Germany startup ecosystem
Germany is Europe's largest economy and home to a maturing startup ecosystem anchored by Berlin, Munich, and Hamburg. Berlin's international talent pool and creative culture attract early-stage founders, while Munich draws deep-tech and enterprise ventures thanks to proximity to major corporates and research institutions. Government-backed programs and a dense VC landscape provide capital across all stages. The directory currently lists 344 organisations across 39 cities.
Showing 41–60 of 344 Germany
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Germany results
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Black Forest Labs
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.
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Blockbrain
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.
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Brainjo
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.
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Campus Founders
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).
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CarOnSale
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.
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Carsten Maschmeyer
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.
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CCW (Call Center World) 2026
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.
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CCW (Call Center World) 2027
CCW 2027 restructures into four Masterdays running 22-25 February in Berlin - Future Readiness Day, Customer Love Day, Touchpoint Excellence Day and AI Transformation Day - with the exhibition running 23-25 February. Billed as Europe's home of customer service, CX and AI for over 27 years, the event covers innovation in customer dialogue.
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Celonis
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.
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Cherry Ventures
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.
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Choco
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.
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Christian Bertermann
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.
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Christian Bruch
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.
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Christian Eggers
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.
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Christian Hecker
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.
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Christian Nagel
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.
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Christian Reber
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.
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CibusCell
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.
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CIMIx 2026 - The Transformation of Creative Industries
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.
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CloudFest 2026
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.
