · Event Bitkom's Innovators' Pitch 2026 live finals featuring startup teams in future technologies for logistics and education. Application deadline was February 23, 2026 (now closed); live pitch takes place March 19, 2026 with equity-free prize money and ecosystem visibility.
Stuttgart, Germany · Event Hospitality and gastronomy trade fair with an innovation area for food tech and digital operations. Price: about EUR 35-50 for trade visitors. Strong for POS, kitchen robotics, and novel food ingredients.
Berlin, Germany · Event Organisator Organiser of International Green Week, one of the world's largest exhibitions for food, agriculture, and horticulture, held in Berlin since 1926. Attracting over 300,000 visitors and 1,400 exhibitors annually, it showcases innovations in sustainable farming, food technology, and green industries, serving as a launchpad for agri-food startups.
Berlin, Germany · Event One of the world's largest food, agriculture, and horticulture exhibitions, held annually at Messe Berlin with 300,000+ visitors. Showcases innovations in sustainable agriculture, organic food production, and green technologies. Strong platform for agri-food tech startups seeking retail partnerships and distribution channels across Europe.
Munich, Germany · Event B2B matchmaking event focused on France-Bavaria innovation partnerships, connecting French deep-tech startups with German industrial corporates. Features structured 1:1 meetings and panel discussions on cross-border collaboration. Particularly valuable for startups looking to enter the German market through industrial partnerships and joint R&D projects.
Hamburg, Germany · Event Foodservice and hospitality trade fair with a Newcomers Area for gastro startups. Price: about EUR 40-50. Strong for restaurant tech and beverage brands.
Munich, Germany · Startup Isar Aerospace is a Munich-based space launch company founded in 2018 by Daniel Metzler, Josef Fleischmann, and Markus Brandl, all graduates of TU Munich. The company is developing Spectrum, a two-stage launch vehicle designed to carry small and medium-sized satellite payloads to orbit at a significantly lower cost than traditional European launchers. Isar Aerospace has raised over EUR 300 million from investors including HV Capital, Porsche SE, Airbus Ventures, and Lombard Odier, making it one of Europe's best-funded NewSpace ventures. With a launch site agreement in Andoya, Norway, Isar Aerospace is positioned to offer Europe independent, commercial access to space as demand for small satellite launches accelerates.
Berlin, Germany · Event World's leading travel trade show with a major eTravel World segment. Price: about EUR 60 day ticket or EUR 100 permanent pass. Essential for TravelTech startups selling to airlines and hotels.
Berlin, Germany · Person Jan Oberhauser is Founder & CEO of the workflow-automation company n8n. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Jan leads the workflow-automation company n8n.
Cologne, Germany · Person Jarosław Kutyłowski is Founder & CEO of the AI translation company DeepL. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Jarosław leads the AI translation company DeepL.
Munich, Germany · Person Head of Quantum Technologies at Airbus, where he leads the aerospace group's research and application of quantum computing and quantum sensing for aviation and space. He is an announced speaker at the 2026 AI, Data & Quantum Summit (AIDAQ) in Berlin.
Berlin, Germany · Person President and Managing Director of global VC firm General Catalyst, leading its European business. A German entrepreneur, she founded early-stage firm La Famiglia (merged into General Catalyst in 2023) and sits on the boards of defence company Helsing and AI company Mistral, investing across AI, climate and industrial transformation.
Berlin, Germany · Angel Investor A German investor (ex-TechStars London) who launched Angel Invest (a micro-fund), Jens was awarded Poland’s 2022 “Best Foreign Investor” for actively investing in Polish startups. He has made quick, small angel investments in Polish SaaS and deep-tech companies, often as one of the first foreign checks in. Associated startups: Satellite imaging startup KP Labs, various B2B SaaS in Poland.
Berlin, Germany · Person Johannes Reck is Co-founder & CEO of the travel-experiences marketplace GetYourGuide. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Johannes leads the travel-experiences marketplace GetYourGuide.
Berlin, Germany · Person Julian Teicke is Co-founder & CEO of the insurtech platform Wefox. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Julian leads the insurtech platform Wefox.
Berlin, Germany · Person Julian Weselek is Co-founder & CEO of the online travel company Tourlane. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Julian leads the online travel company Tourlane.
Munich, Germany · Startup Kiutra is a Munich-based deep tech startup developing cryogenic systems and services for quantum technologies. The company manufactures helium-3-free cryostats that reach sub-kelvin and millikelvin temperatures, including the L-Type Rapid, X-Type, S-Type, and T-Type product lines, and offers cryogenic characterisation lab services for quantum device development. Kiutra serves leading quantum computing companies and research institutions globally and is a sponsor of Finnish Quantum Days 2026.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Berlin-based enterprise AI workspace providing a GDPR-compliant environment where teams can use LLMs from multiple providers—GPT-4, Claude, Gemini—through a single interface connected to company data, with full EU data residency. Focused on European enterprises with strict data-sovereignty requirements.
Hamburg, Germany · Angel Investor Lars Hinrichs is a German entrepreneur best known as the founder of the business-networking platform XING, which he took public in 2006. He later launched HackFwd, a pre-seed investment initiative that backed early-stage European technology startups. He runs Cinco Capital, his personal investment vehicle, and remains an active angel investor in the German and European tech scene.
Berlin, Germany · Person Lawrence Leuschner is Co-founder & CEO of the micromobility operator TIER Mobility. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Lawrence leads the micromobility operator TIER Mobility.
Berlin, Germany · Angel Investor Lea-Sophie Cramer is a German entrepreneur and angel investor who founded Amorelie, a leading European sexual wellness e-commerce brand, which she grew to over EUR 100M in revenue before its acquisition. After exiting Amorelie, Cramer became one of Germany's most active female angel investors, backing early-stage consumer, health, and direct-to-consumer startups. She focuses on founders building category-defining consumer brands and is known for her expertise in brand-building, D2C marketing, and scaling e-commerce operations. Cramer also co-hosts the popular German business podcast 'Fast & Curious' and frequently mentors female founders across Europe.
Heidelberg, Germany · Event One-day life sciences convention in Heidelberg featuring biotech keynotes, startup pitch competitions, and investor panels. Organized by BioRN, the Rhine-Neckar biotech cluster, and attended by pharma executives, academic researchers, and VCs. Strong entry point for early-stage biotech and medtech founders seeking funding and strategic partnerships.
Frankfurt, Germany · Event Biennial lighting and building services technology fair. Price: about EUR 30-50 day ticket. Key for proptech, smart home, and building automation startups.
Munich, Germany · Startup Lilium is a Munich-based aerospace company founded in 2015 by Daniel Wiegand and a team of TU Munich engineers to develop an all-electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) jet for regional air mobility. The Lilium Jet uses 30 electric engines mounted on its canard wings to achieve vertical lift and efficient cruise flight, targeting ranges of up to 300 km at speeds over 250 km/h. Lilium went public on NASDAQ in 2021 but faced financial challenges and entered insolvency proceedings in late 2024. A consortium of European investors acquired the company in early 2025, allowing development to continue. Lilium remains one of the most ambitious European eVTOL programs and a test case for the viability of electric regional air transport.
Stuttgart, Germany · Event Europe's largest intralogistics exhibition, held annually in Stuttgart with 60,000+ trade visitors. Covers warehouse automation, robotics, supply-chain software, and material handling innovation. Day tickets cost about EUR 30-50. Essential for logistics tech startups seeking partnerships with enterprise warehouse operators and supply-chain decision-makers.
Stuttgart, Germany · Startup Makersite is a Stuttgart-based AI-powered product lifecycle intelligence platform that helps manufacturers understand and optimise their supply chains and products. The software connects a company's product and supply chain data with material, process, and supplier databases to support automated lifecycle assessments, product carbon footprint calculations, supply chain risk analysis, cost optimisation, and regulatory compliance. It integrates with enterprise CAD, ERP, and PLM systems and partners with firms such as Siemens, PTC, Autodesk, and Ansys. The company was founded in 2018 by Neil D'Souza, previously CTO at Thinkstep.
Berlin, Germany · Person Malte Kosub is Co-founder & CEO of the conversational-AI customer-service platform Parloa. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Malte leads the conversational-AI customer-service platform Parloa.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Mambu is a Berlin-founded, Amsterdam-headquartered SaaS cloud core-banking platform, established in 2011 by Eugene Danilkis, Frederik Pfisterer and Sofia Nunes. It pioneered the 'composable banking' model, in which banks, neobanks, lenders and fintechs assemble modular, API-first components for deposits, loans and payments instead of replacing entire legacy cores. The platform serves 280+ institutions across 65 countries, supports 114 million end clients and processes nearly 200 million API calls daily, with customers including N26, ABN AMRO, OakNorth and Western Union.
Mambu became one of Germany's most valuable fintechs after a €110M Series D led by TCV in January 2021, followed by a €235M Series E led by EQT Growth in December 2021 valuing it at €4.9bn. Total funding is about €410M, backed by a syndicate including EQT Growth (Sweden), TCV, Tiger Global, Bessemer, Runa Capital and German investors Acton Capital, CommerzVentures and Point Nine. In December 2024 it made its first acquisition, buying Paris payments gateway Numeral, and launched Mambu Payments in 2025.
Berlin, Germany · Person Marko Wenthin is Co-founder of the banking-as-a-service platform Solaris. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Marko leads the banking-as-a-service platform Solaris.
Munich, Germany · Startup Fusion energy company founded in 2019 in Munich developing laser-based inertial fusion using nanostructured proton-boron fuel targets, backed by over $400M with partners including Siemens Energy.
Berlin, Germany · Person Mathis Büchi is Co-founder & CEO of the tax-filing app Taxfix. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Mathis leads the tax-filing app Taxfix.
Berlin, Germany · Person Founder and CEO of Bonuz, a Web3 social and identity platform, and a confirmed speaker at Web3 Warsaw 2026. Builds decentralized social and reputation infrastructure for the Web3 ecosystem.
Berlin, Germany · Person Partner at Heartcore Capital, based in Berlin, who joined from Accel in 2013. He invests in consumer and software companies across Europe and is a well-known writer and commentator on early-stage venture capital.
Berlin, Germany · Person Maximilian Tayenthal is Co-founder of the German mobile bank N26. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Maximilian leads the German mobile bank N26.
Berlin, Germany · Event Organisator One of the world's leading trade-fair organizers, operating the Berlin ExpoCenter and running international events including InnoTrans, ITB Berlin, IFA and Fruit Logistica. It hosts hundreds of thousands of exhibitors and visitors annually across mobility, travel, technology and consumer sectors.
Berlin, Germany · Person Michael Cassau is Founder & CEO of the tech-rental subscription company Grover. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Michael leads the tech-rental subscription company Grover.
Hamburg, Germany · Person Michael Fritz is the Co-Founder of Viva con Agua, one of Germany's best-known social enterprises, headquartered in Hamburg. Viva con Agua operates a 'for-good' business model that channels revenue from commercial activities — including water, energy, and music events — into clean water and sanitation projects across Africa and Asia. Fritz is active in the German social entrepreneurship ecosystem and is a confirmed keynote speaker at Future Tech Fest 2026 in Düsseldorf.
Berlin, Germany · Person Michael Wax is Co-founder & CEO of the digital freight-forwarding company Forto. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Michael leads the digital freight-forwarding company Forto.
Hamburg, Germany · Startup MicroHarvest produces microbial protein using agricultural side streams and a rapid fermentation process designed to deliver sustainable protein ingredients in around 24 hours. The company reported over USD 10.2M in venture funding from investors such as Astanor, Happiness Capital, Simon Capital, and FoodLabs, and received a EUR 5.5M German government grant in February 2026 for an industrial-scale Leuna plant expected to produce about 15,000 tonnes of protein annually.
Berlin, Germany · Accelerator Ran 2013-2016 as part of Microsoft for Startups. Four-month cohort with expert mentorship, Azure credits, and investor connections. Support: coaching, cloud infrastructure, partner network. Scope: Global.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Midas (Midas Software GmbH) is a Berlin-based fintech building infrastructure for tokenised real-world assets and composable on-chain investment products. It lets strategy managers turn institutional investment strategies into compliant, blockchain-based tokens (mTokens) that aim to give investors transparency, instant redemptions, and composability across DeFi protocols. Its first product, mTBILL, tokenises US Treasury bills as an ERC-20 token so holders can earn yield on-chain. The company describes itself as a German, BaFin-regulated and MiCA-compliant entity.
Solingen, Germany · Person Founder and CEO of Dash0, an AI-native observability platform. He previously co-founded and led Instana to a roughly 500 million dollar acquisition by IBM in 2020, and earlier co-founded German software-engineering firm codecentric. A serial founder and prolific B2B angel investor across cloud, DevOps and AI.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Mister Spex is Europe's leading digitally native omnichannel optician, founded in Berlin in 2007 and listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (ticker: MRX) since 2021. The company sells prescription glasses, sunglasses, and contact lenses online across five European countries and operates 65 physical stores in Germany alongside a network of over 300 partner opticians. Mister Spex serves over 8 million customers and employs around 1,000 people. It pioneered the online-to-offline model in European eyewear retail.
Berlin, Germany · Event Dedicated summit in Berlin for mRNA-based therapeutics, bringing together pharma executives, biotech researchers, and clinical development leaders. Covers R&D breakthroughs, manufacturing scale-up, and regulatory pathways for mRNA technologies in Europe. Relevant for biotech startups working on next-generation mRNA platforms and delivery systems.
Munich, Germany · Event Munich stop of the global Venture Capital World Summit series at Nymphenburger Hoefe, bringing together seed and Series A investors, angels, and growth-focused startups. High-priority event for founders actively fundraising in Q2/Q3 2026 and seeking cross-border capital access.
Berlin, Germany · Startup N26 is a Berlin-based digital bank with a mobile-first current account and financial products for consumers across Europe. In May 2024, BaFin lifted the growth restrictions previously imposed on the bank, clearing the way for renewed customer expansion. In 2025 N26 rolled out free stock and ETF trading for all eligible customers, adding investing to its core banking offering. The company positions itself as a full-stack European challenger bank with a focus on product breadth and operational discipline.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Berlin-based open-source workflow automation platform with 350+ integrations that lets technical teams build complex automations combining AI, APIs, and databases without vendor lock-in. Reached a $5.9B valuation in 2026 after SAP's strategic investment.
Berlin, Germany · Event Organisator Leading event series organiser focused on accelerating the decarbonization of data centres and other energy-intensive industries. Through conferences and expos held across European cities, Net Zero Events connects sustainability-focused startups with facility operators, energy providers, and policymakers working toward net-zero carbon targets.
Berlin, Germany · Event Europe's leading event focused on accelerating data centre decarbonization, bringing together operators, technology providers, and sustainability leaders in Berlin. Covers renewable energy integration, cooling innovation, and carbon-neutral infrastructure design. Relevant for cleantech and infrastructure startups targeting the rapidly growing data centre market.
Metzingen, Germany · Startup NEURA Robotics is a German high-tech company founded by David Reger that develops cognitive robots combining integrated sensing with artificial intelligence for human-robot collaboration. Its product lineup includes the 4NE-1 humanoid robot, the MAiRA cognitive collaborative robot with integrated 3D vision and voice recognition, the LARA lightweight robotic arm, the MiPA service robot, and the MAV autonomous mobile robot. The company designs and manufactures its intelligent robots in-house. In June 2026 NEURA announced a record Series C of up to $1.4 billion at roughly a $7 billion valuation, led by Tether with backers including Nvidia, Amazon and Qualcomm.
Berlin, Germany · Event Invitation-only Berlin conference connecting 1,500+ digital CEOs, growth investors, and corporate M&A leads across fintech, SaaS, marketplaces, and digital health. Passes typically EUR 2,000-3,500. Known for high-quality pre-scheduled 1:1 matchmaking, a key deal-flow venue for Series B+ founders seeking late-stage capital.
Berlin, Germany · Person Oliver Merkel is Co-founder & CEO of the instant-grocery delivery company Flink. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Oliver leads the instant-grocery delivery company Flink.
Hamburg, Germany · Event One of Europe's largest digital marketing and technology festivals, attracting 70,000+ attendees to Hamburg Messe. Features masterclasses, expo stages, and side events covering MarTech, creator economy, D2C, and AI-powered marketing tools.
Hamburg, Germany · Event OMR runs satellite late-session events through the summer in Hamburg following the main May festival. The July edition focuses on AI in marketing, social commerce, and creator-economy monetization with smaller, more intimate audiences than the main event. Tickets from EUR 50.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Berlin-based football media and technology platform founded in 2008, offering live scores, news, stats and streaming (OneFootball TV) across 200+ leagues to a global audience.
Karlsruhe, Germany · Event World's leading trade fair for industrial coating technology, held in Karlsruhe with 500+ exhibitors and 10,000+ trade visitors. Covers surface treatment, powder coating, automation, and quality control. Day tickets cost about EUR 30-50. Relevant for materials science, robotics, and industrial automation startups serving the manufacturing sector.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Parloa is the German champion of enterprise AI for customer service. While consumer chatbots attract headlines, Parloa has built the operating system for large contact centers, enabling non-technical teams to deploy AI agents that handle complex voice and chat interactions. Its platform is trusted by large European enterprises such as Allianz, Decathlon, and Swiss Life, and it focuses on governance, compliance, and integration with legacy systems rather than flashy demos.
In January 2026, Parloa announced a $350M Series D led by General Catalyst, reportedly valuing the company at about $3B. The round validated its strategic shift from "chatbots" to "agent fleet management." Parloa does not just deploy a single bot; it manages and audits thousands of agents, ensuring they remain compliant, minimize hallucinations, and integrate cleanly with back-office systems such as SAP and Salesforce. This operational emphasis is why Parloa has become the default choice for risk-sensitive industries like insurance, retail, and financial services.
Parloa's 2026 roadmap is "voice-first AI." The company has developed speech-to-speech models that reduce the latency and robotic cadence that make older IVR systems frustrating. Its agents can handle interruptions, use backchannel cues, and operate across regions with language and accent adaptation, which is critical for multinational contact centers. With fresh capital, Parloa is acquiring smaller AI boutiques to consolidate the European market and is building a significant presence in New York to serve Fortune 500 clients in North America.
The company is deeply connected to the Berlin AI ecosystem, with ties to Merantix and the wider Berlin AI Campus, and it has a strategic relationship with Microsoft for Startups and Azure deployment. Its investor base includes General Catalyst, Altimeter Capital, EQT Ventures, Newion, and Senovo, giving it a mix of global growth capital and specialized SaaS expertise. In 2026, Parloa stands out as Europe's clearest enterprise AI winner in customer service: a scaled, governance-heavy platform that makes autonomous agents safe and effective inside the largest organizations.
Frankfurt, Germany · Event Global airport design and operations conference. Exhibition is free; conference about EUR 2000+. Ideal for biometrics, baggage tracking, and airport AI startups.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Berlin-based healthtech company offering an emergency smartwatch paired with a companion app for elderly people living independently. The SIM-enabled device connects to a 24/7 emergency call centre at the press of a button and keeps family members informed. Serves 25,000 users and has handled over 500,000 emergency calls.
Munich, Germany · Startup Personio is a Munich-based HR software company that has become one of Europe’s most valuable SaaS startups. Founded in 2015 by Hanno Renner (CEO) and three co-founders from the Technical University of Munich, Personio set out to streamline HR management for small and mid-sized businesses. Its cloud platform offers an “all-in-one” suite – from recruiting and applicant tracking to payroll, attendance, and performance management. Personio’s focus on Europe’s underserved SME segment paid off spectacularly: as of 2024, the company serves 12,000+ customers across 70 countries (primarily firms with 10–2,000 employees). This rapid growth attracted major VC funding. Personio became a unicorn in January 2021 with a $1.7 billion valuation, and by October 2022 it raised a $200 million Series E extension at a staggering $8.5 billion valuation – making it one of Europe’s most valuable private tech companies at the time. Investors like Index Ventures, Accel, Lightspeed, and Greenoaks have backed Personio. The company has since expanded to 8 offices (including London, Dublin and Amsterdam) and grown to about 2,000 employees. Despite the size, Personio continues to post strong metrics: in 2023, revenue reportedly doubled and the firm reached over 15,000 customers by 2025. Personio’s success is often attributed to its user-friendly, modular platform tailored to non-technical HR teams at smaller companies. It integrates with 100+ other business tools and emphasizes automation of routine HR tasks. Now valued at $8.5 billion+, Personio is widely seen as a future IPO candidate and a role model for Europe’s B2B SaaS boom – proving that an “SMB HR” niche can scale to a global category leader.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Pitch is a Berlin-based collaborative presentation platform founded in 2018 by Christian Reber, the creator of Wunderlist. The product enables teams to build, design, and present slide decks together in real time with built-in templates, brand controls, and analytics. Backed by investors including Index Ventures, Lakestar, and Thrive Capital, Pitch competes with Google Slides and Canva in the modern workplace productivity space and has attracted hundreds of thousands of teams worldwide.
Berlin, Germany · Venture Capital Point Nine is a Berlin-based seed-stage venture capital firm founded in 2011 by Christoph Janz and Pawel Chudzinski, specializing in B2B SaaS and online marketplaces. The firm manages over EUR 500M across multiple funds and typically invests EUR 500K to EUR 3M at seed, with follow-on capacity into Series A. Point Nine has backed notable companies including Zendesk (pre-IPO), Algolia, Typeform, Mambu, Chainalysis, and DocPlanner, establishing a strong track record in vertical SaaS and developer tools across Europe and North America.
Pfaffenhofen an der Glonn, Germany · Startup Pricefx is a cloud-native pricing software company founded in 2011 by Marcin Cichon, Christian Tratz and Martin Wricke. Headquartered in Pfaffenhofen an der Glonn, Germany, with additional operations including Prague and Ostrava, its SaaS platform provides price optimisation and management and configure-price-quote capabilities for enterprises, and it has added AI features such as PricingAI and AI Agents. The company raised a $65 million Series C round in 2020 led by funds advised by Apax Digital, and reported continued growth and AI adoption through 2025.
Berlin, Germany · Venture Capital Project A Ventures is a Berlin-based early-stage operator VC founded in 2012 by Florian Heinemann, Uwe Horstmann, Christian Weiss, Ben Fischer, Anton Waitz, and Thies Sander. The firm closed its fifth and largest fund at €325 million in 2025, bringing total assets under management to approximately €1.2 billion. What sets Project A apart is its in-house platform of over 140 functional experts in engineering, business intelligence, marketing, sales, and recruiting who work directly inside portfolio companies alongside capital. Investments span seed through Series B across SaaS, fintech, logistics, and consumer technology, with a notable portfolio including Trade Republic, sennder, Catawiki, WorldRemit, KRY, and Voi.
Dusseldorf, Germany · Event World's largest wine and spirits trade fair in Dusseldorf, attracting 40,000+ trade visitors and 5,000+ exhibitors from 60+ countries. Growing focus on WineTech, sustainable packaging, and non-alcoholic innovation. Day tickets cost about EUR 50-80. Relevant for food-tech startups in beverage innovation, packaging, and supply-chain optimization.
Munich, Germany · Startup Proxima Fusion is a deep-tech fusion energy company spun out from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in 2023. It is developing quasi-isodynamic stellarator systems designed for stable, commercial fusion power generation and is targeting a demonstrator pathway toward net-energy performance in the next decade.
Darmstadt, Germany · Event Germany's premier Python and data science conference in Darmstadt, attracting 1,500+ developers, data engineers, and ML practitioners. Combines PyCon DE with PyData tracks covering AI frameworks, data pipelines, and open-source tooling. Business tickets cost about EUR 400-700. Strong venue for AI startups hiring talent and showcasing developer tools.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Qdrant (pronounced "Quadrant") provides the memory layer for AI applications. As companies build AI agents in 2026, they quickly discover that large language models do not remember internal company data. Qdrant solves this by offering a high-performance vector database that stores embeddings for documents, images, and conversations and retrieves the most relevant context in milliseconds. That capability is the foundation of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and agent workflows across enterprises.
Born as an open-source project in Berlin, Qdrant has become a default choice for teams building on modern AI stacks, especially in Rust and performance-critical environments. Its adoption accelerated because it can run anywhere—from embedded devices to large Kubernetes clusters—without locking users into a proprietary cloud. This flexibility, combined with strong performance and transparent licensing, has allowed Qdrant to surpass older competitors in developer mindshare and production deployments. By late 2025 it had raised a Series B and was widely described as a "soonicorn" within the AI infrastructure category.
The 2026 breakthrough is Qdrant's hybrid search engine. Pure vector search captures semantic similarity but can miss precise keyword matches that matter in enterprise contexts. Qdrant combines semantic retrieval with keyword filters and metadata constraints, enabling queries such as "find a part like this" while also honoring exact identifiers like "Part #404-X" or compliance tags. This hybrid approach is now table stakes for enterprise RAG, and it has made Qdrant the database of choice for large-scale deployments at organizations such as Discord, Mozilla, and Deloitte.
Qdrant Cloud is the company's managed service offering and is growing quickly as enterprises move from prototypes to production. It provides enterprise controls, observability, and multi-region deployments without sacrificing the portability that developers expect from the open-source core. Qdrant's ecosystem roots include Techstars Berlin and a strong open-source community, where the project has amassed tens of thousands of GitHub stars. Its investor base includes Spark Capital, Unusual Ventures, 42CAP, and IBB Ventures, giving it both global capital and local Berlin support. In 2026, Qdrant is the clearest European winner in vector databases: the infrastructure layer that lets AI systems remember and reason over real company data.
Gilching, Germany · Startup Quantum Systems is a Gilching-based (near Munich) defense and commercial drone company founded in 2015 that designs and manufactures autonomous fixed-wing VTOL unmanned aerial systems. Its flagship Vector and Trinity platforms combine vertical takeoff with long-endurance fixed-wing flight for ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) missions. The company gained significant attention during the Ukraine conflict, where its drones were deployed for battlefield reconnaissance. Quantum Systems has raised over EUR 60 million and is backed by investors including HV Capital and NATO Innovation Fund. It is one of Europe's most prominent dual-use drone manufacturers.
Frankfurt, Germany · Startup Frankfurt-based cyber threat intelligence company that delivers AI-analysed, contextualised threat reports ready to act on without a dedicated in-house team. Its platform Mercury and conversational AI analyst KARLA monitor digital threats, geopolitical risk, and supply-chain exposure for European mid-market organisations. Raised €7.3M Series A in April 2026.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Raisin is a Berlin-based fintech founded in 2012 that operates an open-banking savings and investment marketplace, letting retail customers across Europe and the United States access deposit products, ETFs and pensions from hundreds of partner banks through a single account. It merged with Deposit Solutions in 2021, trades as WeltSparen in Germany, and has intermediated tens of billions of euros in deposits.
Munich, Germany · Person President of Bitkom, Germany's digital industry association, and Group CEO of Giesecke+Devrient, a Munich-based security technology company. He represents thousands of digital-economy companies and is an announced speaker at the 2026 AI, Data & Quantum Summit organized by Bitkom.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Razor Group is a Berlin-based e-commerce aggregator that acquires and operates Amazon marketplace brands, using technology and operational expertise to scale product portfolios. The company has consolidated multiple competitors and built one of Europe's largest portfolios of marketplace-native consumer brands. Razor Group focuses on supply chain optimization, product development, and cross-border expansion to grow acquired brands.
Augsburg, Germany · Startup Reonic is a German climate tech company that builds planning and workflow software for renewable energy installers, helping them work more efficiently. Its AI-powered platform covers the full customer journey for installations of solar PV systems, heat pumps, energy storage and EV charging, integrating CRM, system design, proposal generation and a mobile field app. The company was founded in Augsburg, Bavaria, and has expanded with additional offices. In September 2024 Reonic raised 13 million euro in Series A funding led by Northzone, with participation from Point Nine and Puzzle Ventures.
Berlin, Germany · Event Organisator Organizer of the Rise of AI conference, a curated annual summit in Berlin connecting AI founders, researchers, policymakers, and investors. Founded by Fabian Westerheide, the event has run since 2014 and brings together 1,000+ participants to discuss applied AI, ethics, and emerging business models in the European AI ecosystem.
Berlin, Germany · Event Curated AI conference in Berlin (Humboldt Carre) with an intimate in-person audience and virtual access, focused on the European AI ecosystem, policy, and commercialization. 2026 speaker highlights include Franziska Giffey, Prof. Antonio Krueger (DFKI), Carla Hustedt, and Dr. Ulli Waltinger; founder participation is often routed through Applied AI Stage and speaker submissions.
Berlin, Germany · Person Robert Gentz is Co-founder & Co-CEO of the fashion e-commerce giant Zalando. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Robert leads the fashion e-commerce giant Zalando.
Freiburg, Germany · Person German AI researcher and entrepreneur, co-founder and CEO of Black Forest Labs, a Freiburg-based generative-AI lab focused on image and video models. He was previously a research director at Stability AI and, during his PhD at LMU Munich, played a key role in developing the latent diffusion models behind Stable Diffusion.
Ditzingen, Germany · Person Head of Artificial Intelligence at TRUMPF, the German high-tech machine-tool and laser manufacturer, where she leads applied AI strategy across industrial manufacturing. She is an announced speaker at the 2026 AI, Data & Quantum Summit (AIDAQ) in Berlin.
Berlin, Germany · Person Sascha Konietzke is Co-founder of the headless-CMS company Contentful. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Sascha leads the headless-CMS company Contentful.
Hamburg, Germany · Person Sebastian Bergmann is the creator of PHPUnit, the most widely adopted unit testing framework for the PHP programming language, used by millions of developers worldwide. He is Co-Founder of thePHP.cc, a German consultancy specializing in software quality, PHP architecture, and test-driven development. Bergmann is a prolific open-source contributor and internationally recognized speaker at major software development conferences. His work on PHPUnit has had a foundational impact on software quality practices in the PHP ecosystem.
Berlin, Germany · Startup sennder is a Berlin-based digital freight forwarder founded in 2015 that uses technology to connect shippers with trucking carriers across Europe. The platform digitizes the traditionally fragmented and paper-heavy European trucking market, using algorithms to match loads with available capacity, optimize routes, and provide real-time shipment tracking. sennder acquired Uber Freight's European operations in 2021 and has raised over $300 million in funding. The company works with major shippers and connects to a network of tens of thousands of trucking companies, making it one of Europe's largest digital freight platforms.
Munich, Germany · Accelerator The Siemens Technology Accelerator (STA) is a unique corporate accelerator program run by Siemens AG since 2001, aimed at spinning out non-core technologies from Siemens’ R&D into independent startups. Based in Munich, STA essentially identifies promising internal innovations (often developed at Siemens Corporate Technology labs) that don’t fit Siemens’ core business, and forms new ventures around them. STA provides seed funding, co-founding management, and access to Siemens’ infrastructure to these ventures, effectively acting as a venture builder. Over its history, the Siemens Technology Accelerator has spun out more than 12 companies across sectors like energy, industrial automation, healthcare, and materials. Notable spin-offs include MetisMotion (advanced actuators), Magazino (warehouse robotics – which STA helped early on), and Epiqo (a digital twin software). One high-profile case is Rethink Robotics GmbH: in 2020, STA helped relaunch assets of Rethink Robotics (the US cobot pioneer) in a joint venture, integrating it with Siemens technology. The typical STA project starts with identifying a tech with market potential. STA then recruits external entrepreneurs or Siemens intrapreneurs to lead the startup, develops a business plan, secures intellectual property rights (license or assign IP from Siemens to the newco), and provides initial funding (often low millions of euros). Siemens often remains a minority shareholder and provides pilot customers or manufacturing help. The time from project inception to an independent company launch is around 18–24 months. STA’s model addresses a common big-corporate problem: great inventions that don’t make it to market. By essentially incubating startups from within, Siemens both creates value from dormant IP and fosters innovation culture. Many STA spin-outs go on to raise venture capital or get acquired. For example, Ionity (an EV charging network) was seeded by Siemens’ STA and later became a major joint venture with automakers. The Siemens Technology Accelerator operates with a small specialized team and has won awards for corporate venturing. It serves as a best-practice example of how large industrial firms can proactively spin off new ventures rather than let R&D sit on a shelf. In essence, STA extends Siemens’ innovation beyond its core by unleashing startups that bring cutting-edge tech (like novel sensors, new materials, etc.) to the broader market.
Berlin, Germany · Person General Partner at European venture capital firm Creandum, based in Berlin, where he leads the fintech vertical investing across Europe and the US. Before VC he co-founded Foodpanda and HelloFresh US, and began his investing career at Earlybird, leading its seed investment in N26. His portfolio includes Taxfix, Tide and Factorial.
Grünwald, Germany · Startup simpleclub is a German-language digital learning platform for secondary-school students, apprentices in vocational training, and individual fields of study. It originated from the founders' educational video projects on YouTube and was incorporated as a company in 2015. The platform provides curriculum-aligned learning content, including content aligned to IHK standards, video lessons, exam-preparation tools, and an AI-powered learning assistant. It operates several lines: a consumer offering for school students, a B2B offering for companies training apprentices and skilled workers, and an offering for education and retraining providers.
Berlin, Germany · Event Germany's main government-tech and smart-city conference organized by Bitkom at Messe Berlin, focusing on digital public services, AI in government, smart infrastructure, and cybersecurity for the public sector. Draws 15,000+ civil servants, govtech startups, and enterprise solution providers. Tickets from EUR 0 (expo) to EUR 300+ (conference).
Munich, Germany · Accelerator Social innovation accelerator promoted in the Munich ecosystem for mission-driven startups and social impact business models. Application deadline: April 15, 2026. Program start: mid-2026. Program notes include zero-equity participation, no-fee access, and travel reimbursement support for selected teams.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Embedded banking platform providing regulated accounts, cards, and payments APIs. Solarisbank is a startup based in Berlin, Germany at the growth stage. The company operates in the Fintech, Banking space. Learn more at their website.
Freiburg, Germany · Event Europe's leading special bike trade fair at Freiburg Messe with 15,000+ visitors and 250+ exhibitors covering cargo bikes, e-cargo, recumbents, and micro-logistics hardware. Day tickets about EUR 15-25. Valuable for urban logistics, last-mile delivery, and mobility-hardware startups seeking fleet buyers and European distributors.
Berlin, Germany · Accelerator Founded 2016. Accelerator for the video game industry connecting German and French hubs; provides workshops, industry mentoring, and investor access. Notable studios: Burning Glass Creative, HandyGames. Support: game-specific mentorship, networking, funding access. Scope: Regional.
Leipzig, Germany · Accelerator Founded 2014. Six-month program for entrepreneurial teams with coworking, mentoring, and technology partners; alumni include energy and healthcare startups. Support: mentorship, workspace, partner resources. Scope: Regional (East Germany).
Berlin, Germany · Startup Spryker is an enterprise commerce platform offering a composable, API-first architecture for B2B and B2C digital commerce. Based in Berlin and Hamburg, Spryker enables large enterprises to build custom transactional experiences across marketplaces, IoT commerce, and unified commerce scenarios. The company serves enterprise customers across manufacturing, retail, and wholesale, and has raised over $200 million from investors including TCV and One Peak.
Kiel, Germany · Coworking Space StarterKitchen is the primary coworking and founder community venue operated by the non-profit Campus Business Box e.V. under the opencampus.sh umbrella, located at Kuhnkestraße 6 in Kiel's Wissenschaftspark district. The space spans 400 square metres and has been awarded best coworking space in Kiel, attracting interdisciplinary founders across tech, social enterprise, and creative sectors. The floor plan combines a large bright open-plan coworking area (referred to internally as the Sauna) with dedicated fixed desks, enclosed team offices, a Zoom-equipped call room, and a podcast studio — the latter two included in all membership tiers. Flex-desk memberships range from €20 per month for students and Schleswig-Holstein scholarship holders through €70–90 for growth-stage teams; fixed desk slots run €90–120 per month for established ventures. Pricing is deliberately below-market to remain accessible to early-stage founders. StarterKitchen serves as the first point of contact in Kiel for the regional Gründungsstipendium SH founding grant and hosts recurring formats including the Female Founders Stammtisch, open founder breakfasts, and the Prototypingweek innovation sprint. The space is closely integrated with the Waterkant Festival, opencampus.sh's annual futures-thinking event that draws several thousand attendees to Kiel. Pricing tier: €.
Munich, Germany · Event Organisator Organizer of founder-focused meetups and AI events including The Munich AI Conference. Startup Network Europe is an event organiser based in Munich, Germany. Organising events in the Events, Startup Ecosystem, Artificial Intelligence space.
Berlin, Germany · Person Austrian-born, New York-based graphic designer and typographer, co-founder of the studio Sagmeister & Walsh, known for album covers, identity work and data-driven art projects on happiness and beauty. A headline speaker at the 2026 Forward Festival Berlin.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Stelovo is a small consumer app for planning nights out with friends — you propose a few time slots, everyone votes, and the app picks the moment that works for the group. Positioned against heavier event-management tools, it's a quiet, design-led take on group scheduling for existing friend circles rather than a public events product. The project ships as a lightweight web app under a single-founder or small-team indie model.
Dusseldorf, Germany · Event Partnering conference focused on Horizon Europe collaboration. Price: about EUR 150 (VAT included). Structured around pitches and 1:1 meetings across health, energy, mobility, and digital tech.
Berlin, Germany · Event Europe's premier private equity and venture capital conference, gathering 5,000+ LPs, GPs, and fund managers at the Intercontinental Berlin. Essential for founders seeking growth equity and fund managers exploring European tech opportunities.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Synthflow AI is a Berlin-based no-code platform for building and deploying AI voice agents that automate phone conversations. It lets non-technical business users create customisable voice agents without engineering resources, applying a no-code approach to conversational phone AI. The agents handle inbound and outbound calls for use cases such as customer service, appointment scheduling, and lead qualification, and connect to external systems through integrations with calendars, CRMs, and telephony platforms. The company also operates in-house telephony infrastructure and targets enterprise and BPO/contact-center customers.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Taktile is a Berlin-based provider of an agentic decision platform for financial institutions, combining AI automation with human oversight for regulated environments. Its platform lets banks and insurers build and deploy automated decision flows and AI agents across onboarding and KYC, credit decisions, fraud detection, AML and compliance, and insurance underwriting. The company emphasises transparency and control, positioning around traceable decisions. Founded by Maik Taro Wehmeyer and Maximilian Eber, who met at Harvard and previously worked together at QuantCo, Taktile raised a 51.5 million euro Series B in February 2025 led by Balderton Capital.
Berlin, Germany · Venture Capital Target Global is a Berlin-headquartered international venture capital firm founded in 2012 by Alexander Frolov, Mikhail Lobanov, Shmuel Chafets, and Yaron Valler, investing across all stages from seed to late stage in European and Israeli technology companies. With over USD 3 billion in assets under management across early-stage, growth, and fintech-focused funds, Target Global has become one of the most active cross-border European venture investors, running parallel investment themes across fintech, mobility, logistics, travel, PropTech, and enterprise software. The firm has backed category-defining businesses including Auto1 Group, Delivery Hero, Revolut, Rapyd, TravelPerk, WeFox, and Omnipresent, and operates offices in Berlin, London, Tel Aviv, and Barcelona. Target Global is a useful reference point for founders looking for a European-headquartered fund that can write initial checks at seed and follow them all the way into late-stage growth rounds from a single partnership.
Hamburg, Germany · Startup Taxdoo is a Hamburg-based tax automation platform founded in 2016 that specializes in VAT compliance, financial accounting, and tax reporting for e-commerce businesses selling across European borders. The platform automates the complex web of cross-border VAT obligations that arise when online sellers store and ship goods across multiple EU countries. Taxdoo integrates with major e-commerce platforms and marketplaces including Amazon, Shopify, and eBay, and handles VAT registration, filing, and reporting across jurisdictions. The company serves thousands of online merchants navigating Europe's fragmented tax landscape.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Taxfix is a mobile-first tax filing app that simplifies income tax returns for individuals in Germany and other European markets. The app guides users through their tax declaration using a conversational interface and automatically optimizes deductions. Taxfix has served millions of users and raised over $200 million in venture funding, making tax filing accessible to people who previously avoided the complexity of traditional tax software.
Berlin, Germany · Event Organisator Organizer of Tech Open Air, Berlin's signature interdisciplinary tech festival bridging technology, art, music, and science since 2012. TOA attracts over 20,000 participants across its main stage and satellite events, offering a unique blend of startup content, creative programming, and networking that reflects Berlin's innovative culture.
Berlin, Germany · Event Large interdisciplinary tech festival at Funkhaus Berlin combining AI, synthetic biology, Web3, and health tech with music, art, and science programming. Includes startup visibility opportunities and a headline startup pitch competition.
Frankfurt, Germany · Event International trade fair for technical textiles and nonwovens in Frankfurt, bringing together 1,500+ exhibitors and 30,000+ visitors from across the advanced materials sector. Day tickets cost about EUR 30-60. Particularly valuable for smart fabrics, wearable tech, and advanced materials startups seeking industrial partnerships.
Frankfurt, Germany · Event International trade fair for textile and flexible material processing, co-located with Techtextil in Frankfurt and drawing 40,000+ combined visitors. Tickets EUR 30-60. Covers automated sewing, 3D body scanning, digital printing, and on-demand manufacturing. Prime venue for fashion-tech and textile startups demoing to global brand buyers.
Munich, Germany · Startup The Exploration Company is a Munich-based space startup founded in 2021 by Helene Huby, a former Airbus and ArianeGroup executive. The company is developing Nyx, a reusable orbital vehicle designed to carry cargo to the International Space Station and future commercial space stations. Nyx uses a green propulsion system and is designed for multiple missions, reducing cost per flight. The company has raised over EUR 150 million, including a major Series B, making it one of Europe's best-funded space startups. The Exploration Company represents Europe's push for independent orbital logistics capabilities beyond traditional government-led programs.
Munich, Germany · Event Focused evening conference hosted by Startup Network Europe and held at Codecentric Munich, centered on turning AI strategy into scalable enterprise execution. Designed as a compact, high-quality networking environment for founders, enterprise decision-makers, and technical AI leaders.
Berlin, Germany · Person German software entrepreneur and former CEO of GitHub (2021-2025), where he oversaw the launch of GitHub Copilot. Born in East Berlin and educated at Technische Universität Berlin, he is co-founder and CEO of Entire, an open-source AI-agent developer platform.
Berlin, Germany · Person State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, working on industrial, digital and energy policy at the federal level. He is an announced speaker at the 2026 AI, Data & Quantum Summit (AIDAQ) in Berlin.
Berlin, Germany · Startup TIER Mobility is a Berlin-based micro-mobility company founded in 2018 by Lawrence Leuschner, Matthias Laug, and Julian Blessin. The company operates shared e-scooters, e-bikes, and e-mopeds across over 250 cities in Europe and the Middle East. TIER has raised more than $600 million in equity and debt and acquired competitors Nextbike and Spin to consolidate its market position. The company distinguishes itself through a focus on sustainability, using swappable batteries and carbon-neutral operations. TIER is one of Europe's largest micro-mobility operators and a key player in the continent's urban transport transition.
Munich, Germany · Person Torsten Reil is Co-founder & Co-CEO of the defence-AI company Helsing. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Torsten leads the defence-AI company Helsing.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Tourlane is a Berlin-based travel tech company that combines technology with personal travel advisors to create customized multi-day trips. The platform uses data and algorithms to match travelers with personalized itineraries for long-haul destinations, then pairs them with expert advisors for booking. Tourlane has raised over $100 million and serves customers primarily in Germany and the US, bridging the gap between OTA convenience and traditional travel agency expertise.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Trade Republic is Europe's largest savings platform and a commission-free neobroker offering stocks, ETFs, derivatives, and crypto trading via a mobile-first app. Founded in Berlin, the company holds a German banking license and serves over 4 million customers across 17 European countries. Trade Republic has been valued at over $5 billion and is a leading force in the democratization of retail investing across Europe.
Berlin, Germany · Event Bitkom's flagship business-tech festival in Berlin connecting digital industry leaders, policymakers, and startups with 10,000+ attendees. The event covers AI, cloud, cybersecurity, sustainability tech, and digital transformation across keynotes, deep-dive tracks, and a startup expo.
Dusseldorf, Germany · Event Global trade fair for pipe and tube manufacturing in Dusseldorf, co-located with Wire and attracting 70,000+ combined visitors. Covers welding, forming, inspection, and quality control technologies. Day tickets cost about EUR 45-70. Strong venue for industrial IoT, inspection automation, and quality-control startups targeting heavy industry.
Berlin, Germany · Person Tushar Ahluwalia is Co-founder & CEO of the e-commerce roll-up Razor Group. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Tushar leads the e-commerce roll-up Razor Group.
Berlin, Germany · Startup API-first investment infrastructure provider (brokerage, settlement, custody) for banks, brokers and fintechs like Revolut and N26. Regulated by BaFin and the FCA. Founded 2017.
Berlin, Germany · Person Valentin Stalf is Co-founder & CEO of the German mobile bank N26. A founder in the German startup ecosystem, Valentin leads the German mobile bank N26.
Munich, Germany · Person Valérie Bures is Partner and Managing Director for DACH at XAnge, a French institutional venture capital firm backed by La Banque Postale that invests in early-stage technology and deep tech companies across Continental Europe. She leads the firm's expansion and investment activities in the German-speaking European markets, covering Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Bures is a confirmed speaker at NORDEEP 2026, representing the Franco-German deep tech investment perspective.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Vay is a Berlin-based mobility company founded in 2018 that develops teledriving technology, where trained human drivers remotely operate road vehicles from a station using a live video and control link. It offers a driverless door-to-door car service without an in-car driver and runs commercial operations in Las Vegas as well as testing in Europe.
Munich, Germany · Event Organisator Global summit organizer focused on investor-founder matchmaking and early-stage capital access. The Venture Capital World Summit hosts annual events in major European cities, bringing together hundreds of VCs, angel investors, and growth-stage founders for structured pitch sessions and networking to accelerate cross-border deal-flow.
Hanover, Germany · Accelerator Established 2016. 100-day accelerator for web and software startups with intensive coaching, mentoring, and free workspace. Focus on B2B software with SaaS and fintech alumni. Support: mentorship, coworking, investor connections. Scope: Regional (Northern Germany).
Berlin, Germany · Angel Investor Verena Pausder is a prominent German entrepreneur, angel investor, and advocate for digital education. She founded Fox & Sheep and the HABA Digitalwerkstatt, which teach coding and digital skills to children. Pausder has invested in numerous early-stage startups across edtech, consumer tech, and impact-driven ventures. She serves as President of the German Startups Association (Startup-Verband) and authored the bestselling book 'Das Neue Land,' which calls for a more innovative and digitally literate Germany. Her angel investments typically focus on founders building products that combine technology with social impact, and she is one of the most influential voices shaping Germany's startup policy landscape.
Nuremberg, Germany · Event Natural and organic personal care fair running alongside BIOFACH. Price: included with BIOFACH ticket (about EUR 32-74). The Breeze show spotlights newcomers and niche beauty brands.
Munich, Germany · Person Vlad Larichev is Associate Vice President of Industrial AI at Siemens Advanta, the consulting and IoT-as-a-service division of Siemens AG, a global industrial and technology conglomerate headquartered in Munich. He leads initiatives focused on applying artificial intelligence to industrial settings including manufacturing, automation, and smart infrastructure, and speaks at major AI and industry 4.0 events.
Berlin, Germany · Person Romanian-born founder and CEO of Linearity, the Berlin-based design-software company formerly known as Vectornator. He started the product after winning Germany's Jugend Forscht science competition in 2017 and has grown it into a vector and marketing-design tool used by a large global base of creators and teams.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Berlin-based AI companion for nurses and care workers that listens as staff speak care notes aloud and instantly converts speech into structured EHR records, giving clinicians back up to 30% of their shift. Deployed at 1,500+ care facilities across Germany serving 100,000+ nurses. Raised €43M Series A led by Balderton Capital.
Dresden, Germany · Startup Wandelbots is a Dresden-based robotics company founded in 2017, spun out of TU Dresden, that makes industrial robots easier to program. Its software abstracts away vendor-specific robot languages so that a single interface can control robots from different manufacturers, and it has moved toward AI-driven ('Physical AI') robot control for manufacturing.
Berlin, Germany · Event Organisator Organizer of WeAreDevelopers World Congress, one of Europe's largest software engineering and developer conferences held annually in Berlin. Attracting over 15,000 developers, CTOs, and tech recruiters, the event features 500+ speakers, hands-on workshops, and a career expo connecting engineering talent with leading tech employers.
Berlin, Germany · Event Europe's largest developer conference at Messe Berlin, with software engineering, architecture, and platform scaling tracks. High-leverage venue for DevTools and API startups and for founder-led engineering recruitment.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Wefox is a Berlin-based insurtech company that digitizes insurance distribution and management for both brokers and end consumers. The platform enables insurance agents to manage policies digitally while also offering direct-to-consumer products. Wefox was valued at $4.5 billion at its 2022 peak and operates across Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, and Poland. The company represents one of Europe's most ambitious attempts to modernize the insurance value chain through technology.
Dusseldorf, Germany · Event Partner trade fair to Tube in Dusseldorf covering wire, cable, and fibre optic manufacturing with 1,300+ exhibitors and 36,000+ visitors. Day tickets cost about EUR 45-70. Covers smart cabling, energy transmission, and connectivity infrastructure. Relevant for startups in energy tech, telecommunications hardware, and industrial automation.
Kiel, Germany · Coworking Space Wissenschaftspark Kiel is the primary knowledge and innovation campus of the Kiel metropolitan area, developed as a joint initiative of the City of Kiel, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (CAU), and the Kiel Innovation and Technology Foundation (KIWI). The park occupies a sizeable campus in the Schreventeich district on the western side of central Kiel and hosts over 70 companies, research bodies, and public institutions. Tenants span information technology (north.io, ARIVA.DE, emma technologies), engineering services, life-sciences consulting, auditing firms, and public innovation intermediaries. The CAU maintains several administrative and technology-transfer units on-site, creating direct academic-to-industry pipeline. The KIWI economic development agency is resident, giving early-stage founders immediate access to public startup support. The park offers modern office rentals from small units to large floor plates, alongside shared infrastructure and a daycare facility for working parents. Gastronomic and hotel options — including a B&B Hotel — support extended work sessions and visiting delegations. The campus is closely associated with opencampus.sh, whose StarterKitchen coworking sub-brand and learning programmes have an on-site presence. With the park's ongoing einsteineins building extension and further construction underway, the campus continues to expand its footprint. Pricing tier: €€.
Berlin, Germany · Event The World Health Summit is one of the world's leading strategic forums for global health, held annually in Berlin under the patronage of the German government. The event convenes senior leaders from politics, science, the private sector and civil society. For founders it is a high-level networking and policy stage relevant to digital health, medtech and life sciences ventures.
Berlin, Germany · Event Organisator Foundation under Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin that organizes the annual World Health Summit, one of the world's leading strategic forums for global health. Held in Berlin under the patronage of the German government, it convenes leaders from politics, science, the private sector and civil society.
Berlin, Germany · Event Executive-level forum for global retail leadership in Berlin, attracting 1,000+ C-suite executives from major retail brands and technology providers. Registration costs about GBP 2500+. Features keynotes on retail transformation, AI-driven commerce, and sustainability. Valuable for retail-tech scaleups seeking strategic partnerships with global retail decision-makers.
Berlin, Germany · Startup Zalando is a Berlin-based online fashion and lifestyle platform founded in 2008 by Robert Gentz and David Schneider. It grew from a Rocket Internet-backed shoe retailer into Europe's largest online fashion marketplace, listing on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in 2014. Zalando operates across 25 European markets, connecting over 50 million active customers with thousands of brands. The company transitioned from a pure retailer to a platform model, enabling brands to sell directly through its Partner Program while offering logistics, marketing, and fulfillment services via its Zalando Fulfillment Solutions infrastructure.