German Startup News: The 2020 Year in Funding

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Previously titled “This Month in German Startups - 2020 Review” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 10, 2026

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Recorded19 Jan 2021

Publisherfintechgermany.podcaster.de ↗

Handlerec:1059103

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This is the fintech track of Startuprad.io. Find us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/fintech_germany Learn more about us at www.startuprad.io This Month in German Startups - 2020 Review Welcome to This Month in German Startups by Startuprad.io - in a transatlantic news recording with Chris in New York City. This is an annual tradition, where we look at the past year and forward into the coming one. Not to mention, we have been totally wrong last year with the outlook, so we are more sticking to the review this year. Today we bring you an overview of the German startup corona aid, an overview of the German startup scene, lists of top startup stories, a few outlooks on 2021, and a bit of wine :-) Ecosystem European Startup Scene 2020 - Snapshothttps://2020.stateofeuropeantech.com/chapter/state-european-tech-2020/article/exec-sum/ 8 crucial takeaways from Atomico's recently-launched The State of European Tech 2020 report | via Silicon Canals https://buff.ly/3m6MxVg ‘Megarounds’ helped European Tech ecosystem growWhile many founders found it more challenging to get funding, 2020 is on track to be a record year, with potential to surpass $41B invested, driven by more $100M+ deals.Germany is projected 23 bn US$Low capital, pivoting the product, and sales decline hit founders hardest in 2020International investment hasn’t dried upFrance is the only one of Europe’s three largest markets to grow in 2020. London remains the biggest investment hub in 2020Travel sector gets notably low investmentsInvestment in purpose-driven tech companies soarsGender and racial inequality still prevails in the European tech ecosystem List: 10 biggest healthtech stories of 2020 https://buff.ly/3aQlnjv The guinea pigs of Germany’s new healthcare revolutionBioNTech: the German biotech startup behind the coronavirus vaccine Hot or not: Where European VC funding went in 2020 by Pitchbook https://buff.ly/3nMSzf7 - Difference to Atomico ⇒ Different source for data ... UK still has the largest VC market in total (13.7 bn $), but Germany (6.8 bn $) grew three times as fast with 10.9% vs UK’s +1.7% BUT this may also be due to Brexit. We will see what 2021 brings. According to Pitchbook France grew by an astonishing 25.4% to a total of 6.1 bn $. The other markets in Europe surpassing 1 bn $ are Sweden (3.2 bn$), Spain (1.4 bn$), and Finland (1.2 bn$). These are the 10 largest funding rounds of Europe in 2020 https://buff.ly/2W1KGX8 including AUTO1 Group, Tier Scooters and Lilium from Germany German Startup Scene 2020 - Snapshot Deutscher Startup Monitor https://deutscherstartupmonitor.de/ This is an annual survey by the German startup association, this year more than 1.900 startups participated.The largest share of the - participating startups - (note, there is a bias here) have been inBerlin 17,7%Rhein-Rhur (Cologne, Düsseldorf, …) 12.8%Munich 6.5%Hamburg 5.8%This is one of the reasons we try to highlight so many startups from different areas, since not only every 5th startup is in Berlin. Please note that we try to have approx. 20% of our interviews from Berlin, to give these startups also a fair representation.On average a startup in the survey employed 14.3 employees, up from 13.3 in 2019 and 12.3 in 2018. Despite Corona, 90% were planning to hire people. 15.9% of founders are female in this survey, slightly up from the previous years (15.7% in ‘19 and 15.1% ‘18)Universities play a central role as a core for a startup cluster, especially Germany’s Technische Hochschule (technical universities aka TU) e.g. TU München, KIT, RWTH...

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