Startup & Tech News from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland by Startuprad.io™

What does it take for a DACH green-tech startup to raise venture funding in 2025 — and what do founders keep getting wrong? Wolfgang Krause, Managing Partner at Hi Inov, shares insights from the 2025 Green Tech Software Mapping: why AI is a tool not the product, where vertical SaaS wins on ESG compliance, and what he looks for at Series A. Full article, links, and sources: Read the full episode no...

In April 2025, DACH startups raised over €1.3 billion — even as one of Europe's top fintechs, Trade Republic, hit a crisis of outages and trust. Joe Menninger's investor-grade briefing on where VCs are betting across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and why startup funding booms while the economy stagnates. Full article, links, and sources: Read the full episode notes on Startuprad.io Why this e...

Did Germany promise an innovation revolution while forgetting its startups? Joe Menninger breaks down the 2025 SPD–CDU coalition agreement and what it means for founders and investors — the near-invisibility of startups and venture capital in the national agenda, the 'Finanzierungsvorbehalt' funding clause that could stall it, and the missed shot at a European NASDAQ. Full article, links, and sour...

The Spring 2025 DACH unicorn tracker: which startups and scaleups across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland are minting billion-euro valuations — led by AI-drone unicorn Quantum Systems — and why deep tech is becoming the region's next frontier. Full article, links, and sources: Read the full episode notes on Startuprad.io Why this episode matters: A named, up-to-date map of DACH's billion-euro com...

Fintech futurist Paolo Sironi, IBM's Global Research Leader for Banking and Capital Markets, on how AI is moving from back-end automation to full-scale transformation of retail, SME, and investment banking — from the AI-powered bank and embedded finance to the regulatory tightrope. Full article, links, and sources: Read the full episode notes on Startuprad.io Why this episode matters: Banking's AI...

March 2025 across Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein: Corsair's €300M IDnow acquisition, a stablecoin surge to $226B, and Thoma Bravo's €1.8B European fund — set against 'zombie VC,' insolvencies, and Germany's AI-implementation gap. Recorded with Chris Fahrenbach from New York. Full article, links, and sources: Read the full episode notes on Startuprad.io Why this episode matters: C...

February 2025 in DACH: Finn raises €1B for car subscriptions and Cherry Ventures launches a €500M AI fund — while air-taxi pioneer Lilium crashes into its second insolvency. Joe unpacks the month's biggest rounds, the fund gold rush, and how the German election reshapes the startup agenda. Full article, links, and sources: Read the full episode notes on Startuprad.io Why this episode matters: A sp...

January 2025 opened with an M&A wave across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland: Creative Dock acquiring Berlin hardware innovator NFrontier, and Swiss cybersecurity firm Sona buying TiteLift. Joe rounds up the acquisitions and funding rounds setting the tone for the DACH year ahead. Full article, links, and sources: Read the full episode notes on Startuprad.io Why this episode matters: The year sta...

Startuprad.io's 10th Annual Fintech Review: a decade of fintech evolution and the trends, challenges, and opportunities defining 2024 — high interest rates, breakthrough AI, and rising regulatory demands — with an expert panel's predictions for founders and investors. Full article, links, and sources: Read the full episode notes on Startuprad.io Why this episode matters: A ten-year vantage point o...

December 2024 across DACH: Karlsruhe AI innovator Black Forest Labs hits a billion-dollar valuation, Upvest lands Germany's largest fintech round of the year at €100M, and Berlin insurtech Wefox fights for resilience. The year-end roundup of the stories reshaping the ecosystem. Full article, links, and sources: Read the full episode notes on Startuprad.io Why this episode matters: The names that c...

November 2024 in DACH: air-taxi pioneer Lilium slides toward insolvency amid funding and regulatory pressure, while Volocopter secures government support and a new CFO — and Munich rises as Europe's hub for investor education. Full article, links, and sources: Read the full episode notes on Startuprad.io Why this episode matters: The eVTOL reckoning and a resilience story side by side — plus Munic...

The EU AI Act is the world's first comprehensive AI law, with compliance deadlines landing in 2026. Joe Menninger and Andrew Gamino-Cheong, CTO of AI-governance company Trustible, decode the risk-based framework — Unacceptable, High, Limited, and Minimal risk — and what each tier means for companies and startups building with AI. Full article, links, and sources: Read the full episode notes on Sta...

October 2024 in the German, Austrian, and Swiss startup ecosystem: NASDAQ-listed eVTOL pioneer Lilium pursues self-administered bankruptcy under funding pressure, alongside the month's unicorn milestones and fintech and sustainable-tech moves. With Joe Menninger and Chris Fahrenbach. Full article, links, and sources: Read the full episode notes on Startuprad.io Why this episode matters: The eVTOL...

Joe Menninger unpacks the 2024 Deutscher Startup Monitor (DSM): nearly 75% of German startups are now B2B — led by names like Celonis and Personio — and almost half identify as part of the green economy, pulling in a wave of ESG-focused investors. Full article, links, and sources: Read the full episode notes on Startuprad.io Why this episode matters: The definitive annual read on the German startu...

September 2024 across DACH: Intel pauses its €30B Magdeburg chip fab despite €10B in German government backing, Vienna's Magic AI raises $320M led by Eric Schmidt at a $1.5B valuation, and Flink expands across Europe. Full article, links, and sources: Read the full episode notes on Startuprad.io Why this episode matters: A month that captures Europe's chip-sovereignty dilemma and its AI ambition i...

The Summer 2024 wrap-up across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland: defense-AI champion Helsing raises a €450M Series C, and the season's AI trends and funding rounds reshape the DACH ecosystem. Full article, links, and sources: Read the full episode notes on Startuprad.io Why this episode matters: Helsing's €450M is an early marker of the defense-AI wave that would define the next 18 months of Euro...

Nobel Laureate and former US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu on the future of energy — the budget and delay problems plaguing large nuclear reactors, the case for small modular reactors (SMRs), and the critical role of energy storage in a renewable grid. Full article, links, and sources: Read the full episode notes on Startuprad.io Why this episode matters: A first-principles view on the energy tra...

MIT biotechnologist Robert Langer — co-founder of Moderna and holder of over 1,400 patents — on what makes biotech startups succeed: great science, intellectual property, and business acumen, the differences between European and US biotech, and the future of mRNA. Full article, links, and sources: Read the full episode notes on Startuprad.io Why this episode matters: One of the most successful sci...

June 2024 in DACH: Check24 spends roughly €100M distributing 5 million free Puma jerseys in a record marketing blitz, while Lilium seeks €300M in government aid for its Lilium Jet and Volocopter presses on. Joe and Chris round up the month in under 30 minutes. Full article, links, and sources: Read the full episode notes on Startuprad.io Why this episode matters: A month where consumer-marketing s...

May 2024 across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland: the startup scene roars back with large investments and a wave of early-stage innovation. Joe and Chris deliver the GSA month in 30 minutes. Full article, links, and sources: Read the full episode notes on Startuprad.io Why this episode matters: An early read on the 2024 funding recovery in DACH — where the larger rounds and early-stage energy sta...

The April 2024 wrap-up from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland: the month's funding rounds, tech moves, and ecosystem developments across the GSA startup scene, with Joe and Chris. Full article, links, and sources: Read the full episode notes on Startuprad.io Why this episode matters: Part of the continuous DACH signal record — the April read that threads into the year's larger funding-recovery sto...

March 2024: Joe and Chris call a seismic shift in the German, Austrian, and Swiss startup scene — a change in what's making the headlines and where capital and attention are moving across GSA. Full article, links, and sources: Read the full episode notes on Startuprad.io Why this episode matters: The month Startuprad.io flagged a structural change in DACH startup headlines — a useful marker for ho...

Joe Menninger and Thomas Kösters of DEEP Ecosystems on the rise of deep-tech and health-tech spinoffs from Europe's universities — the impact of public investment, the tech-transfer challenge, the role of the EIC Accelerator, and lessons from success stories like BioNTech. Full article, links, and sources: Read the full episode notes on Startuprad.io Why this episode matters: Spinouts are where Eu...

February 2024 in DACH: Microsoft commits €3.3B to expand its German data centers — cheered by Chancellor Olaf Scholz — as Vienna-based AI startup Magic raises $117M. The month's biggest tech and startup moves across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Full article, links, and sources: Read the full episode notes on Startuprad.io Why this episode matters: Hyperscaler capital lands in Germany just as...

January 2024 in DACH: the year opens with 2023 widely called 'rock bottom.' Finn raises €100M, unicorn 1Komma5° hunts another €100M, and Everphone raises €270M — even as Unzer posts a €400M loss and nearly 2,500 new startups are founded despite the downturn. Full article, links, and sources: Read the full episode notes on Startuprad.io Why this episode matters: The bottom-of-cycle snapshot: big ro...