With 83 million citizens and a GDP of about $4 trillion, Germany is the largest economy in Europe and was named the most innovative country in the world by Bloomberg in 2020.
The spirit of innovation has cultivated a vibrant startup ecosystem – one that is attracting significant investment. German startups have raised a record $9.1B so far this year, exceeding the 2020 total by over 35 percent.
To help you uncover exciting companies to watch, we’ve curated a list of the startups we think will shape the future of technology in Germany.
How we shortlisted the entries
To be eligible for this list, the companies had to be early-stage, innovative companies solving a large problem. The startup has to have raised funding from external individuals or funds and be actively deploying the capital raised. The startup also had to have proved its ability to become a potential market leader.
Let’s find out who made the list!
Hot German Startups
1. Pitch
Founded in 2018, Pitch is a collaborative presentation application that enables teams to work via a shared workspace. It allows users to assign tasks, comment on each other's tasks and hold video calls. The application combines the best elements of consumer software – accessibility and good design – with the power of business software. The company raised $85M in Series B funding in May 2021.
Founders: Adam Renklint, Charlette Prévot, Christian Reber, Eric Labod, Jan Martin, Marvin Labod, Misha Karpenko, Vanessa Stock
Location: Berlin, Germany
2. Inkitt
Inkitt is an online writing platform that enables writers to share excerpts of their work with readers and receive feedback. It runs an algorithm on the data gathered from the readers to feed its algorithm and provide feedback to writers. The company boasts 7 million readers and 300,000 writers. Founded in 2014, Inkitt raised $59M in a Series B funding round in October 2021.
Founders: Ali Albazaz
Location: Berlin, Germany
3. Comtravo
Comtravo uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to manage booking and travel management for businesses. Comtravo lets users send their ideal travel itinerary, and the technology behind the platform translates this into a booking. Founded in 2015, the company raised $10.1M in Series B funding in January 2020.
Founders: Jannik Neumann, Michael Riegel, Simon Schmincke, Slobodan Utvic
Location: Berlin, Germany
4. CoachHub
Founded in 2018, CoachHub is a digital coaching platform that calls itself a ‘Mobile Coaching Cloud.’ Organizations use CoachHub to train their employees on topics ranging from time management to leadership goals. The company has a global network of over 2,500 professional coaches and offers coaching in 60 different languages. The company raised $110M in Series B funding in September 2021 and has raised a total of $133M so far.
Founders: Matti Niebelschuetz, Yannis Niebelschuetz
Location: Berlin, Germany
5. Deposit Solutions
Deposit Solutions is a FinTech company transforming the savings deposit market in Europe. It follows an open-banking business model that enables banks to gather retail deposits from across Europe without a retail infrastructure. Instead, these banks offer third-party savings deposit products to their clients, allowing them to access these products without opening an account at another bank. The company has raised $198M so far.
Founders: Tim Sievers
Location: Hamburg, Germany
6. SellerX
SellerX works on building a diversified portfolio of Amazon sellers. It focuses on buying and scaling Amazon-native brands by pursuing a personalized approach to working with sellers. SellerX was founded in 2020 and raised $112M in its Series B funding in August 2021.
Founders: Malte Horeyseck, Philipp Triebel
Location: Berlin, Germany
7. Urban Sports Club
Founded in 2012, Urban Sports Club offers its users a flexible range of sports and gym membership packages. It provides them access to over 50 types of activities such as team sports, swimming, yoga, bouldering, etc. The company received $90M funding in June 2021.
Founders: Benjamin Roth, Moritz Kreppel
Location: Berlin, Germany
8. Flink
Flink is an on-demand grocery delivery startup that offers a wide range of convenience items. Flink enables people to receive deliveries at their doorstep within 10 minutes while saving transportation costs through recyclable packaging and electric bikes. It was founded in 2020 and received $240M in its Series A funding in June 2021, followed by another undisclosed funding in September 2021.
Founders: Christoph Cordes, Julian Dames, Nikolas Bullwinkel, Oliver Merkel, Saad Saeed
Location: Berlin, Germany
9. Neufund
Founded in 2016, Neufund is a blockchain-enabled fundraising and investing platform that connects investors and entrepreneurs by curating blockchain-based services and solutions such as a wallet, post-investments, and more. Neufund’s platform creates and issues legally binding tokens with a set of features and protocols that allow its users to tokenize real-world assets and issue them on the Ethereum Blockchain. The company raised $4.5M in Series A funding in December 2020.
Founders: Marcin Rudolf, Zoe Adamovicz
Location: Berlin, Germany
10. Penta
Penta is a digital business banking application that enables startups and SMEs to save time and money. Its services include automating invoices and online cashless banking. Thus, Penta allows its users to manage their cash flows effectively. Founded in 2016, the company received $16.9M in its Series B funding in August 2021.
Founders: Aleksandar Orlic, Igor Kuschnir, Jessica Holzbach, Lav Odorovic, Luka Ivicevic, Matteo Concas, Sir Gabriel Holbach
Location: Berlin, Germany
11. Wandelbots
Founded in 2017, Wandelbots is a robotics startup that has developed TracePen, the world’s first ‘no code’ handheld device that lets non-programmers teach robots to perform industrial tasks. The company claims TracePen’s teaching methods are up to 70 times faster than traditional programming methods. The company has raised $38M so far.
Founders: Christian Piechnick, Christoph Biering, Frank Fitzek, Georg Puschel, Giang Nguyen, Jan Falkenberg, Maria Piechnick, Sebastian Werner
Location: Dresden, Germany
12. Kontist
Kontist is Germany’s first neo-bank and boasts a customer base of mainly freelancers. It offers a range of services such as accounting and tax consulting tasks for advance VAT returns, income surplus statements and annual financial statements. Founded in 2016, the company raised $28M in Series B funding in March 2021.
Founders: Alexander Baatz, Catharina Bruns, Christopher Plantener, Madison Bell, Sebastian Galonska, Sophie Pester
Location: Berlin, Germany
13. Amboss
Founded in 2012, Amboss is a comprehensive and technologically advanced knowledge platform for medical professionals. The application has been developed by 70 doctors and 40 software engineers and claims to reduce the average research time for doctors by 98%. Additionally, Amboss helps medical students through a contextual understanding. The company received $33M in its Series B funding in July 2019.
Founders: Benedikt Hochkirchen, Jan Sievert Weiss, Kenan Hasan, Madjid Salimi, Nawid Salimi
Location: Berlin, Germany
14. Caroobi
Caroobi is a Germany-wide network of auto-mechanic shops offering after-sales services to make car maintenance more convenient. The company has an easy booking process, helping it differentiate by improving the customer experience. Caroobi was founded in 2015 and has raised $20M so far.
Founders: Mark Michl, Nico Weiler
Location: Berlin, Germany
15. Getsafe
Getsafe is an InsurTech company that differentiates itself by using smart bots and automation to replace manual paperwork. As a result, its customers can file claims or change their coverage in real-time with just a few clicks. It targets millennials and currently has a customer base of 250,000 customers. Founded in 2015, the company secured $93M in its Series B funding in October 2021.
Founders: Christian Wiens, Marius Simon
Location: Heidelberg, Germany
16. Joblift
Joblift is a Berlin-based meta-search startup that aggregates job data from multiple sources to provide job seekers with a hassle-free experience. The company uses big data algorithms and machine learning techniques to show suitable job vacancies to candidates. Joblift claims to have about 1.5 million monthly site visits and over 4,000 job boards as partners. The company was founded in 2015 and secured Series B funding of $16.9M in August 2019.
Founders: Lukas Erlebach
Location: Berlin, Germany
17. Automation Hero
Founded in 2017, Automation Hero helps organizations process any type of document faster than ever with the most powerful and complete intelligent document processing platform. It offers the easiest-to-use and most accurate AI in the industry so companies can instead focus on accelerating business processes to stay competitive. The company raised $14.5M in its Series A funding in 2019, followed by an undisclosed amount in Series B funding in June 2021.
Founders: Stefan Groschupf
Location: Berlin, Germany
18. VoltStorage
Founded in 2016, VoltStorage is a battery manufacturer that uses the Redox Flow technology to produce solar energy storage systems. The company’s mission is to make renewable energy more accessible through its small-fridge-sized battery. It secured $6.7M in Series B funding in July 2020.
Founders: Felix Kiefl, Jakob Bitner, Michael Peither
Location: Munich, Germany
19. FINN
FINN is a Germany-based startup that offers a monthly car subscription service. The company encourages people to rent cars instead of owning them because it believes that it reduces CO2 emissions. FINN’s mission is to make mobility sustainable and accessible. Founded in 2019, the company raised $54M in Series A funding in December 2020.
Founders: Andreas Wixler, Hans-Peter Ringer, Max-Josef Meier, Maximilian Wühr, Nikolai Schröder
Location: Munich, Germany
20. Schüttflix
Founded in 2018, Schüttflix is a digital and logistics platform for construction materials. The application connects suppliers and carriers with customers who need construction materials. The company claims to have already achieved an eight-digit sales volume and delivered over 1 million tons of material. The company raised $50M in Series A funding in September 2021.
Founders: Christian Hülsewig, Thomas Hagedorn
Location: Gütersloh, Germany
21. Sdui
Sdui is a mobile communication application that allows teachers, students, and parents to interact and securely share information via direct messaging and notifications. The app does not require a personal email address or phone number. The application acts as a holistic digital classroom solution that allows creating lesson plans, class schedules, and teaching by video conference. During the COVID pandemic, Sdui saw a massive influx in inquiries and customer base, leading them to expand server capacity and improve functionality. The company secured $7.9M in Series A funding in March 2021.
Founders: Daniel Zacharias, Jan Micha Kroll
Location: Koblenz, Germany
22. Taxdoo
Founded in 2016, Taxdoo has developed an API platform used to automate international VAT compliance for its users. The platform collects the required data from ERP systems, online shops, marketplaces and processes it per international VAT regulations, which is then transferred into financial accounting systems. The company received $19M in Series A funding in December 2020.
Founders: Christian Königsheim, Matthias Allmendinger, Roger Gothmann
Location: Hamburg, Germany
23. Twaice
Twaice is a battery company that caters to industries using the digital twin-based predictive battery analytics software. This software combines artificial intelligence and deep battery knowledge to determine the battery's current condition and predict aging and performance. Founded in 2018, Twaice received $24M in Series B funding.
Founders: Michael Baumann, Stephan Rohr
Location: Munich, Germany
24. Upvest
Founded in 2017, Upvest is a fintech company that enables financial institutions to offer securities to retail investors with the help of an API. The company is connected with well-known asset providers and exchanges to offer the best investments and prices to its customers. It raised $4.5M in Series A funding in May 2021.
Founders: Ivan Morozov, Jesper Noehr, Martin Kassing
Location: Berlin, Germany
25. Receeve
Receeve is a fully customizable all-in-one platform for collections & recovery. Receeve works with clients to simplify the growing complexity of data and systems and empower teams to easily automate processes, engage customers and apply 360° insights to maximize recovery and minimize risk across every stage of credit management - from pre-delinquency to portfolio assignment or sale.
Founders: Paul Jozefak and Michael Backes
Location: Hamburg, Germany {fully remote}
26. Medloop
Medloop is a platform that connects doctors and patients. The company has an advanced rule-engine and predictive analytics system deployed via a physician dashboard and a patient mobile application. The company endorses evidence-based preventive medicine to control chronic disease incidence and promote better disease management. Founded in 2018, Medloop raised $6.7M in Series A funding in January 2020.
Founders: Shishir Singhee
Location: Berlin, Germany
27. Lanes & Planes
Lanes & Planes is a SaaS platform that facilitates business travel booking. It differentiates itself by mapping all areas of the business trip entirely digitally. In addition, the company uses its central travel expenses tool to help users with their travel and business expenses and receipt accounting. Founded in 2017, it has raised $10M so far.
Founders: Veit Blumschein
Location: Munich, Germany
28. Demodesk
Demodesk is a customer meeting platform that guides sellers in real-time by automating various tasks such as meeting engagement and analysis. The platform enables automation of tasks such as scheduling and preparing a session, CRM and more. Founded in 2017, the company raised $8M in Series A funding in September 2020.
Founders: Alex Popp, Veronika Riederle
Location: Munich, Germany
29. Alphapet Ventures
Founded in 2016, Alphapet Ventures is the largest independent provider of premium pet supplies in Germany. The company supplies its pet products digitally via several e-commerce platforms. The company has raised $14.6M so far.
Founders: Lorenz Hartung, Marco Hierling
Location: Munich, Germany
30. Rasa
Rasa supplies open-source conversational A.I. tools to enterprises to help them build better and more resilient contextual assistants. Founded in 2016, Rasa raised $26M in a Series B funding round in June 2020.
Founders: Alan Nichol, Alex Weidauer
Location: Berlin, Germany
31. Medigo
Medigo is a tech-driven third-party administrator and medical concierge company helping individuals across organizations access healthcare across the globe through an international provider network, tech-driven cost reduction, and a hassle-free member experience. It simplifies the complex process of booking medical travel with the help of technology. Additionally, the company provides services such as claims handling and receiving a second medical opinion. Founded in 2014, the company secured an undisclosed amount in its Series A funding in August 2020.
Founders: Ieva Soblickaite, Pawel Cebula, Ugur Samut
Location: Berlin, Germany
32. Rows
Founded in 2016, Rows is a spreadsheet that gives its users access to business data and APIs. Additionally, it can transform a spreadsheet into a web application with just a single click. It supports all the standard Excel functions and can help develop apps such as order management systems. The company received $16M in Series B funding in February 2021.
Founders: Humberto Ayres Pereira, Rui Maranhao, Torben Schulz
Location: Berlin, Germany
33. Bryter
Bryter is a no-code software platform that helps users across various departments build digital tools like chatbots, trigger automated databases, and document actions and risk assessors. It allows banks, corporates, public administration, and consulting firms to digitize and scale their services. The company secured $66M in its Series B funding in April 2021.
Founders: Michael Grupp
Location: Berlin, Germany
34. Cargo.one
Cargo.one is a German air cargo booking platform digitizing the cargo industry. Its platform gives users access to real-time prices and available capacity and can be used to book air freight. Founded in 2017, the company received $42M in Series B funding in December 2020.
Founders: Mike Rötgers, Moritz Claussen, Oliver Neumann
Location: Berlin, Germany
35. Candis
Candis is an online software that uses artificial intelligence to automate various financial processes such as data capturing, collection of invoices, pre-accounting, and payments. The company helps tax advisors and companies save time and efficiently collaborate with finance teams. Founded in 2015, the company raised $13.5M in Series B funding in August 2020.
Founders: Christian Ritosek, Christopher Becker, Garik Suess
Location: Berlin, Germany
36. yfood Labs
yfood Labs is a food-tech startup that develops intelligent food solutions. The company develops customized nutrition drinks, powders, and bars. Founded in 2017, the company secured Series A funding of $4.7M in June 2019.
Founders: Benjamin Kremer, Noel Bollmann
Location: Munich, Germany
37. Cognigy
Founded in 2016, Cognigy automates customer and employee communication with the help of intelligent voice assistants and chatbots. It provides enterprise-grade Natural Language Conversation technology helping companies reduce support costs and improve scalability. It is available in SaaS and on-premise environments, supporting conversations on any channel (web, phone, SMS, and mobile apps) and in any language. The company raised $40M in Series B funding in June 2021.
Founders: Benjamin Mayr, Philipp Heltewig, Sascha Poggemann
Location: Düsseldorf, Germany
38. Habyt
Founded in 2017, Habyt develops and manages beautifully designed, community-driven, and technologically advanced living spaces for temporary living. It looks after the entire living experience of its clients, from renting and fitting to taking care of all their needs. The company received $22.5M in Series B funding in June 2021.
Founders: Luca Bovone
Location: Berlin, Germany
Did we miss anyone that should be on our list? Let us know at hello@cledara.com.
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