What’s up New? In ours #StartupTicker we provide a compact overview of the most important startup news of the day (Wednesday, May 20th).
#STARTUPLAND
STARTUPLAND: Founders. VCs. Visionaries
+++ Our fourth STARTUPLAND Conference will take place on March 10, 2027 at the RheinEnergieStadion in Cologne. A fascinating journey into the startup scene awaits you again – with lectures from successful founders, educational interviews and pitches that inspire. More about STARTUPLAND
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AI unicorns
+++ Intelligent unicorns made in Germany! With Black Forest Labs (Freiburg), DeepL (Cologne), n8n (Berlin), Parloa (Berlin) and the German-American company Dash0 (Solingen, New York), there are now five AI startups in this country with unicorn status (valuation: $1 billion or more). After SAP joined With a valuation of $5.2 billion, n8n is now the most valuable German AI startup ever. The company was previously valued at 2.5 billion. The Unicorn, founded in 2019 by Jan Oberhauser, takes care of “Secure, AI-native workflow automation”. The company’s software allows users to connect or synchronize a wide variety of web applications without any programming knowledge. Black Forest Labs, which is all about generating images, was last valued at 3.25 billion. The young company Parloa, which relies on AI-based automation of customer service, was recently valued at $2 billion. SAP also recently invested in Parloa – probably a “mid double-digit million amount”. It is not yet known whether there was a new assessment. More about unicorns in Germany
Earlybird Team InnoVentures
+++ Million euros for startups in South Westphalia! With its recently launched eighth fund, which is worth 360 million euros, the Berlin investor Earlybird is specifically investing 15 million in South Westphalia (Siegen, Siegerland and the surrounding area) in the coming years. The initiators from the region include Bernhard Schadeberg (Krombacher), Martin Hill (TechniData) and Maik Rosenberg (aquatherm). The Berlin-based lender’s regional investment initiative is called Earlybird Team InnoVentures. The team around Frédéric du Bois-Reymond is now looking for “ambitious founding teams with innovative ideas in areas such as artificial intelligence, Industry 4.0, sustainability, robotics or software solutions”. The quantum computing startup eleQtron, founded in 2019, recently came out trumps from Siegen. The team recently raised €57 million. Earlybird joined eleQtron in 2021. South Westphalia already has a lot to offer. More about Earlybird
IX group
+++ Roll-ups – the booming topic of the hour! The Berlin one is one of the roll-ups in the country that are currently really stepping on the gas IX groupfounded in 2024 by Philipp Krautenbacher (formerly GetYourGuide) and Moritz Jacoby (Bridgepoint). The young company takes over small and medium-sized engineering and planning offices. “Our focus is on the areas of fire protection and structural planning as well as general, object planning and architectural services, especially for building, industrial and special construction,” says the team about the focus. The young company’s investors include: Cherry Ventures, Vorwerk Ventures and the young roll-up investor Aven Capital Partners. More about the roll-up boom
LiveEO
+++ StartupsToWatch! LiveEO should be on the agenda for anyone interested in emerging startups. The startup from Berlin, founded in 2017, uses artificial intelligence to analyze its customers’ satellite images and, on this basis, offers a solution for monitoring infrastructure, such as railway lines and high-voltage lines. The company also sees its future in the currently booming DefenseTech segment. Dual use is the key word. The young DefenseTech investor Helantic, b2venture, Nordic Ninjas and Co. recently invested 28 million euros in the Soonicorn. A total of around 78 million has already flowed into the company. More about LiveEO
getolo
+++ Growth strategy! The Berlin InsurTech getoloalso the brands dentolo, vitolo and petolo belong, is continuing to expand. The expansion to France is now followed by the start in Spain. “With the expansion, we are consistently continuing our growth strategy,” says the team at the corporate startup (Zurich Group) with. The company, founded in 2015 and employing around 200 people, currently has around 265,000 active customers. More about getolo
eleQtron
+++ “We don’t build an app where you know after two weeks of A/B testing which button works better. We work on extremely complex hardware,” says Jan Leisse, founder of eleQtron. The quantum computing startup recently raised 57 million. More about eleQtron
Startup Radar
+++ New founders are on their way! Today we present the following selection of fresh startups that you should know: Insellar, studio vaai, Sapericus AI, Payline and Linexa. More about Startup Radar
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Investments & Exits
+++ Verdane invests millions in Eterno +++ Getquin receives 12 million +++ LawX raises 7.5 million +++ Cohere takes over Reliant AI +++ Mistral AI buys Emmi AI +++ Financial injection for HappySupport. More in the deal monitor
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