The one where Ocean Protocol's Bruce Pon showed up for the eChai Berlin launch at WeWork
Upcoming eChai events in Berlin
eChai's free, open founder meetups across the city. RSVP and walk in.
No dated events on the calendar right now. eChai's recurring Berlin formats:
A look back at recent eChai gatherings in Berlin, newest first.
Founders from India, building in Berlin
The Indian-founded and Indian-origin companies in the Berlin ecosystem. This cross-border bridge is what eChai is here for.
Zeotap — Daniel Heer, Projjol Banerjea & Stephan Schwebe
** Founded 2014 in Berlin, Zeotap is a privacy-first Customer Data Platform (CDP) and customer-identity platform. Raised ~$117M total across 11 rounds (investors incl. SingTel Innov8, Liberty Global Ventures...
Alessio Borgmeyer" - **venue:** Berlin - **la:** 52.52 - **ln:** 13.405 - **desc:** Founded 2014, Jodel is a hyper-local, profile-free anonymous social feed that shows posts from users nearby — popular on university campuses. Raised ~$6.8M (backers include Quora/early-Facebook CTO Adam D'Angelo and Floodgate). Represents Berlin's consumer social-media/community scene. - **link:** https://jodel.com - **vertical:** ["Media"] - **stage:** Seed / early --- ## FLAGGED — NOT Berlin-HQ'd (excluded from count, listed for reference) - **Flightright — Philipp Kadelbach** — Legaltech (EU261 flight-delay compensation, no-win-no-fee, €200M+ enforced). **HQ = Potsdam, Brandenburg** (Berlin metro but not Berlin city). Founded 2010. Flagged per Berlin-HQ-only rule. - **EverReal — Liviu Ignat & Nessim Djerboua** — Proptech rental-transaction platform. **HQ = Munich**, not Berlin. Founded 2017. Excluded. - **GoStudent — Felix Ohswald & Gregor Müller** — Edtech 1:1 video tutoring, Europe's first edtech unicorn (~$3B). **HQ = Vienna, Austria**. Founded 2016. Excluded per task note. --- ## Notes - **Record count (Berlin-HQ verified): 20** — Gaming 4, Proptech 4, Legaltech 2, Edtech 4, HR-tech 4, Media 2. - **Indian-origin-founder flag:** None identified among these 20 companies. Founders are predominantly German, plus Icelandic (Klang), Spanish (Kenjo), and Dutch (Babbel co-founder Diepstraten). - **Relevant VCs seen repeatedly across these records:** Target Global, Earlybird, Project A Ventures, Cavalry Ventures, Notion Capital, Redalpine, HV Capital, Acton Capital, Northzone, Makers Fund, Novator, IBB Ventures / IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft, Axel Springer (strategic), Summit Partners, Tiger Global, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Sofina, Verdane, PropTech1 Ventures, Heartcore Capital, Global Founders Capital, Creathor Ventures. - Coordinates are locality-level; several companies use Berlin centroid (52.52, 13.405) where a specific district was not confirmed.
Founded 2014, Jodel is a hyper-local, profile-free anonymous social feed that shows posts from users nearby — popular on university campuses. Raised ~$6.8M (backers include Quora/early-Facebook CTO Adam D'An...
Naren Shaam [INDIAN-ORIGIN FOUNDER]
** Founded 2013 as GoEuro by Indian-born, Harvard-MBA entrepreneur Naren Shaam, Omio is a multimodal travel comparison/booking platform (trains, buses, flights, ferries). Rebranded to Omio in 2019 and acquir...
Tushar Ahluwalia, Christoph Gamon, Shrestha Chowdhury
Founded 2020, Europe's leading Amazon-FBA / e-commerce brand aggregator and 'consolidator of consolidators'. Raised $400M+ and reached unicorn status; in April 2023 acquired Berlin rival The Stryze Group, an...
Diaspora & cross-border networks
The India-linked founder networks eChai sits alongside in Berlin.
The key Indo-German ecosystem bridge, launched 2017 and run from Berlin with backing from Germany's BMWK. Connects Indian and German startups, investors and corporates: 1,500+ startups impacted, 70+ market entries, 250+ network partners....
A long-running Berlin Senate initiative connecting Berlin with Asian startup ecosystems, with India as a recurring focus theme. Runs delegation trips, bridges and the annual AsiaBerlin Summit (2026 edition in November), the highest-lever...
A Berlin-based global construction and 'project economy' VC with an Indian-origin managing partner and India as a core market. Fund III doubles down on India, where portfolio names Infra.Market and Infraprime are heading toward IPOs. A d...
A grassroots Meetup community for Indian tech professionals in Berlin, developers, data, design and product, sharing jobs, hackathons and connections. The closest existing analogue to an eChai audience already on the ground.
Startups building in Berlin
Find a company or founder, or filter by what they build.
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Residential solar / clean-energy subscription unicorn — panels, storage, heat pumps and EV chargers on a rental model. Raised ~$1.5B (Oct 2024, largely debt) to scale German rooftop solar; one of Berlin's bi...
Valentin Stalf & Maximilian Tayenthal
Founded 2013 (as Papayer, incubated by Rocket Internet), N26 is Berlin's anchor neobank and Europe's most prominent mobile bank, with a full German banking license. It broke even and hit its first profitable...
Conversational-AI platform automating customer-service contact centres via voice/chat AI agents. Founded 2017; became a Berlin AI unicorn on the back of large 2024–2025 rounds. A leading European enterprise-...
Tamaz Georgadze, Frank Freund & Michael Stephan
Founded 2012 (formerly WeltSparen), Raisin runs Europe's leading savings & deposits marketplace plus ETF portfolios, providing open-banking infrastructure for the deposit market across 10 markets. Surpassed ...
Andreas Bittner & Marko Wenthin
Founded 2015, Solaris SE (renamed from solarisBank Nov 2022) is Europe's pioneering Banking-as-a-Service platform, providing licensed banking, cards and lending infrastructure to partners from Samsung to Viv...
Mobile neobroker (founded 2015) offering commission-free stock, ETF, crypto and savings products; a decacorn-tier fintech and Berlin's flagship consumer-finance startup, now expanding into full banking (IBAN...
Julian Teicke, Fabian Wesemann & Dario Fazlic
Founded 2015 and HQ'd in Berlin, wefox is a digital insurance broker/platform that reached a $4.5B valuation (2022) as one of Europe's largest insurtech unicorns. After a major 2024 restructuring it raised €...
Matthias Knecht & Christian Grobe
Founded 2016 by the ex-Zencap founders, Billie is Europe's leading B2B Buy-Now-Pay-Later platform, embedding invoice-payment/checkout financing for business buyers. Raised $100M Series C led by Dawn Capital ...
Alexander Emeshev & Artem Yamanov
Founded 2019, Vivid is a financial super-app that raised €100M Series C (led by Greenoaks, with SoftBank Vision Fund 2 & Ribbit) at a €775M valuation. In 2024–25 it pivoted from retail to SME business bankin...
Anna George (spun out of Gnosis)
Spun out of Gnosis (2022), CoW Protocol (CoW Swap) is a Berlin-rooted decentralized-exchange meta-aggregator using batch auctions and Coincidence of Wants to deliver MEV-protected trading, plus CoW AMM and M...
Christian Macht (founding CEO)
Founded 2016, ELEMENT is a Berlin white-label / B2B2X insurtech providing licensed digital insurance products embedded by 50+ partners (including three DAX 40 firms), serving 200k+ customers. Raised ~€50M in...
Max Schertel & Alexander Talkanitsa
Founded 2021 by ex-N26 executives, finmid provides embedded-lending infrastructure so B2B platforms and marketplaces can offer SMB financing via a single API. Exited stealth in April 2024 with €35M (led by B...
Ferdinand Dabitz, Peter Lieck, Joshua Becker & Simon Wimmer
Founded 2021, Ivy is an open-banking / account-to-account instant payments API that lets merchants bypass card-network fees. Raised a $20M Series A (led by Valar Ventures, with Creandum & 10x Founders) at an...
Justus Schmüser & Sasha Makarovych
Founded 2021, Kadmos runs an end-to-end salary-payment platform for global migrant workers, with a focus on seafarers in the maritime industry (cutting remittance costs). Raised a $29.5M Series A led by Blos...
Christopher Plantener
Founded 2016, Kontist is a neobank purpose-built for freelancers and the self-employed, bundling a business account, debit card, automated tax estimation and bookkeeping/tax-advisory services. Backed by Barc...
Malte Huffmann, Philipp Povel & Gil Danziger
Founded 2021, Mondu is a B2B Buy-Now-Pay-Later / payments platform providing flexible payment terms and invoice financing for online and offline business commerce. Secured €30M in fresh equity in Jan 2024 to...
Ante Spittler, Max Meyer, Stephan Haslebacher & Anton Rummel
Founded 2019, Moss is a spend-management platform combining corporate cards, invoice management and accounting automation for SMEs and mid-market companies. Raised >€180M total (backers include Tiger Global,...
Orkhan Abdullayev, Emre Talay & Nicolas Thouzeau
Founded 2021 by ex-Delivery Hero payments leaders, Payrails is a full-stack payment operating system (orchestration, ledger, analytics) for global enterprises like Puma, Vinted, inDrive and Careem. Raised a ...
Lav Odorovic, Igor Kuschnir, Luka Ivicevic & Jan Enno Einfeld
Founded 2016, Penta is a digital business-banking platform for SMEs and startups (accounts, cards, expense tools). Merged into the Qonto group after acquisition, consolidating Franco-German SME neobanking. H...
Malte Rau & Fabian Terner
Founded 2020, Pliant offers embeddable corporate credit-card and card-issuing infrastructure across 25+ European countries (physical/virtual cards, expense management, API). Added €8M to its Series A plus a ...
Robin von Hein & Joachim von Bonin
Founded 2012, simplesurance is a cross-selling / embedded-insurance platform enabling point-of-sale insurance at online checkouts across Europe and Asia. Raised a $24M Series C (Allianz X lead) plus a €15M A...
Levent Altunel & Maximilian Schmidt
Founded 2021, bunch builds end-to-end fund-administration and back-office infrastructure for private-markets investors (VC/PE fund setup, capital calls, LP onboarding). Raised a $15.5M Series A (July 2024) b...
Christian Rokitta
Founded 2020, getquin is a European wealth-tracking and portfolio-analytics platform (plus social investing community) that aggregates a user's holdings across brokers, asset classes and geographies. Raised ...
Jörg von Minckwitz, Jan Goslicki & Benjamin P. Jones
Founded 2015 as Bitwala, this Berlin crypto-bank offered a self-custodial Bitcoin wallet, a Visa debit card and crypto-backed loans; rebranded to Nuri in 2021 with ~500k clients. Filed for insolvency Aug 202...
Markus Witte, Thomas Holl, Toine Diepstraten & Lorenz Heine"
** Founded 2007 (co-founders previously at Berlin's Native Instruments), Babbel is Europe's leading subscription language-learning app, teaching 14+ languages via short, practical lessons. One of Berlin's mo...
Holger Seim, Niklas Jansen, Sebastian Klein & Tobias Balling"
** Founded 2012, Blinkist condenses non-fiction books into ~15-minute "blinks" (text and audio) for microlearning. Raised ~$37M (Insight, Headline, Greycroft, IBB). Acquired by Australia's enterprise-learnin...
Michael Grupp, Micha-Manuel Bues & Michael Hübl"
** Founded 2018, BRYTER is a no-code decision-automation platform used by law firms and enterprises (Baker McKenzie, Hogan Lovells, ING, Telefónica) to build legal and compliance apps. Raised a $66M Series B...
Daniel Halmer & Frederik Gärtner"
** Founded 2016 as wenigermiete.de (operating entity LexFox) to help tenants enforce Germany's rent-cap (Mietpreisbremse) on a no-win-no-fee basis; rebranded to CONNY. Now spans tenancy, labour and telecoms ...
Luca Bovone"
** Founded 2017 in Berlin, Habyt is one of the world's largest coliving operators, running ~30,000 residential units across 50+ cities on three continents via a digital rental platform. Grew heavily by acqui...
Marius Luther & Marius Jeuck"
** Founded 2016, HeyJobs is an AI talent-acquisition platform focused on "essential" frontline roles (drivers, nurses, electricians) across 100+ professions. Its 2022 $47M / €35M Series B (Digital+, FMZ Vent...
Steffen Wicker, Dmitri Uvarovski & Philipp Reichle"
** Founded 2015, Homeday is a tech-enabled network of real-estate agents offering valuation, sales and financing, plus the free Preisatlas price-per-m² tool. Raised ~$68M over four rounds (Project A, Axel Sp...
Alessio Borgmeyer"
** Founded 2014, Jodel is a hyper-local, profile-free anonymous social feed that shows posts from users nearby — popular on university campuses. Raised ~$6.8M (backers include Quora/early-Facebook CTO Adam D...
David Padilla & Gonzalo Abruña"
** Founded 2019, Kenjo is an all-in-one HR software for SMEs, with a distinctive focus on frontline workers in manufacturing, retail, logistics and healthcare. Raised an €8.8M Series A in 2023 (Hi Inov, Reda...
Mundi Vondi, Oddur Snær Magnússon & Ívar Emilsson"
** Founded 2015 by three Icelanders, Klang builds large-scale simulation games, most notably SEED, a persistent MMO society simulator. Raised a $41M Series C in 2022 (co-led by Animoca Brands and Kingsway Ca...
Daniel Stammler, Janosch Sadowski, Tim Reiter, Oliver Löffler & Sebastian Karasek"
** Founded 2016 (originally Fluffy Fairy Games), Kolibri makes idle mobile games; its flagship Idle Miner Tycoon surpassed 100M+ downloads. Ubisoft acquired a 75% majority stake in February 2020 at a ~€160M ...
Fabian Wunderlich & Felix Wunderlich"
** Founded 2012 by brothers Fabian and Felix Wunderlich, Lingoda is an online language school delivering live, small-group and 1:1 classes with real teachers over video. Raised €57M growth funding in 2021 le...
Felix Jahn, Hanno Heintzenberg & Lukas Pieczonka"
** Founded 2015 by Felix Jahn (CEO), McMakler is a hybrid digital real-estate brokerage combining salaried agents with proprietary tech to cut listing costs. Raised a record €50M Series C in 2019 (Target Glo...
Stephan Schmitt & Volker Hinz"
** Founded 1999 in Berlin, Native Instruments is a global music-production software and hardware maker (Kontakt, Reaktor, Traktor, Maschine). A cornerstone of Berlin's music-tech/creator economy; HQ and main...
Stephan Bayer & Andreas Spading"
** Founded 2008, Sofatutor is the German-speaking world's most comprehensive K-12 online learning platform (10,000+ tutorial videos, 43,000+ exercises). Backed by Acton Capital and Cornelsen; majority acquir...
Jens Begemann, Patrick Paulisch & Philipp Moeser"
** Founded 2009 (name = "World of Gaming"), Wooga began with Facebook social games before pivoting to mobile in 2011. Its narrative-driven hidden-object hit June's Journey (2017) became a top-grossing title ...
Jan Hase & Arkadi Jampolski"
** Founded 2015, Wunderflats is Germany's leading marketplace for mid-term furnished rentals (one month+), connecting tenants, owners and companies. Raised ~$34M total, including a €17.8M growth round led by...
Timo Ullmann, Uwe Beneke, Roman Golka, Philipp Schellbach & Mathias Wiese"
** Founded 1999 by five friends from East Berlin, Yager is one of Germany's largest independent game developers (~130 staff). Best known for Spec Ops: The Line (2012) and its own PvPvE extraction shooter The...
Fritz Trott, Arvid Seeberg-Elverfeldt, Cihan Aksakal, Frederik Fahning & Cornelius v. Rantzau"
** Founded 2015/2016, Zenjob is a digital staffing marketplace matching students and flexible workers to shifts in logistics, retail, hospitality and events; it directly employs the temps and handles payroll...
Claire Novorol, Martin Hirsch, Daniel Nathrath
Founded 2011. AI-powered symptom-assessment app pairing a medical knowledge base with probabilistic reasoning; billed as the world's most popular symptom checker. Raised ~$120M (Series B led by Leaps by Baye...
Fabian Heilemann
AENU is a Berlin-based impact/climate VC backing seed to Series A startups across renewable energy, energy storage and sustainable materials, structured as an evergreen fund with an impact-first mandate.
Lea-Sophie Cramer, Sebastian Pollok
Founded 2013, a D2C 'sensual wellness' / sexual-lifestyle e-commerce brand that de-stigmatized the category with TV-driven mainstream marketing. ProSiebenSat.1 invested in 2014 and became majority owner in 2...
AI-native operating system acting as a full-stack property manager for short-term / alternative accommodations. Raised ~$36M (€31.1M) Series A in Oct 2025. A standout Berlin proptech applying agentic AI to o...
Christian Bertermann, Hakan Koç, Amaury Sepulchre
** Founded 2012, Auto1 is Europe's largest used-car online marketplace (wholesale to dealers, plus D2C brand Autohero), operating across 30+ countries. SoftBank-backed; IPO'd on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange ...
Christian Bertermann, Hakan Koç (Amaury Sepulchre)
Founded 2012, a pan-European used-car marketplace (wirkaufendeinauto.de / AUTO1.com wholesale / Autohero consumer retail). Raised ~$2B in private capital; IPO'd on Frankfurt in February 2021 raising ~$1.8B a...
Berlin-based deeptech applying quantum computing and machine learning to supply-chain and logistics optimization. Part of the emerging Berlin Quantum cluster (BERLIN QUANTUM initiative, Leap coworking hub in...
Contentful — Sascha Konietzke & Paolo Negri
** Founded 2013 in Berlin, Contentful pioneered the API-first "headless" content management system (CMS) that decouples content from presentation. Raised a $175M Series F (2021) led by Tiger Global at a ~$3B...
Camunda — Jakob Freund & Bernd Rücker
** Founded 2008 in Berlin (originally a BPM consultancy), Camunda is a leading open-source process orchestration and automation platform. Raised an €82M/$100M Series B (2021) led by Insight Partners with Hig...
Signavio — Gero Decker (& HPI co-founders)
** Founded 2009 by Hasso Plattner Institute (Potsdam) alumni, Signavio built business-process-modeling and process-mining software. Acquired by SAP in March 2021 for ~€950M and embedded into RISE with SAP as...
Pitch — Christian Reber (& team)
** Founded 2018 by serial Berlin founder Christian Reber (previously Wunderlist), Pitch builds collaborative presentation software. Raised $130M+ from Index, Lakestar and Tiger Global at a $600M valuation (2...
Zenjob — Fritz Trott, Cihan Aksakal & Frederik Fahning
** Founded 2015 in Berlin, Zenjob is a digital/automated staffing marketplace matching students and flexible workers to shifts in logistics, retail, hospitality and events. Raised a $50M Series D (2022); ~$1...
Y42 — Hung Dang
** Founded 2020 in Berlin, Y42 is a fully managed "DataOps Cloud" for building production data pipelines on top of Google BigQuery or Snowflake, targeting non-coders and data teams. Raised a $31M Series A (2...
Rasa — Alexander Weidauer & Alan Nichol
** Founded 2016, Rasa is the leading open-source framework for building conversational/generative-AI assistants for enterprises. Raised a $30M Series C (Feb 2024) co-led by StepStone Group and PayPal Venture...
Zeotap — Daniel Heer, Projjol Banerjea & Stephan Schwebe
** Founded 2014 in Berlin, Zeotap is a privacy-first Customer Data Platform (CDP) and customer-identity platform. Raised ~$117M total across 11 rounds (investors incl. SingTel Innov8, Liberty Global Ventures...
Adjust — Paul Müller & Manuel Kniep
** Founded 2012 in Berlin, Adjust is a global mobile-app measurement, attribution and marketing-analytics platform serving 50,000+ apps (Tencent, Rakuten, SoundCloud). Acquired by AppLovin in 2021 in a deal ...
Uberall — David Federhen & Florian Hübner
** Founded 2013 in Berlin, Uberall is a full-suite location-marketing and "Near Me" analytics SaaS platform (listings, reviews, local search). Raised $115M (2021) led by Bregal Milestone at ~$500M valuation,...
Productsup — Johannis Hatt (& co-founders)
** Founded 2010, Berlin-HQ'd Productsup is a product-content / product-information and feed-management platform (P2C — product-to-consumer) distributing product data across thousands of retail, marketplace a...
AMBOSS — Madjid Salimi, Nawid Salimi, Benedikt Hochkirchen & Sievert Weiss
** Founded 2012 in Berlin, AMBOSS is a SaaS medical-knowledge and clinical-decision-support platform (interactive library + question bank) for students and clinicians. Closed a €240M round (KIRKBI, M&G, Ligh...
Kenjo — David Padilla, Mathis Buchi & Julian Teicke
** Founded 2017 in Berlin, Kenjo is an all-in-one HR software platform for SMEs and frontline/deskless workforces (onboarding, time tracking, performance, payroll). Raised €8.8M (2023); positions as a leadin...
n8n — Jan Oberhauser
** Founded 2019 in Berlin (solo founder), n8n is a "fair-code" workflow-automation and AI-orchestration platform for technical teams. Explosive 2025: €55M/$60M Series B (Mar 2025, Highland Europe) then a $18...
Parloa — Malte Kosub & Stefan Ostwald
** Founded 2018 in Berlin, Parloa builds an AI Agent Management Platform (AMP) for enterprise contact centers (voice + chat customer service). Became Germany's ~28th unicorn with a $120M Series C (2024, Dura...
deepset — Milos Rusic, Malte Pietsch & Timo Möller
** Founded 2018 in Berlin, deepset is an enterprise AI/LLM platform; it authors the popular open-source Haystack framework (RAG, agents) and its commercial deepset AI Platform. Raised a $30M Series B (2023) ...
Spryker — Boris Lokschin, Alexander Graf, Fabian Wesner & Nils Seebach
** Founded 2014 in Berlin, Spryker is an API-first, headless, composable B2B / marketplace / enterprise commerce platform (Gartner/IDC-recognized leader). ~$152M raised (TCV, One Peak, Project A), $500M+ val...
Checkly — Hannes Lenke, Timo Euteneuer & Tim Nolet
** Founded 2018, Checkly is a code-first synthetic-monitoring and reliability platform ("monitoring as code," Playwright + OpenTelemetry) for engineering teams. Raised a $20M Series B (Jul 2024) led by Balde...
BRYTER — Michael Grupp, Micha-Manuel Bues & Michael Hübl
** Founded 2018 in Berlin, BRYTER is a no-code decision-automation platform letting non-technical experts build enterprise apps (compliance, legal, tax, procurement, HR). Raised a €55.6M/$66M Series B (2021)...
Wire — Alan Duric & Priidu Zilmer (ex-Skype founders)
** Founded 2012 in Berlin by ex-Skype engineers, Wire is an end-to-end-encrypted secure messaging, calling and collaboration platform for enterprises and governments. Raised a $24M Series C (2022) co-led by ...
Langfuse — Marc Klingen, Max Deichmann & Clemens Rawert
** Founded 2022 (YC W23) by a Berlin-based team, Langfuse is a leading open-source LLM-engineering platform (tracing, evals, prompt management, observability). Raised a $4M seed (Lightspeed, La Famiglia, YC)...
Solaris — Andreas Bittner & Marko Wenthin
** Founded 2015 in Berlin (out of Finleap), Solaris SE is a licensed Banking-as-a-Service / embedded-finance platform offering APIs for banking, cards and lending. Raised a €96M Series F (Mar 2024) led by SB...
Kittl — Nicolas Heymann & Tobias Saul
** Founded 2020 in Berlin, Kittl is a browser-based, AI-first design platform (logos, posters, merch, branding) positioned against Canva and Adobe. Raised a $36M Series B (Jan 2024) led by IVP (~$45M+ total)...
Noxtua (formerly Xayn) — Leif-Nissen Lundbæk & Michael Huth
** Spun from 2017 Oxford/Imperial research (as Xayn), the Berlin company launched Legal AI "Noxtua" in 2024 with law firm CMS — pitched as Europe's first sovereign, GDPR-compliant legal AI. Raised a €80.7M/$...
zenloop — Björn Kolbmüller, Paul Schwarzenholz & Lukasz Lazewski
** Founded 2016 in Berlin, zenloop is a customer-experience-management (NPS/feedback analytics) SaaS platform for mid-sized and large DACH enterprises. Raised €11M+ (Nauta Capital, Piton, signals VC). Acquir...
CoachHub — Matti Niebelschütz & Yannis Niebelschütz
** Founded 2018 in Berlin by brothers Matti & Yannis Niebelschütz, CoachHub is a digital talent-development / professional-coaching SaaS platform (behavioral science based). Raised a $200M Series C (2022) le...
enclaive — (Berlin deep-tech team)
** Founded 2022, Berlin-based enclaive is a confidential-computing / data-security platform bringing hardware-based trusted-execution (confidential VMs) to multi-cloud environments. Raised a €4.1M seed (Feb ...
Markus Witte, Thomas Holl, Toine Diepstraten & Lorenz Heine" - **venue:** Kreuzberg - **la:** 52.4989 - **ln:** 13.4300 - **desc:** Founded 2007 (co-founders previously at Berlin's Native Instruments), Babbel is Europe's leading subscription language-learning app, teaching 14+ languages via short, practical lessons. One of Berlin's most recognizable edtech brands; profitable and large-scale, it filed toward (then paused) an IPO in 2021. - **link:** https://www.babbel.com - **vertical:** ["Edtech"] - **stage:** Late-stage / growth ### E2 — Lingoda — Fabian & Felix Wunderlich -
Founded 2007 (co-founders previously at Berlin's Native Instruments), Babbel is Europe's leading subscription language-learning app, teaching 14+ languages via short, practical lessons. One of Berlin's most ...
Climate-fintech platform connecting sustainable-energy product makers (solar, heat pumps, EV) with embedded financing. Raised ~€5M seed (Oct 2025). Sits at the climate × fintech intersection powering Germany...
Tom Segert, Matthias Buhl, Björn Danziger
Founded 2010 by three TU Berlin alumni. Builds small Earth-observation satellites and offers turnkey 'satellite factory' setups and training so nations/operators can manufacture their own smallsats. A long-s...
Rainer Hönig
Founded 2018, betteries gives discarded EV lithium-ion batteries a second life, repurposing used modules into modular 'betterPacks' for off-grid power, light electric mobility and energy access in emerging m...
Holger Seim, Niklas Jansen, Sebastian Klein & Tobias Balling" - **venue:** Kreuzberg - **la:** 52.4989 - **ln:** 13.4300 - **desc:** Founded 2012, Blinkist condenses non-fiction books into ~15-minute "blinks" (text and audio) for microlearning. Raised ~$37M (Insight, Headline, Greycroft, IBB). Acquired by Australia's enterprise-learning unicorn Go1 in May 2023 in a cash-and-shares deal reported around €200M. - **link:** https://www.blinkist.com - **vertical:** ["Edtech"] - **stage:** Acquired (Go1, 2023) --- ## HR-tech ### H1 — Zenjob — Fritz Trott, Arvid Seeberg-Elverfeldt, Cihan Aksakal, Frederik Fahning & Cornelius v. Rantzau -
Founded 2012, Blinkist condenses non-fiction books into ~15-minute "blinks" (text and audio) for microlearning. Raised ~$37M (Insight, Headline, Greycroft, IBB). Acquired by Australia's enterprise-learning u...
Julian Glaab, Johannes Riedel, Torgen Hauschild
** Founded 2018, Bliq builds AI/edge-computing driver software that helps gig-economy rideshare and delivery drivers (Uber, FreeNow, Bolt, Ola) optimize earnings across platforms; more recently pivoted towar...
GenAI startup building enterprise-grade AI agents and a private 'knowledge engine' for companies to deploy agents securely on internal data. Raised €17.5M (announced Feb 2026) to scale enterprise agentic AI ...
Alexander Argyros, Vivian Bertseka & Gerardo Bonilla
Founded 2022, BlueLayer builds software for carbon-project developers to manage, track and scale carbon-credit projects across their lifecycle. It raised USD 10M across two rounds (announced January 2024) to...
Michael Grupp, Micha-Manuel Bues & Michael Hübl" - **venue:** Berlin - **la:** 52.52 - **ln:** 13.405 - **desc:** Founded 2018, BRYTER is a no-code decision-automation platform used by law firms and enterprises (Baker McKenzie, Hogan Lovells, ING, Telefónica) to build legal and compliance apps. Raised a $66M Series B in 2021 led by Tiger Global (with Accel, Dawn, Notion), for ~€75.8M+ total. Offices in Berlin, Frankfurt and London. - **link:** https://bryter.com - **vertical:** ["Legaltech"] - **stage:** Series B --- ## Edtech ### E1 — Babbel — Markus Witte, Thomas Holl, Toine Diepstraten & Lorenz Heine -
Founded 2018, BRYTER is a no-code decision-automation platform used by law firms and enterprises (Baker McKenzie, Hogan Lovells, ING, Telefónica) to build legal and compliance apps. Raised a $66M Series B in...
Oliver T. Neumann, Moritz Claussen, Mike Rötgers
** Founded 2017, cargo.one is the world's first real-time booking engine for air cargo — a "Skyscanner for airfreight" plugged directly into airline systems for live capacity/pricing. Raised a $42M Series B ...
Issam Tidjani
** Berlin EV-charging startup building a consumer-facing charging marketplace/aggregation layer. Closed a €1M pre-seed in Sept 2024 with international backers including Anthemis (Female Innovator Lab), Vento...
Magnus Drewelies & Jan Oltmanns
Founded 2021, CEEZER runs an AI-driven data platform and marketplace giving corporates transparent access to the voluntary carbon market, spanning technologies from biochar to mineralization. It raised a EUR...
Filip Dames, Christian Meermann, Daniel Glasner
Founded 2012–13 by Zalando/Spotify/Uber operators, a pan-European seed/early-stage VC. Strong consumer & commerce track record (Amorelie, Forto, Flixbus, and more) and a natural anchor investor for Berlin D2...
Daniel Khachab, Rogerio da Silva Yokomizo, Julian Hammer
Founded 2018, B2B ordering software digitizing the restaurant-to-supplier food supply chain to cut waste. Connects 10,000+ restaurants and suppliers across Germany, US, France, Spain, Austria and Belgium. Be...
Daniel Khachab, Julian Hammer, Rogério da Silva
** Founded 2018 by ex-Rocket Internet operators, Choco digitizes the food supply chain — an ordering platform connecting restaurants/dark kitchens with suppliers (15,000+ chefs, 10,000+ suppliers). Became a ...
Lukasz Gadowski, IQ Sayed
** Founded 2018 by Delivery Hero co-founder Lukasz Gadowski, Circ was a fast-scaling European e-scooter operator (43 cities across 12 countries, incl. the Middle East). Acquired by US micromobility giant Bir...
Joel Tasche, Bosse Rothe & Florin Dinga
Founded 2020, CleanHub is digital infrastructure for plastic-waste collection: it uses AI-based tracking to fund and verify waste recovery in coastal regions, letting consumer brands offset plastic via a cre...
Kilian Zedelius (co-founder)
Founded 2024, Co-Power installs and operates on-site battery storage and solar PV for industrial clients with no upfront cost, networking them into an industrial Virtual Power Plant. Its software layer optim...
Digital coaching platform (founded 2018 by Matti & Yannis Niebelschütz) delivering scalable, measurable workforce coaching via 3,500+ certified coaches. A flagship Berlin HR-tech / future-of-work scaleup. (A...
Yannis Niebelschütz & Matti Niebelschütz" - **venue:** Berlin - **la:** 52.52 - **ln:** 13.405 - **desc:** Founded 2018 by brothers Yannis and Matti Niebelschütz, CoachHub is a digital coaching platform matching employees to 3,500+ certified coaches across 90 countries via AI. Raised a $200M Series C in 2022 led by Sofina and SoftBank Vision Fund 2 (~$330M total); clients include Coca-Cola, Toyota and L'Oréal. - **link:** https://www.coachhub.com - **vertical:** ["HR-tech"] - **stage:** Series C ### H4 — Kenjo — David Padilla & Gonzalo Abruña -
Founded 2018 by brothers Yannis and Matti Niebelschütz, CoachHub is a digital coaching platform matching employees to 3,500+ certified coaches across 90 countries via AI. Raised a $200M Series C in 2022 led ...
Michael Riegel, Jannik Neumann, Marko Schilde
** Founded 2015, Comtravo was an AI-assisted business-travel management platform (TMC) for SMBs (customers incl. HelloFresh), raising €21M+ (backers incl. Microsoft's M12). Acquired by TripActions (now Navan...
Daniel Halmer & Frederik Gärtner" - **venue:** Berlin - **la:** 52.52 - **ln:** 13.405 - **desc:** Founded 2016 as wenigermiete.de (operating entity LexFox) to help tenants enforce Germany's rent-cap (Mietpreisbremse) on a no-win-no-fee basis; rebranded to CONNY. Now spans tenancy, labour and telecoms consumer-rights claims. Raised a landmark Series A from Earlybird and Target Global — among the first major VC bets on B2C legaltech in Europe. - **link:** https://conny.de - **vertical:** ["Legaltech"] - **stage:** Series A ### L2 — BRYTER — Michael Grupp, Micha-Manuel Bues & Michael Hübl -
Founded 2016 as wenigermiete.de (operating entity LexFox) to help tenants enforce Germany's rent-cap (Mietpreisbremse) on a no-win-no-fee basis; rebranded to CONNY. Now spans tenancy, labour and telecoms con...
Frederick Roehder, Richard Schwenke, Tobias Tschötsch
Founded 2014, a B2B online marketplace for tools, hardware and MRO (maintenance/repair/operations) supplies for tradespeople. Acquired by German tool specialist Hoffmann Group (Hoffmann SE) in June 2017 for ...
Milos Rusic, Malte Pietsch, Timo Möller
Founded 2018. Creator of the open-source NLP/LLM-orchestration framework Haystack and the deepset AI platform for building enterprise RAG and agentic AI on-prem or in-cloud. Total funding ~$46M over three ro...
Niklas Östberg, Kolja Hebenstreit, Markus Fuhrmann, Lukasz Gadowski
Founded May 2011 to digitize phone/paper-menu food ordering. Grew aggressively by acquisition (Lieferheld, pizza.de, PedidosYa, Foodpanda, Glovo). Operates in 70+ countries and owns quick-commerce brand Food...
Ultra-early wildfire-detection and forest-monitoring IoT — solar-powered gas sensors, large-scale LoRaWAN mesh gateways and a cloud platform. Frequently cited as a top Berlin-region climate/agritech-adjacent...
Mario Schmitt, Micheil Gordon & Stefanie Gerhart
Founded 2021, ecoLocked turns biochar from captured carbon and biomass waste into EN-12878-certified concrete admixtures, making buildings permanent carbon sinks (up to ~250 kg CO2 sequestered per cubic mete...
Emanuel Heisenberg
Founded 2019, ecoworks pioneered serial (industrialized, prefabricated) energy renovation in Germany, using AI-driven 3D planning and digital twins to retrofit apartment blocks to near-zero energy while tena...
Alexander Meiritz, Valerian Seither, Hauke Feldvoss
** Founded 2015, Emmy is a shared electric-moped (e-Roller) operator across Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, running ~3,000 vehicles. Acquired by GoTo Global in Oct 2021 as part of GoTo's European expansion; took...
Jakob Kleihues, Dennis Laumen
** Founded 2024, ENAPI is a connectivity platform tackling fragmentation in EV charging — enabling seamless roaming and transactions across charge-point operators and mobility service providers. Raised €7.5M...
Jakob Kleihues & Dennis Laumen
Founded 2024, Enapi is an infrastructure/connectivity layer for EV charging, running a 'Transaction Broker' on the OCPI standard so charge-point operators and mobility providers can interoperate reliably. It...
Jan Dzulko
Founded 2016, Everphone runs a circular Device-as-a-Service model, leasing and managing corporate smartphones, tablets and laptops end-to-end, then refurbishing them for a second life (each two-cycle phone s...
Digital-health platform delivering healthcare services tailored for the LGBTQIA+ community. Raised ~€1.1M seed (Oct 2025). A distinctive Berlin healthtech reflecting the city's inclusive/community-health angle.
Sebastian Heitmann & Yair Reem (partners)
Founded 2020, Extantia is a Berlin climate-tech VC hunting the next 'Gigacorn' in breakthrough decarbonization tech. It closed its oversubscribed Article-9 flagship fund at EUR 204M and manages ~EUR 300M AuM...
Oliver Merkel, Julian Dames, Christoph Cordes, Nikolas Bullwinkel
Founded 2020, the quick-commerce grocery player that outlasted Gorillas in Germany and the Netherlands. Backed by REWE, Prosus, Mubadala, Northzone and BOND. Raised $150M (Sept 2024, ~$1B valuation) and a fu...
Tobias Schüle, Philipp Schrempp
Founded 2013, a D2C sports-nutrition and functional-food brand (protein, supplements, healthy snacks). Acquired by Mars Inc. (via Mars Edge) in 2019 for ~€300M to anchor its personalized-nutrition business; ...
Michael Wax, Erik Muttersbach, Fabian Heilemann, Ferry Heilemann
** Founded 2016 as FreightHub (rebranded Forto 2020), a tech-enabled digital freight forwarder offering multimodal cargo transport, real-time tracking, customs and supply-chain management. Became a unicorn i...
Michael Wax, Ferry Heilemann, Fabian Heilemann, Erik Muttersbach
Founded 2016 as FreightHub; a digital freight forwarder and supply-chain platform (e-commerce enabler / logistics). Same founding team behind DailyDeal, sold to Google. Raised a $240M+ SoftBank-led round in ...
Johannes Reck, Tao Tao, Martin Sieber, Tobias Rein
** Founded 2009, GetYourGuide is the leading global marketplace for tours, activities and attraction tickets — 150,000+ experiences from 20,000+ supply partners. Raised a $484M Series E (2019, SoftBank Visio...
Berlin blockchain-infrastructure veteran (founded 2015, prediction markets → open-finance / Gnosis Chain / Safe wallets), run as a DAO. Acquired onchain business-account platform HQ.xyz for ~$14.9M in 2025 t...
Kağan Sümer, Jörg Kattner (Jeff Hester, Ronny Shibley)
Founded May 2020, the poster child of 10-minute grocery quick-commerce using dark stores and e-bike couriers. Peaked at a $3.1B valuation (Sept 2021) but burned cash fast. Acquired by Istanbul's Getir in Dec...
Michael Cassau
Founded 2015, a consumer-electronics rental/subscription platform (smartphones, laptops, VR) positioned as an anti-e-waste alternative to buying. Offers 8,000+ products across Germany, US and Spain. Hit unic...
Luca Bovone" - **venue:** Berlin - **la:** 52.52 - **ln:** 13.405 - **desc:** Founded 2017 in Berlin, Habyt is one of the world's largest coliving operators, running ~30,000 residential units across 50+ cities on three continents via a digital rental platform. Grew heavily by acquisition (homefully, Quarters, Common Living); raised a €40M Series C in 2023 (Korelya Capital, Deutsche Invest) for ~€80M total. - **link:** https://www.habyt.com - **vertical:** ["Proptech"] - **stage:** Series C --- ## Legaltech ### L1 — Conny (formerly wenigermiete.de / LexFox) — Daniel Halmer & Frederik Gärtner -
Founded 2017 in Berlin, Habyt is one of the world's largest coliving operators, running ~30,000 residential units across 50+ cities on three continents via a digital rental platform. Grew heavily by acquisit...
Dominik Richter, Thomas Griesel, Jessica Nilsson
Founded November 2011 (incubated via Rocket Internet); the founders hand-delivered the first meal kits themselves. Grew into the world's largest meal-kit company, operating across the US, Canada, Western Eur...
Marius Luther & Marius Jeuck" - **venue:** Berlin - **la:** 52.52 - **ln:** 13.405 - **desc:** Founded 2016, HeyJobs is an AI talent-acquisition platform focused on "essential" frontline roles (drivers, nurses, electricians) across 100+ professions. Its 2022 $47M / €35M Series B (Digital+, FMZ Ventures, Notion) was Germany's largest-ever talent-platform round; 100,000+ hires facilitated. - **link:** https://www.heyjobs.co - **vertical:** ["HR-tech"] - **stage:** Series B ### H3 — CoachHub — Yannis & Matti Niebelschütz -
Founded 2016, HeyJobs is an AI talent-acquisition platform focused on "essential" frontline roles (drivers, nurses, electricians) across 100+ professions. Its 2022 $47M / €35M Series B (Digital+, FMZ Venture...
Marc Appelhoff (CEO) & co-founders
Founded 2009 (Rocket Internet stable), an online furniture and home-accessories retailer with 250,000+ SKUs across Europe and Brazil. IPO'd in 2018; taken private in 2022 and now a wholly-owned subsidiary of...
Steffen Wicker, Dmitri Uvarovski & Philipp Reichle" - **venue:** Berlin - **la:** 52.52 - **ln:** 13.405 - **desc:** Founded 2015, Homeday is a tech-enabled network of real-estate agents offering valuation, sales and financing, plus the free Preisatlas price-per-m² tool. Raised ~$68M over four rounds (Project A, Axel Springer, Purplebricks). Acquired by Axel Springer in June 2023. - **link:** https://www.homeday.de - **vertical:** ["Proptech"] - **stage:** Acquired (Axel Springer, 2023) ### P3 — Wunderflats — Jan Hase & Arkadi Jampolski -
Founded 2015, Homeday is a tech-enabled network of real-estate agents offering valuation, sales and financing, plus the free Preisatlas price-per-m² tool. Raised ~$68M over four rounds (Project A, Axel Sprin...
Patrick Andrae, Wolfgang Heigl, Nils Regge
** Founded 2014, HomeToGo is a metasearch marketplace for vacation/holiday rentals aggregating millions of listings ("Germany's answer to Airbnb"). Raised $170M+ and went public on the Frankfurt Stock Exchan...
Erez Galonska, Guy Galonska, Osnat Michaeli
Founded 2013, modular in-store and hub vertical farms placing fresh herbs/greens directly in supermarkets (M&S, Kroger, Metro, Aldi). Raised $600M+ over its run. Restructured heavily and exited Europe from 2...
Philipp Ortwein, Maximilian Schaefer (+ co-founders)
** Founded 2016, InstaFreight was a Berlin digital freight forwarder matching large shippers with small independent carriers. Raised ~$58M ($40M Series B in 2022 led by Heliad and the European Investment Ban...
Han Xiao, Nan Wang, Bing He
Founded 2020 (CEO Han Xiao, ex-Tencent AI Lab; Chinese-origin founding team). Builds a 'Search Foundation' of multimodal/multilingual embeddings, rerankers and readers for enterprise search, RAG and GenAI. R...
Alessio Borgmeyer" - **venue:** Berlin - **la:** 52.52 - **ln:** 13.405 - **desc:** Founded 2014, Jodel is a hyper-local, profile-free anonymous social feed that shows posts from users nearby — popular on university campuses. Raised ~$6.8M (backers include Quora/early-Facebook CTO Adam D'Angelo and Floodgate). Represents Berlin's consumer social-media/community scene. - **link:** https://jodel.com - **vertical:** ["Media"] - **stage:** Seed / early --- ## FLAGGED — NOT Berlin-HQ'd (excluded from count, listed for reference) - **Flightright — Philipp Kadelbach** — Legaltech (EU261 flight-delay compensation, no-win-no-fee, €200M+ enforced). **HQ = Potsdam, Brandenburg** (Berlin metro but not Berlin city). Founded 2010. Flagged per Berlin-HQ-only rule. - **EverReal — Liviu Ignat & Nessim Djerboua** — Proptech rental-transaction platform. **HQ = Munich**, not Berlin. Founded 2017. Excluded. - **GoStudent — Felix Ohswald & Gregor Müller** — Edtech 1:1 video tutoring, Europe's first edtech unicorn (~$3B). **HQ = Vienna, Austria**. Founded 2016. Excluded per task note. --- ## Notes - **Record count (Berlin-HQ verified): 20** — Gaming 4, Proptech 4, Legaltech 2, Edtech 4, HR-tech 4, Media 2. - **Indian-origin-founder flag:** None identified among these 20 companies. Founders are predominantly German, plus Icelandic (Klang), Spanish (Kenjo), and Dutch (Babbel co-founder Diepstraten). - **Relevant VCs seen repeatedly across these records:** Target Global, Earlybird, Project A Ventures, Cavalry Ventures, Notion Capital, Redalpine, HV Capital, Acton Capital, Northzone, Makers Fund, Novator, IBB Ventures / IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft, Axel Springer (strategic), Summit Partners, Tiger Global, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Sofina, Verdane, PropTech1 Ventures, Heartcore Capital, Global Founders Capital, Creathor Ventures. - Coordinates are locality-level; several companies use Berlin centroid (52.52, 13.405) where a specific district was not confirmed.
Founded 2014, Jodel is a hyper-local, profile-free anonymous social feed that shows posts from users nearby — popular on university campuses. Raised ~$6.8M (backers include Quora/early-Facebook CTO Adam D'An...
Richard Birich, Max Grollmann & Lukas Puls
Founded 2020, JUCR is a vertically integrated EV-charging startup offering access to Europe's charging networks through a single app on a monthly flat-rate subscription, while building its own hardware and s...
Richard Birich, Max Grollmann, Lukas Puls
** Founded 2020, JUCR aggregates 330,000+ charge points in one app and is building proprietary AC charging hardware/software, targeting 100,000 charge points across Europe. Raised ~€33M total (€1.5M pre-seed...
David Padilla & Gonzalo Abruña" - **venue:** Berlin - **la:** 52.52 - **ln:** 13.405 - **desc:** Founded 2019, Kenjo is an all-in-one HR software for SMEs, with a distinctive focus on frontline workers in manufacturing, retail, logistics and healthcare. Raised an €8.8M Series A in 2023 (Hi Inov, Redalpine) for ~$15M total; serves 1,000+ companies with offices in Berlin, Madrid, Zurich and Mexico City. - **link:** https://www.kenjo.io - **vertical:** ["HR-tech"] - **stage:** Series A --- ## Media ### M1 — Native Instruments — Stephan Schmitt & Volker Hinz -
Founded 2019, Kenjo is an all-in-one HR software for SMEs, with a distinctive focus on frontline workers in manufacturing, retail, logistics and healthcare. Raised an €8.8M Series A in 2023 (Hi Inov, Redalpi...
Daniel Volz, Enrique Solano, Tobias Grab
Founded 2021. Quantum-software company designing application- and hardware-specific quantum algorithms that run on today's commercial quantum processors (pharma, chemicals, logistics, finance). Raised €10.5M...
Mundi Vondi, Oddur Snær Magnússon & Ívar Emilsson" - **venue:** Berlin - **la:** 52.52 - **ln:** 13.405 - **desc:** Founded 2015 by three Icelanders, Klang builds large-scale simulation games, most notably SEED, a persistent MMO society simulator. Raised a $41M Series C in 2022 (co-led by Animoca Brands and Kingsway Capital), taking total funding to roughly $80M across Series A–C (Northzone, Makers Fund, Novator, Supercell). - **link:** https://www.klang-games.com - **vertical:** ["Gaming"] - **stage:** Series C ### G4 — Kolibri Games — Daniel Stammler, Janosch Sadowski, Tim Reiter, Oliver Löffler & Sebastian Karasek -
Founded 2015 by three Icelanders, Klang builds large-scale simulation games, most notably SEED, a persistent MMO society simulator. Raised a $41M Series C in 2022 (co-led by Animoca Brands and Kingsway Capit...
Daniel Stammler, Janosch Sadowski, Tim Reiter, Oliver Löffler & Sebastian Karasek" - **venue:** Berlin - **la:** 52.52 - **ln:** 13.405 - **desc:** Founded 2016 (originally Fluffy Fairy Games), Kolibri makes idle mobile games; its flagship Idle Miner Tycoon surpassed 100M+ downloads. Ubisoft acquired a 75% majority stake in February 2020 at a ~€160M valuation, with an option to move to 100%. Was cited by the FT as Europe's fastest-growing game studio. - **link:** https://www.kolibrigames.com - **vertical:** ["Gaming"] - **stage:** Acquired (Ubisoft, 2020) --- ## Proptech ### P1 — McMakler — Felix Jahn, Hanno Heintzenberg & Lukas Pieczonka -
Founded 2016 (originally Fluffy Fairy Games), Kolibri makes idle mobile games; its flagship Idle Miner Tycoon surpassed 100M+ downloads. Ubisoft acquired a 75% majority stake in February 2020 at a ~€160M val...
Constantinos Calios, Robert Schanz (Piran Asci)
Founded 2014, a D2C natural-food brand selling pantry staples, dried fruits and nuts in bulk to strip out intermediary markups and packaging waste. Raised a €50M Series B (2022, HV Capital / Partech / Five S...
Open-source LLM observability and analytics platform (tracing, evals, prompt management) for teams shipping AI products. YC-backed, founded 2022; a fast-rising Berlin AI-developer-tools name.
Fabian Wunderlich & Felix Wunderlich" - **venue:** Berlin - **la:** 52.52 - **ln:** 13.405 - **desc:** Founded 2012 by brothers Fabian and Felix Wunderlich, Lingoda is an online language school delivering live, small-group and 1:1 classes with real teachers over video. Raised €57M growth funding in 2021 led by Summit Partners, taking total investment past €70M. - **link:** https://www.lingoda.com - **vertical:** ["Edtech"] - **stage:** Growth ### E3 — Sofatutor — Stephan Bayer & Andreas Spading -
Founded 2012 by brothers Fabian and Felix Wunderlich, Lingoda is an online language school delivering live, small-group and 1:1 classes with real teachers over video. Raised €57M growth funding in 2021 led b...
Daniel Seidel, Sven Przywarra
Founded 2018 (TU Berlin). AI-powered satellite / Earth-observation analytics for monitoring linear infrastructure — power grids, rail, pipelines and supply chains — turning high-res imagery into risk recomme...
Felix Jahn, Hanno Heintzenberg & Lukas Pieczonka" - **venue:** Berlin - **la:** 52.52 - **ln:** 13.405 - **desc:** Founded 2015 by Felix Jahn (CEO), McMakler is a hybrid digital real-estate brokerage combining salaried agents with proprietary tech to cut listing costs. Raised a record €50M Series C in 2019 (Target Global, Israel Growth Partners) and further large rounds through 2022; total funding roughly $180M+. One of Europe's best-funded proptechs. - **link:** https://www.mcmakler.de - **vertical:** ["Proptech"] - **stage:** Series C ### P2 — Homeday — Steffen Wicker, Dmitri Uvarovski & Philipp Reichle -
Founded 2015 by Felix Jahn (CEO), McMakler is a hybrid digital real-estate brokerage combining salaried agents with proprietary tech to cut listing costs. Raised a record €50M Series C in 2019 (Target Global...
Rasmus Rothe, Adrian Locher
Founded 2016. Europe's first AI venture studio; builds and backs AI companies from Berlin and runs the 6,000 m² Merantix AI Campus (launched 2021), home to 80+ AI teams and 300+ events/year — the anchor of B...
Merantix Group
Berlin's central AI community hub (launched 2021, 6,000 m²): 80+ resident AI teams, 300+ events/year, co-located with Merantix Momentum and portfolio startups. Together with TU Berlin, DFKI, HTW and the ai.b...
Rasmus Rothe (Merantix)
The applied-AI/enterprise arm of the Merantix group. Designs, builds and operates custom AI systems (from research to production) for enterprises and the public sector across industries, including generative...
CJ Simon-Gabriel, Florian Wenzel
Founded 2023 by two ex-Amazon AI-lab researchers (and musicians). Builds foundation models that generate synchronized sound effects for AI-generated and uploaded video, tackling the 'silent video' problem in...
Dirk Graber, Björn Sykora, Philipp Frenkel, Thilo Hardt (Lukasz Gadowski)
Founded 2007 (shop live 2008), Europe's leading digital omnichannel eyewear brand — online prescription glasses plus a growing store network. ~€164M revenue (2020). IPO'd on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in J...
Christian Wegner
Founded 2004 (momox.de live 2006), Europe's largest re-commerce platform, buying and reselling used books, media, electronics and fashion (momox fashion, US brand medimops). Bootstrapped from €1,500; later P...
Roy Uhlmann, Adam Bahlke
** Founded 2017, MOTOR Ai builds "explainable," certification-ready Level-4 autonomous driving software using Active Inference (computational neuroscience) rather than conventional ML. In July 2025 raised a ...
Fair-code workflow-automation platform blending AI agents with business-process automation; one of Berlin's hottest AI stories. Raised a ~$180M (€154.9M) Series C in Oct 2025 amid explosive open-source growth.
Stephan Schmitt & Volker Hinz" - **venue:** Schlesische Str., Kreuzberg - **la:** 52.4989 - **ln:** 13.4463 - **desc:** Founded 1999 in Berlin, Native Instruments is a global music-production software and hardware maker (Kontakt, Reaktor, Traktor, Maschine). A cornerstone of Berlin's music-tech/creator economy; HQ and main R&D remain in Kreuzberg, with a 2026 acquisition by inMusic Brands reported. - **link:** https://www.native-instruments.com - **vertical:** ["Media"] - **stage:** Late-stage / acquired (inMusic, 2026) ### M2 — Jodel — Alessio Borgmeyer -
Founded 1999 in Berlin, Native Instruments is a global music-production software and hardware maker (Kontakt, Reaktor, Traktor, Maschine). A cornerstone of Berlin's music-tech/creator economy; HQ and main R&...
René Haas & Silvain Toromanoff
Founded 2021, NeoCarbon retrofits Direct Air Capture (DAC) modules into existing industrial cooling towers, reusing their airflow and waste heat to slash the cost of pulling CO2 from the atmosphere. It has r...
Leif-Nissen Lundbæk, Michael Huth
Founded 2017 (spun from Oxford/Imperial research). Europe's first 'sovereign' legal AI — its own Legal Language Model plus a Legal Copilot, built with a Legal AI Alliance (CMS, C.H.Beck). Rebranded from Xayn...
Feiyu Xu, Hans Uszkoreit
Founded 2023 by Dr. Feiyu Xu (ex-SVP & Head of AI at SAP; Chinese-origin) with DFKI's Prof. Hans Uszkoreit. Building European, industry-focused foundation models / LLMs tuned to Europe's cultural and legal c...
Naren Shaam [INDIAN-ORIGIN FOUNDER]
** Founded 2013 as GoEuro by Indian-born, Harvard-MBA entrepreneur Naren Shaam, Omio is a multimodal travel comparison/booking platform (trains, buses, flights, ferries). Rebranded to Omio in 2019 and acquir...
Matthias Martensen & Karl Villanueva
Founded 2021, Ostrom is a digital 100%-green energy retailer with an app-first, smart-meter-based tariff that lets households manage contracts and smart devices and shift consumption to cheap/green hours. It...
Marius Meiners, Tobias Siwona, Daniel Drabo
Founded 2025 (team met at Antler Berlin). Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) analytics — tracks whether and how brands appear in ChatGPT and other AI search engines, benchmarking vs competitors. Explosive ...
Lubomila Jordanova & Nathan Bonnisseau
Founded 2017, Plan A is a SaaS corporate carbon-accounting and decarbonization platform covering scope 1/2/3 emissions, target-setting and regulation-compliant ESG reporting. It raised USD 27M (2023) from Li...
AI 'receptionist' for medical practices — handles inbound calls, appointment booking and admin so clinics reduce no-shows and phone load. Raised ~$6.7M seed (Oct 2025). Berlin health × applied-AI startup.
Kai Seefried & co-founders
Founded 2010, a product-content / feed-management and commerce-integration SaaS (retail-tech e-commerce enabler) syndicating product data across marketplaces, ads and marketplaces. 270+ employees serving 900...
Florian Heinemann, Uwe Horstmann & partners
Founded 2012, a leading Berlin early-stage 'operational VC' with 130+ portfolio teams and hands-on go-to-market/e-commerce support. Deep consumer & commerce DNA (partners ex-Rocket Internet). Largest fund ~$...
Tushar Ahluwalia, Christoph Gamon, Shrestha Chowdhury
Founded 2020, Europe's leading Amazon-FBA / e-commerce brand aggregator and 'consolidator of consolidators'. Raised $400M+ and reached unicorn status; in April 2023 acquired Berlin rival The Stryze Group, an...
Lawrence Leuschner, Olivier Mackovic, Daniel Freudenberger
Founded 2004 (originally trade-a-game), a re-commerce marketplace for refurbished electronics and media — buy-back, refurbish and resell. One of Germany's earliest circular-economy consumer platforms; CEO Ph...
NewSpace startup (founded 2021) building rapid, dual-use, secure-by-design small satellites for LEO. Closed a ~€50M Series A — the largest European NewSpace round of its kind. Design centre is in Berlin; not...
Elias Aruna (CEO & co-founder)
Founded January 2024, Scale Energy deploys industrial battery storage at existing grid connections to build what it bills as Europe's largest decentralized battery-energy-storage network. It raised a EUR 2M ...
David Nothacker, Nicolaus Schefenacker, Julius Köhler
Founded 2015, Europe's leading digital road-freight forwarder connecting shippers with truck carriers (e-commerce/retail supply-chain enabler). Merged with France's Everoad and Poste Italiane's freight unit;...
David Nothacker, Julius Köhler, Nicolaus Schefenacker
** Founded 2015, sennder is Berlin's digital road-freight forwarder connecting enterprise shippers with mid-size trucking fleets, reducing empty runs. Reached unicorn status in Jan 2021 ($1B+, Series D led b...
Raphael Fellmer, Martin Schott
Founded 2017, a food-waste 'rescue' retailer selling surplus, near-expiry and cosmetically-imperfect groceries online and via stores at up to 80% off. Impact-driven (co-founder behind foodsharing.de). Filed ...
Stephan Bayer & Andreas Spading" - **venue:** Berlin - **la:** 52.52 - **ln:** 13.405 - **desc:** Founded 2008, Sofatutor is the German-speaking world's most comprehensive K-12 online learning platform (10,000+ tutorial videos, 43,000+ exercises). Backed by Acton Capital and Cornelsen; majority acquired by Emeram Capital Partners and Gimv in 2021. Expanded via acquisitions of Kursinsel and France's SchoolMouv (2026). - **link:** https://www.sofatutor.com - **vertical:** ["Edtech"] - **stage:** PE-backed / growth ### E4 — Blinkist — Holger Seim, Niklas Jansen, Sebastian Klein & Tobias Balling -
Founded 2008, Sofatutor is the German-speaking world's most comprehensive K-12 online learning platform (10,000+ tutorial videos, 43,000+ exercises). Backed by Acton Capital and Cornelsen; majority acquired ...
Banking-as-a-Service platform providing licensed embedded-finance rails (accounts, cards, lending) to other companies. Raised ~$146.7M (Feb 2025). Berlin drove ~89% of German fintech investment in 2024 and S...
AI-driven loitering-munition / strike-drone maker founded 2024, selling to the Bundeswehr and NATO states. Raised ~€500M Series C (co-led by Sequoia and Founders Fund; NATO Innovation Fund among backers) at ...
Marc-Alexander Christ, Daniel Klein, Stefan Jeschonnek, Jan Deepen & co-founders
Founded 2012, a card-reader / POS / merchant-payments and business-banking provider powering small merchants across 30+ markets (retail-tech / commerce enabler). DUAL-HQ FLAG: operates Berlin (SumUp Services...
Hakob Astabatsyan, Albert Astabatsyan, Sassun Mirzakhan-Saky
Founded 2023 (Armenian-origin founding team). No-code platform to build, deploy and scale natural-sounding enterprise voice AI agents for phone automation. Raised a €17.2M Series A led by Accel (with Atlanti...
Founded 2024. Builds AI voice agents that collaborate with humans in call-center / call operations, automating outbound and inbound phone workflows. Raised a €3.1M round (Apr 2025) to grow its human-plus-age...
Grid-scale battery-storage developer/operator monetising flexibility on energy markets (founded 2021). Uses debt + venture financing to build renewable storage hardware — part of Berlin's growing energy-stor...
Sebastian Funke, Sascha Krause, Taro Niggemann, Mark Hartmann
Founded December 2020, a D2C brand-holding / Amazon-FBA aggregator building and scaling e-commerce brands across pull (Amazon) and push (social) channels. Raised $100M; acquired by fellow Berlin aggregator R...
Marek Slavik (founder); Ulrich Ehmes (CEO)
Founded 2020 in the Berlin-Adlershof technology park, theion develops 'crystal battery' lithium-sulfur cell technology promising far higher energy density and lower cost/CO2 than lithium-ion, targeting aviat...
Philipp Pausder, Florian Tetzlaff & Kristofer Fichtner
Founded 2012/2013, Thermondo is Germany's largest heat-pump and heating-systems installer, digitizing the home heat-transition from lead to install. Majority-acquired by Brookfield in 2021, it secured a fres...
Lawrence Leuschner, Matthias Laug, Julian Blessin
** Founded 2018, Tier is the anchor of Berlin's micromobility scene — Europe's largest shared e-scooter, e-bike and e-moped operator, having raised ~$667M (SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Mubadala, Northzone). In Ja...
(founding team)
Founded ~2022, a B2B market-network / AI-powered platform for food & beverage sourcing connecting brands, suppliers and buyers. Raised an oversubscribed €2.7M seed in April 2024 — a recent Berlin foodtech/re...
Julian Stiefel, Julian Weselek
** Founded 2016, Tourlane plans and books customized, expert-made multi-day trips. Backed by Sequoia and Spark Capital (Series C, $47M, 2019); raised a €25M Series D in Nov 2024 led by Sequoia (with Target G...
Geospatial developer platform and marketplace to build, run and scale earth-observation products. Founded in Berlin in 2019; an Airbus Defence & Space subsidiary. A core node in Berlin's spacetech/geospatial...
Investment API / infrastructure letting fintechs and banks embed stock, ETF and crypto investing. Raised ~$104.6M (Dec 2024). Part of Berlin's dense embedded-finance stack alongside Solaris and Trade Republic.
Jonas Muff, Stefan Bunk
Founded 2018 out of the Merantix AI venture studio. AI + workflow software supporting radiologists in breast-cancer mammography screening; raised ~$8.9M. A 2024/25 landmark German real-world study demonstrat...
Thomas von der Ohe, Fabrizio Scelsi, Bogdan Djukic
Founded 2018. Teledriving: automotive-grade tech letting a remote 'teledriver' control an EV, enabling driverless car-sharing without onboard safety drivers. Launched first US commercial service in Las Vegas...
Thomas von der Ohe, Fabrizio Scelsi, Bogdan Djukic
** Founded 2018, Vay pioneers "teledriving" — remotely-piloted electric cars delivered door-to-door, where a human teledriver drives the car to the customer, positioned as a pragmatic path to autonomy. Raise...
Alternative-protein foodtech (founded 2018) making pea-protein plant-based milk and dairy alternatives, sold across German retail. Represents Berlin's agritech/foodtech and sustainable-consumer niche.
Nico Szeli, Nils Aschmann, Fabian Sedlmayr
** Founded 2018, Warehousing1 is a LogTech platform offering networked, cloud-managed fulfillment and warehousing across 1,000+ partner locations in Europe and the US (500+ e-commerce customers). Raised a €1...
Jens Begemann, Patrick Paulisch & Philipp Moeser" - **venue:** Stralauer Allee 16, Friedrichshain - **la:** 52.5026 - **ln:** 13.4547 - **desc:** Founded 2009 (name = "World of Gaming"), Wooga began with Facebook social games before pivoting to mobile in 2011. Its narrative-driven hidden-object hit June's Journey (2017) became a top-grossing title aimed at casual gamers. Acquired by Israel's Playtika for over $200M in December 2018; still operates as a Berlin studio of ~300 people. - **link:** https://www.wooga.com - **vertical:** ["Gaming"] - **stage:** Acquired (Playtika, 2018) ### G2 — Yager Development — Timo Ullmann & co-founders -
Founded 2009 (name = "World of Gaming"), Wooga began with Facebook social games before pivoting to mobile in 2011. Its narrative-driven hidden-object hit June's Journey (2017) became a top-grossing title aim...
Global-employment / Employer-of-Record HR-tech platform (founded 2020) for compliant international hiring and remote-team management. A leading Berlin HR-tech name in the EOR category.
Daria Saharova, Danijel Višević, Tim Schumacher & Craig Douglas
Founded 2021, World Fund is Europe's largest climate-tech VC, closing a milestone EUR 300M fund in March 2024 (the largest first-time climate fund in European VC history). It uses an in-house science-based '...
Jan Hase & Arkadi Jampolski" - **venue:** Berlin - **la:** 52.52 - **ln:** 13.405 - **desc:** Founded 2015, Wunderflats is Germany's leading marketplace for mid-term furnished rentals (one month+), connecting tenants, owners and companies. Raised ~$34M total, including a €17.8M growth round led by Verdane in 2021 (with PropTech1, Creathor, IBB Ventures, Axel Springer). - **link:** https://wunderflats.com - **vertical:** ["Proptech"] - **stage:** Growth / Series B ### P4 — Habyt — Luca Bovone -
Founded 2015, Wunderflats is Germany's leading marketplace for mid-term furnished rentals (one month+), connecting tenants, owners and companies. Raised ~$34M total, including a €17.8M growth round led by Ve...
Timo Ullmann, Uwe Beneke, Roman Golka, Philipp Schellbach & Mathias Wiese" - **venue:** Kreuzberg - **la:** 52.4998 - **ln:** 13.4033 - **desc:** Founded 1999 by five friends from East Berlin, Yager is one of Germany's largest independent game developers (~130 staff). Best known for Spec Ops: The Line (2012) and its own PvPvE extraction shooter The Cycle: Frontier (Early Access 2019; full release 2022). Remains independently held in Berlin-Kreuzberg. - **link:** https://yager.de - **vertical:** ["Gaming"] - **stage:** Independent / self-funded ### G3 — Klang Games — Mundi Vondi, Oddur Snær Magnússon & Ívar Emilsson -
Founded 1999 by five friends from East Berlin, Yager is one of Germany's largest independent game developers (~130 staff). Best known for Spec Ops: The Line (2012) and its own PvPvE extraction shooter The Cy...
Robert Gentz, David Schneider (later Rubin Ritter)
Founded 2008 as a Zappos-style online shoe shop run out of a Torstraße apartment. Now Europe's largest online fashion & lifestyle platform, serving ~50M active customers across 25+ markets. IPO'd on the Fran...
Fritz Trott, Arvid Seeberg-Elverfeldt, Cihan Aksakal, Frederik Fahning & Cornelius v. Rantzau" - **venue:** Berlin - **la:** 52.52 - **ln:** 13.405 - **desc:** Founded 2015/2016, Zenjob is a digital staffing marketplace matching students and flexible workers to shifts in logistics, retail, hospitality and events; it directly employs the temps and handles payroll/admin. Raised a $50M Series D in 2022; 40,000+ workers active monthly across its markets. - **link:** https://www.zenjob.com - **vertical:** ["HR-tech"] - **stage:** Series D ### H2 — HeyJobs — Marius Luther & Marius Jeuck -
Founded 2015/2016, Zenjob is a digital staffing marketplace matching students and flexible workers to shifts in logistics, retail, hospitality and events; it directly employs the temps and handles payroll/ad...
Alex Melzer & Gregor Loukidis
Founded 2016, Zolar is a digital platform for residential solar-plus-storage, letting homeowners configure and finance PV systems online. It raised a EUR 100M Series C in 2024 led by Energy Impact Partners a...
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Who funds founders in Berlin
The funding ladder here, from a first angel cheque up to later-stage funds. Jump to a rung, or browse the list.
Operator angels 4
Often a founder's first cheque, from operators who've built here.
Serial Berlin founder (Wunderlist, sold to Microsoft 2015; Pitch; Superlist) and one of the city's most active angels. Personal bets and advisory roles include Lilium, Notion, Onefootball and Neufund. Emblematic of the Berlin founder-tur...
Co-founder and co-CEO of Berlin neobank N26 (one of Europe's largest mobile banks) and an active angel across ~20+ startups. Represents the N26 alumni/fintech-founder angel cohort now seeding the next generation of Berlin fintech and con...
WHU graduate and one of Rocket Internet's first Managing Directors (2007–2009), later founder of Home24 and McMakler; a prolific business angel. Personal investments include Zalando, Auto1 Group and HomeToGo — a textbook example of the R...
German esports pioneer (founded ESL/Electronic Sports League in 2000) and founding GP of BITKRAFT Ventures, also active as an angel and repeat founder (Bayes/Dojo Madness). Anchors Berlin's globally significant gaming/esports investor cl...
Venture capital firms 19
Multi-stage firms that lead Series A and beyond.
One of Europe's most active early-stage VCs, founded 2012 in Berlin, managing ~€1.2bn AUM. Fund V (€325m) backs pre-seed and seed startups in AI, fintech, defence and supply-chain software with €1m–€8m first cheques, plus 100+ in-house o...
Founder-first seed VC founded 2012 by ex-Zalando operators Filip Dames, Christian Meermann and Daniel Glasner; raised a €300m fund and later a $500m platform. Invests early across climate, fintech, e-commerce and software with heavy foll...
Seed specialist founded 2008, laser-focused on B2B SaaS and B2B marketplaces with €0.5m–€5m tickets; raised a €180m seed fund. Over 65% of its seed bets reach Series A and 13+ have hit unicorn status. Portfolio includes Zendesk, Contentf...
B2B-focused early-stage VC founded 2019 by Robert Lacher (La Famiglia co-founder) and Sebastian Pollok, running paired seed and growth funds (€400m+ raised). Backed by a network of European family-office and unicorn-founder LPs. GP Judit...
Deep-tech VC founded 2020 by ex-Rocket Internet / HelloFresh / Mesosphere operators Ludwig Ensthaler, Florian Leibert and Alexander Kudlich; started with a €170m fund, now $1.3bn+ raised. Invests in AI & automation, infrastructure/enterp...
Multi-stage German VC founded 1997, ~€2.5bn AUM across seed–Series B (€0.5m–€15m cheques) in fintech, SaaS, digital health, deep tech and climate. Split across Berlin and Munich offices. Long track record includes N26, UiPath, Peak Games...
MUNICH-HQ (ex-Holtzbrinck Ventures), founded 2000, independent since 2010, with a Berlin office and €2.8bn AUM across nine fund generations. All-stage investor from €0.5m seed to €100m follow-ons in fintech, SaaS, consumer marketplaces, ...
Berlin-based global early-stage VC founded 2013 by Rocket Internet's Oliver Samwer; since April 2024 invests exclusively off Rocket Internet's balance sheet. Sector-agnostic seed and follow-on investor with a globe-spanning office networ...
Pan-European multi-stage firm headquartered in Berlin, founded 2012, with €3bn+ AUM and offices in London, Tel Aviv and Barcelona. Invests seed to pre-IPO across fintech, consumer, enterprise, AI and marketplaces. 15 unicorns backed incl...
Elite B2B early-stage fund founded 2015, known for enterprise, logistics, fintech, sustainability and defence bets; merged with US giant General Catalyst in 2024, giving GC its first major continental-Europe footprint while keeping the B...
Berlin VC founded 2014 running multiple thesis-specific funds (fintech via VR Ventures, proptech via Tane, industrial via Future Industry Ventures, plus a venture-debt fund). Primarily seed and Series A across fintech, medtech, deep-tech...
Berlin pre-seed/seed specialist led by serial founder-investor Christophe Maire (two-time TechCrunch 'European Seed Investor of the Year'), writing €25k–€5m+ cheques across AI & compute, energy & climate, industrial & robotics and space ...
Berlin pre-seed/seed firm with €260m+ AUM, leading rounds of €0.5m–€4m in B2B SaaS and infrastructure (HR, sales, legal tech) often pre-product. Sources via a 250+ person operator network. Portfolio includes Aleph Alpha, Forto, PlanRadar...
Berlin enterprise-software VC founded 2017 with a €100m fund, investing €1m–€5m at seed and Series A into B2B software across all enterprise segments in Europe. ~26 investments to date. Portfolio includes Mercanis, Kodex AI, Automation H...
Leading European pre-seed/seed VC (HQ Vienna) with a Berlin office at Schwedter Str., running specialist teams across fintech, deep tech, industrial tech, marketplaces, health and climate. 400+ investments. Notable bets include Bitpanda,...
Gaming, esports and interactive-media investment platform founded 2015 by ESL founder Jens Hilgers, now $1bn+ AUM across six specialist funds spanning gaming, web3 and AI. Deep operator DNA from pro esports; 130+ portfolio companies. Ber...
MUNICH-HQ privately-financed VC founded 2015, with Berlin, New York, London and Bangalore offices — the India office giving it an eChai-relevant cross-border edge. Invests pre-seed through growth in energy/climate, fintech, enterprise in...
BONN-HQ deep-tech seed investor founded 2009 by Frank Thelen and partners, doing only a few high-conviction seed deals a year with 360-degree hands-on support across aerospace, AI, robotics, biotech and clean energy. Best known as an ear...
MUNICH-HQ founder-collective VC established 2021 by six serial entrepreneurs (incl. Felix Haas, Jan Becker), backing pre-seed to Series A with €0.5m–€2.5m cheques plus a 200+ entrepreneur / 50 super-angel network. Enterprise applications...
Cross-border (India-linked) funds 3
India-linked funds that bridge founders to global markets.
Berlin-based global construction/'project economy' VC led by Managing Partners Shubhankar Bhattacharya (Indian-origin GP covering APAC/India) and Patric Hellermann, investing across 22 countries in construction materials, CAD/engineering...
Not a fund but the key Indo-German ecosystem bridge — launched 2017, run from Berlin by Beyond Borders Innovation BBI GmbH with Indian partner PrimedinFabrik, and backed by Germany's BMWK. Connects Indian and German startups, investors a...
The India venture arm of German media/services group Bertelsmann (est. 2012), with $500m committed and $5m–$15m first cheques leading Series A–D rounds; sector-agnostic across healthtech, fintech, agritech and edtech. A direct German-cap...
Incubators & accelerators in Berlin
Incubators, accelerators, corporate programs and institutions. Jump to a type, or browse the list.
Accelerators 8
The anchor early-stage investor of Berlin, a joint venture of Axel Springer and Porsche launched in 2018. Originally a tailor-made accelerator, APX evolved into a very-early-stage (pre-seed) investor putting up to €500K into startups bef...
Berlin's pioneering corporate accelerator (2013-2017), a joint venture between publisher Axel Springer and Silicon Valley's Plug and Play. It was the first investor in more than 100 startups, most notably fintech unicorn N26. The program...
Techstars ran a flagship European accelerator in Berlin from 2015, plus the corporate METRO Accelerator powered by Techstars focused on hospitality, food and restaurant tech in partnership with wholesaler METRO AG. The three-month, mento...
Deutsche Telekom's tech incubator, founded in Berlin in 2012 and one of the oldest in Europe. It offers startups investment, coworking, mentoring and access to Telekom's infrastructure (5G, IoT, AI) and customer base, operating out of Be...
Berlin health-tech incubator (since 2019) supporting first-time founders in a 10-month program with equity-free scholarships of up to €80,000 per team (€2,000 per person per month), free coworking and a network of medical and tech expert...
Berlin arm of the global Startupbootcamp accelerator network, launched 2014, running programs in Smart Transportation & Energy and Digital Health. The three-month, cohort-based program provides mentorship, funding and office space plus a...
The first of SAP's global network of equity-free corporate accelerators in Europe (part of SAP.iO, created 2017). Runs twice-yearly themed cohorts (data & analytics, Industry 4.0, machine learning) giving B2B startups access to SAP techn...
Deutsche Bahn's mobility and logistics accelerator and ecosystem hub, evolved from DB Digital Ventures (2016) and originally run with Plug and Play as a 100-day program. Startups work on-site at DB mindbox coworking space in Berlin; back...
University & research 3
The central startup-support hub of Technische Universität Berlin, running a structured 6-18 month incubator described as unique in Germany, plus a StarTUp School qualification program. Supports up to 30 science- and research-based projec...
Digital-health accelerator run by the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (since 2017), supporting research and clinical teams from Charité — Universitätsmedizin Berlin in turning ideas into market-ready digital-health and medtech prod...
The Berlin campus of pan-European ESCP Business School, ranked first in Germany for startups created per 10,000 students (TUM Entrepreneurship Report) and awarded 'Best Program in Entrepreneurship Education' by La French Tech Berlin. Its...
Government & public 3
Germany's flagship federal startup-funding program, run by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) and co-financed by the European Social Fund since 1998; it has supported 5,000+ startups. Components include t...
Berlin's public business, innovation and technology promotion agency (a public-private partnership backed by the State of Berlin, chambers and companies). Its Berlin Startup Unit is the central point of contact for founders — offering fu...
The venture-capital arm of Investitionsbank Berlin (the public state development bank), investing in Berlin startups since 1997 (rebranded IBB Ventures in 2020). Operates from pre-seed to Series A in ICT, life science, industrial technol...
Coworking spaces in Berlin
Where founders and early teams set up.
The iconic Berlin startup campus, opened 2014 in a former brewery on Rheinsberger Straße by the Berlin Wall Memorial, later expanding to a 14,000 sqm Görlitzer Park site (2018-2024). It hosted major members including Zalando, SoundCloud ...
Europe's first coworking space, founded in 2009, with its HQ and 'heart and soul' in Kreuzberg (plus a Moritzplatz location). A community of 500+ entrepreneurs, freelancers, makers and early-stage founders, known for its weekly betabreak...
The legendary founder café and 'homeoffice of Berlin startups,' founded in 2005 by Ansgar Oberholz and Koulla Louca as the world's first working café — years before coworking went mainstream. Housed in the historic 1898 Aschinger buildin...
Global boutique coworking operator with six design-led Berlin locations, including flagship spaces at the Hilton on Gendarmenmarkt, the historic Salingerhaus on Krausenstraße, Münzstraße in Mitte, Ku'damm in City West and a former paper ...
The global flexible-workspace giant operates several Berlin locations, most prominently at the landmark Sony Center on Potsdamer Platz, alongside sites across Mitte, Charlottenburg and Kreuzberg. Provides coworking desks, private offices...
Europe's largest mobility innovation community and marketplace, opened in 2019 (founder Timon Rupp) in the historic Ullsteinhaus with 10,000+ sqm. Home to 130+ mobility startups (early members include TIER, AIPARK and LiangDao), it offer...
Startup communities & events in Berlin
The wider scene eChai is part of: communities, recurring meetups and annual conferences. Jump to a type, or browse the list.
Women founders in Berlin
Women building companies here, and the founder networks and funds backing them.
Danish entrepreneur based in Berlin who co-founded period- and cycle-tracking app Clue in 2012 (with Hans Raffauf, Moritz von Buttlar, Mike LaVigne). She is credited with COINING THE TERM 'FEMTECH' (c. 2016)...
Co-founders of Ooia, a bootstrapped femtech/sustainability brand making period underwear with an integrated membrane. A record-breaking crowdfunding campaign hit its goal within hours; ~30+ employees. The fo...
Founded sextech/e-commerce brand Amorelie in Berlin in 2013, scaling it into a mainstream household name before exiting. Now one of Germany's most visible female angels/operators and co-host (with Verena Pau...
Founder of kids' edtech studio Fox & Sheep and the HABA Digital Workshops, and since Dec 2023 Chairwoman of the German Startup Association (Startupverband) — the most prominent institutional voice for founde...
Co-founded Berlin digital agency 'Torben, Lucie und die gelbe Gefahr' (TLGG) in 2008. Became Germany's youngest female supervisory board member and is a high-profile keynote speaker and author campaigning fo...
Founder/CEO of Global Digital Women, a network and consultancy amplifying women and diversity in tech across the DACH region. Turkish-German entrepreneur, investor and one of the most-followed voices on fema...
Physicist and co-founder/COO of Berlin blockchain infrastructure firm Gnosis — a rare senior woman founder in the male-dominated web3/deeptech space. Also a public advocate for women in crypto and decentrali...
German-Swedish non-profit foundation (HQ Stockholm + Berlin) pushing for more women and diversity in executive/board positions. Publishes closely-watched 'AllBright reports' tracking female representation in...
An ~8-month equity-free accelerator for early-stage female founders and mixed-gender teams, offering a monthly grant (~€2,200), mentorship and tailored support. One of Berlin's dedicated pipelines addressing...
Public-sector support closing the diversity gap. EXIST Women is a ~10-month mentoring/qualification program (scholarship, coaching, ~€2,000 material budget + ~€2,500 stipend). The Berlin Senate's Gründerinne...
Female Entrepreneurship in Berlin and India (FEBI), launched 2018 by the Berlin Senate with GIZ, supports women-led companies across both regions via networking, training and delegation trips. Runs alongside...
Free, curated startup-to-angel matching platform (co-founded by Arnas Bräutigam) targeting Germany's opaque angel market (10,000+ mostly part-time angels). Its 'startupdetector' data tool surfaces new compan...
Startup neighbourhoods in Berlin
The neighbourhoods where the city's founders cluster.
The central district and the historic startup core: Silicon Allee's campus at Chausseestrasse, agencies, funds and a dense band of early-stage teams.
22 companies 1 investor 10 coworking
Strong in Fintech, Foodtech
The creative, international heart of the scene: the Merantix AI Campus sits here, alongside product, design and a lot of the newer AI cohort.
19 companies 4 coworking
Strong in Fintech, Edtech
The Mediaspree riverfront where Zalando and a row of tech HQs sit, the 'Silicon Spree' stretch of scaled-up Berlin companies.
4 companies
Strong in Ecommerce, Gaming
A quieter northern district with a steady founder and operator population, spilling over from Mitte.
3 companies
Strong in Fintech, SaaS
The media-and-tech quarter around Axel Springer: home to APX, the accelerator that was N26's first backer, and a hub for corporate innovation.
3 companies 1 coworking
Strong in Proptech, Media
Answers about the Berlin startup scene
What does the startup ecosystem in Berlin look like?
Berlin is Europe's consumer-tech and fintech capital, commonly ranked the region's number two hub. Fintech runs on N26 and Trade Republic; the Zalando, HelloFresh, Delivery Hero and Gorillas quick-commerce big four were all born here; and there is real depth in mobility (Tier, sennder, GetYourGuide), climate and energy (Enpal), and a fresh pair of AI unicorns, Parloa and n8n. The vertical pages above map who is building what.
Is eChai active in Berlin?
Not yet. eChai lists Berlin as a chapter but it is currently dormant, with no track record of held meetups. This page is a map of the Berlin ecosystem and an open invitation to help re-activate eChai here, built around the India-Germany corridor. If you are a founder in Berlin who wants to convene the first meetups, that is exactly who this page is for.
Who are the top fintech startups in Berlin?
Berlin's fintech cluster is anchored by N26 and Trade Republic, with Raisin, Solaris and wefox alongside them, and a founder-factory of banking-infrastructure names like finmid and Payrails spun out of that first generation. See the Fintech vertical page above for the full, filterable list.
What is the Rocket Internet legacy in Berlin?
Rocket Internet was the Samwer brothers' company-builder that spun out Zalando, HelloFresh and Delivery Hero, among others. Its alumni now seed a generation of Berlin startups and funds (Cherry Ventures, Project A, Point Nine), a flywheel that still shapes who builds and who backs companies in the city today.
How does Berlin connect to India for founders?
Through a set of corridor bridges rather than a large founder diaspora. GINSEP, the German Indian Startup Exchange Program, and AsiaBerlin, the Berlin Senate's Asia-to-Berlin network, both run India-focused programming, and Foundamental is a Berlin fund with an Indian-origin GP and India as a core market. The Diaspora tab above maps the clean Indian-founder names here (Razor Group, Omio, Zeotap) and these bridges.
Where do founders network in Berlin?
At open meetups and festivals more than at conferences. Silicon Allee runs the city's longest-running international meetup and a Deep Tech Night; Startup Grind Berlin and grassroots Meetup groups fill out the calendar; and Tech Open Air, the GreenTech Festival and the AsiaBerlin Summit are the big annual moments. The communities section below lists them, and eChai is looking for founders to add open, free meetups back into that mix.
Who are the active VCs and investors in Berlin?
Berlin has a deep local bench: Project A, Cherry Ventures (backer of several unicorns) and Point Nine, plus climate funds World Fund and Extantia. On the cross-border side, Foundamental, GINSEP and Bertelsmann India connect Berlin capital and networks to India. The investors section above lists firms by type.
Which accelerators and incubators are in Berlin?
APX, the Axel Springer and Porsche accelerator that was N26's first backer, anchors the early stage, alongside the Merantix AI Campus for AI, Factory Berlin, The Drivery for mobility and the EXIST founder grant. The Rocket Internet company-builder legacy sits behind much of the older cohort. The incubators and coworking section above lists them by type.
What are the biggest startup events in Berlin?
Tech Open Air (TOA) in June is Berlin's signature interdisciplinary tech festival, known for dozens of community-run satellite events; the GreenTech Festival covers climate and energy; and the AsiaBerlin Summit in November is the flagship Asia-to-Europe innovation summit and the natural moment to activate an India-to-Berlin corridor. The communities section lists these and the recurring meetups.
How can I help re-activate eChai in Berlin?
eChai is free and open, and the Berlin chapter is dormant rather than built out. If you are a founder or operator in Berlin who wants to run the first candid, no-badge meetups, get in touch through the page. eChai would convene it around the India-Germany corridor, working alongside bridges like GINSEP and AsiaBerlin.
Want to help re-activate eChai Berlin?
eChai's Berlin chapter is dormant, and we are looking for founders to help start free, open meetups here, built around the India-Germany startup corridor. No membership, no fee. Get in touch and help convene the first one.
See upcoming Berlin events