Seven German startups became unicorns in 2026, others lost their billion-dollar status. Which unicorns are growing, which are creating jobs – and where the increase in personnel is stalling.
The first half of the year is over – and the German startup scene is counting some new unicorns. An interim conclusion: Seven startups will have reached billion-dollar valuations for the first time in 2026, while others have lost their unicorn status again.
These startups have been unicorns since 2026
The Mannheim software startup started in January Osapienswhich was valued at more than a billion dollars for the first time.
Followed in March Dash0: The AI control software startup also reached the billion dollar valuation after a financing round of $110 million, making it the second German unicorn of the year.
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And the rumor mill was bubbling: According to insiders, there was already a round of financing for the Berlin defense startup in February Strong Defence as well as a 270 million euro contract to produce so-called kamikaze drones for the Bundeswehr. Stark also became a unicorn and presumably tripled its valuation in June with another round in which the startup raised half a billion euros.
The Bavarian battery storage provider CMBlu has been a unicorn since April – the startup collected 50 million euros in fresh capital from investors, and the valuation climbed to more than a billion euros. The German merger startup closed in May Focused Energy secured $240 million and cracked the billion-dollar valuation.
The record amount of $1.4 billion was collected Neura Robotics Beginning of June. The valuation: seven billion dollars and therefore unicorn status.
The latest addition to the unicorn club is the mobility startup Finn: At the end of June, CEO Maximilian Wühr announced that the company had raised 140 million euros, reaching its billion-dollar valuation.
Who lost their unicorn status this year
Other unicorns have lost their status. This includes the insurance company Clark from Frankfurt. In 2021, the startup reached a billion-dollar valuation. According to a report by Manager Magazine, sales have now collapsed – the company is making losses instead of profits. The Clark investors are said to have already devalued the startup.
There was an exit for the Berlin startup Contentful: The content management platform provider was taken over by the US software company Salesforce, as the former unicorn announced in June.
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Who grows – and who the unicorns are looking for
But whether a company is actually growing can often be seen in another place: its staff. Together with the labor market experts from Indeed, Gründerszene analyzes once a month which unicorns are hiring in Germany and which skilled workers are particularly in demand. There is a clear trend towards the middle of the year – even if the data basis has changed due to new and departed unicorns and the results, especially at industry level, are only comparable to previous months to a limited extent.
Of the 1,915 jobs advertised in Germany since the beginning of the year, the majority have continued to be attributable to the two energy unicorns 1 point 5° and Enpal. 1Komma5° increases its tenders by 2.61 percent month-on-month and Enpal even increases it by 43.90 percent, the Indeed analysis shows. The energy sector therefore still offers the most opportunities for starting a job.
The two defense startups follow in the places behind Helsing and Quantum Systems with 103 vacancies each. Helsing and Quantum Systems are now among the largest employers in the unicorn environment, says Frank Hensgens. Together with Strong Defence DefTech is the second strongest industry for new hires. “The current figures show that the job vacancies at German unicorns are growing slightly again, but this growth is highly concentrated. More than every second job advertised is in the energy and DefTech sectors, which are particularly capital-intensive and at the same time have a high relevance to industrial and security policy,” says Indeed boss Frank Hensgens.
“The comparison with the beginning of our tracker shows how relevant defense is currently becoming for startups: Since February, the DefTech sector has increased by 20 percent, while all other sectors have fallen by six percent,” says Hensgens. A clear trend according to the labor market expert: “These figures once again make it clear that staff expansion is currently taking place primarily where business models benefit from structural investments, political priority and concrete demand.”
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These two unicorns are not hiring
Two unicorns stand out when analyzing the numbers due to their lack of hiring activity. The Cologne AI startup DeepL Starting in May, it suddenly stopped advertising any positions for Germany. Hensgens sees this development as a warning signal: “If a German AI company cuts jobs, especially in this country, and at the same time expands international locations, that is also a warning signal. For the German economy, it will be crucial whether innovative companies go through their next growth phase in Germany – or whether value creation, talent and operational functions increasingly migrate to other markets.”
DeepL recently cut around a quarter of its workforce and cut around 250 jobs. The company cites a realignment towards smaller, more efficient teams and greater integration of AI into internal work processes as the reason. DeepL is thus responding to the increasing competitive pressure in the global AI market.
But also the tech startup Choco did not record any job offers for the German location in May, the data shows. Choco was launched in 2018 as a WhatsApp service for restaurateurs – just two and a half years later, the Berlin company reached a billion dollar valuation and is now a platform for the food wholesale trade.
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“Declines in the areas of food tech, e-commerce and software as well as the complete elimination of vacancies at companies like DeepL show that automatic growth is not guaranteed even at unicorns,” says the Indeed boss. “Especially in the AI environment, developments are ambivalent. On the one hand, AI is seen as a central field of the future, but on the other hand, the example of DeepL shows that technological strength does not necessarily lead to more employment in Germany.”
