+++ LiveEO +++ Soonicorn +++ Atomico +++ Plato +++ Quantum Systems +++ IPO +++

STARTUPLAND is where the future begins

+++ Our third STARTUPLAND Conference will take place on March 18th 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

Live at STARTUPLAND: André Christ (LeanIX)

With the sale of LeanIX to SAP for around 1.2 billion euros, André Christ achieved one of the largest software exits in Europe in 2023. But for him the exit did not mark the end, but rather the beginning of a new phase. In STARTUPLAND, André talks about the journey from founding an enterprise SaaS company to how to reposition a ten-year-old product with more than 2,000 enterprise customers in the age of AI and agents. How do you transform an established SaaS business into an AI-native product without losing existing customers? Which assumptions from the past are no longer valid – and which remain relevant even after exit and integration? An insight into the profound transformation of an enterprise product in the age of AI.

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Soonicorn: LiveEO
+++ Soonicorn: LiveEO is one of the German startups that could soon become a unicorn (valuation: 1 billion).. The startup from Berlin, founded in 2017 by Sven Przywarra and Daniel Seidel, 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 Japanese investor NordicNinja and DeepTech & Climate Fund (DTCF) recently invested 25 million euros in LiveEO. A total of around 50 million has already flowed into the company. More about LiveEO

Atomico
+++ A good signal! The English investor Atomico, which is backed by Skype founder Niklas Zennström, is one of the hottest addresses when it comes to investments. In Germany, the busy investor, who has invested in companies such as Klarna, Supercell and Stripe in the past, has been looking for exciting investments for some time. As early as 2011, Atomico invested in 6Wunderkinder (exit to Microsoft). The Berlin startup is new to the German Atomico portfolio platoan “AI operating system for wholesalers”. Other hot startups from Germany that are supported by the top donor include: Andercore, DeepL (Unicorn), deeploi, Mondoo, Omio (Unicorn), Scoutbee, Vaayu and Vay. The billionaire investor’s flops include Infarm, Lilium and Y42. More about Atomico

Quantum Systems
+++ IPO time! The billion-dollar DefenseTech unicorn Quantum Systems could go public as early as the beginning of 2027 – as Manager Magazin reports. “In a pre-IPO round, the valuation is expected to rise to over 6 billion euros in a few months. An investment bank has already been mandated,” says the report. The English investor Balderton Capital and Co. recently invested 180 million euros in the company as part of a Series C expansion round. The company’s valuation rose to 3 billion euros. Quantum-Systems, founded in 2015 by Florian Seibel, Michael Kriegel, Tobias Kloss and Armin Busse, relies on unmanned aerial drones for military and civil purposes – including a software platform. In total, the unicorn has collected around 500 million so far. (Manager Magazine) More about Quantum Systems

Cologne
+++ The current Cologne Masterclass shows how diverse the Cologne startup ecosystem is. The companies cover a wide range of areas – including MindElevate, Sacred Valley Tech, Eco2Grow, pooldown and ElarixLabs. Investors should follow these startups closely. More in StartupsToWatch

Commerce tools
+++ In 2026, growth will be determined by how well the building blocks behind a shop system work together. Now it’s all about tools that directly target conversion and operational scaling. It’s not the biggest stack that wins, but the cleanest one. More in the guest article by Marvin Müller

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Investments & Exits
+++ Kombo gets 25 million +++ Plato gets 14.5 million +++ happyhotel collects 6.5 million +++ Cognee gets 7.5 million +++ Custom Surgical gets 3.5 million +++ factorymaker collects 1.1 million. More in the deal monitor

What else happened recently? That’s always in the #StartupTicker

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Photo (above): Bing Image Creator – DALL·E 3