🚀 funding rounds on fire...
Issue #111 (22 Jul) – 20+ jobs in Sales, Cust Success and Ops; Coffee with Damian; 82 options for day trips; BIO prices; phrases to set boundaries; 6 non-fiction books.
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Programming note: This is the last issue in July—I am taking a short break and will return on the 5th of August. VCs apparently don’t have a summer break: we have 12 funded companies this week.
❤️ You can still submit a testimonial/feedback: it’s 2 min tops. I will raffle two winners!
🌟 Handpicked community
📨 Submit your input here. Inspiration for all the categories on the link.
🎪 Meet — tech & other events:
🚨 Summer Networking Fest 🚨*| Join us for the Summer Networking Fest at Birgit Biergarten in Kreuzberg! Free drinks, live DJ, and great networking. RSVP now! | Wed, 31.7 at 18.30 | Ironhack & Expath at Birgit
Interchange Network Conference 2024 | Mon, 2—3.9 | Tempelhof
Lean Café at BHT Startup Hub: Business Automation for Early Stage Startups | Wed, 25.7 at 10.00 | BHT Startup Hub Coworking
*sponsored event
😎 Show — Cool stuff / Shoutouts / Projects & similar:
You can get accelerated by Google if you are between Seed and Series A.
Tagesspiegel is looking for the best employers of Berlin 2024. You have a couple of more days to submit your application.
For the ones who smoke Bubatz (Weed): you can send an email with your questions related to the new legislation to Konsumcannabisgesetz-Berlin (at) SenWGP. Berlin. de
🔍 Ask — for a Service / Co-founder / Project help & similar:
“I’m Mostafa, a medical doctor who graduated from Saudi Arabia. I'm studying German to start my residency here. I'm passionate about start-ups and need a technical co-founder.
We can leverage my knowledge in the medical and healthcare field to create something great. I'd like us to brainstorm ideas together to find the best path forward.” E-mail: mostafaalsabri (at) gmail . com
Looking for the submission link? It’s below the title ⤴️
👀 Handpicked jobs
5️⃣ from the rotation this week: Sales, Cust Success & Ops
The remaining jobs (also outside rotation) are in the Handpicked online database.
🗞 Top inspiration snippets
☕️ Coffee with Damian Martone
Damian is a great connector and founder of the Hatch Conference, which is run by the idea of including by excluding—you can only buy a ticket if you are a senior designer. He likes his beer ice cold, and this is what he prepared for you:
Spore Initiative: In my constant hunt for venues, I ran across this cultural center that opened last year after extensive construction in Neukölln. The space is super interesting in itself and has free exhibitions to visit, featuring art exhibitions on topics of nature, sustainability, Indigenous culture, etc.
Galerie P98A: Erik Spiekermann's letterpress workshop has been running for many years and is an incredible living museum of machinery and print. If you love vintage typography, posters, and getting your hands dirty, it's the place to go. They also have a great shop with affordable art for your empty flat walls.
Cafe A Gogo: Probably the tiniest café in Berlin, with about five people fitting inside. But it's delicious, fairly priced and has the right mixture of hipster and vintage Berlin vibe. They have a bit of a strange schedule sometimes (maybe cause it seems that only one person runs it), but it's worth a visit.
🇩🇪 Berlin & other good stuff
Remember: I would love to get a testimonial/feedback from you. Every response counts. The raffle results will be published in the next issue.
It’s been over a year since I stopped smoking with the magical book of The Easy Way to Stop Smoking. It will do wonders if you feel like stopping or already failed several times.
How about 82 options for day trips from Berlin? Here is an idea: pick three numbers randomly with random . org and then decide for one.
Grilling season is in full swing! IW Köln compared prices for regular, bio and vegan products. If you’re into BIO, you’ll pay €21,59 or 80% more than for regular ones (€48,45 vs. €26,86). Vegan products will cost €32,81.
Speaking of vegans, 10% of readers are vegan, 14% vegetarian, 30% flexitarian, 39% omnivore and 7% pescatarian. (last week’s poll, n=264)
I recently linked to a very bullish article on solar-related deep tech. While many in EU are debating “going back to nuclear” which will take decades, China is installing record amounts of solar and wind and “would meet its end-of-2030 target by the end of this month — or 6.5 years early.” They’re installing 20GW of capacity monthly. In Berlin (🇩🇪), we currently have 4.2% of production coming from solar, which is set to rise to 25% by 2035. Doesn’t sound really ambitious, does it?
(see the meme section) Whenever dealing with bureaucrats, appointments, restaurants and other places with phone numbers available…
Career: Useful 35 phrases to set boundaries at work, privately or with children. Lots of ads, but say “No.” to them with an adblocker. “I need a break.”
Career: How to Become the Best in the World at Something? Pick a few skills that complement each other to become a “Jack of some trades, master of none”. A gorgeous visual article!
Timeless: Summertime is perfect for reading fiction. I am currently reading Fallada’s “Alone in Berlin”. But if you want to go against the flow, here are six non-fiction books you can read in a day by The Economist.
Timeless: Why privacy is important and “nothing to hide” is irrelevant is a good classic from 2016.
Reddit choice of the week is a discussion of local Berlin celebrities (buskers, bouncers, street performers).
💬 Briefly:
😔 Bad news: Depot (home accessories) bankrupt; Galeries Lafayette closes at the end of July; 65k Ikea cups were stolen from Tesla’s Grünheide factory—it says a lot about the atmosphere.
Stats: 160 startups went bankrupt in the first half of 2024, +14% YoY. (HB) On the positive side, the deal volume went up +12% to €3.4B, but on the other hand, the absolute number of funding rounds was lower (-19%). (EY)
In addition to the Crowdstrike and Microsoft disaster last week, Tagesspiegel reported that Berlin’s IT service provider lost 600 digitally submitted naturalization applications. It makes you wonder!
BVG left Twitter and its 400k followers.
Vinted will pay a fine of €2.3M due to GDPR violations. Klarna is getting ready for an IPO, and ASML shares plunged over 10% due to US-China chip clash.
DB planned to have 70% punctuality in 2024. So far, the number is at 62,7%, whereas everything below 6 minutes counts as on time. Related, you will now be able to cancel your Deutsche Bahn card monthly after a year.
Flying taxis are in the news: Lilium was saved by Saudis buying up to 100 electric Lilium jets. Since its stock price is below $1, it could still be moved to pink sheets from NASDAQ if it doesn’t improve until January 2025. Volocopter, another flying taxi company, lost €146,2M in 2023.
Solaris is again facing BaFin scrutiny and potential fines due to weaknesses in risk management, reporting, outsourcing management and IT structure. (HB)
Apple Vision Pro, a flop, is now available in Germany for a cool €3,999.
💸 Recently funded in Berlin & Germany
Grover | Berlin | Electronics rental platform | €50M Bridge (losing unicorn status) | Careers.
Giga.Green | Berlin | Commercial solar and energy solutions | €25M | Careers.
SAIZ | Berlin | AI size recommendations for e-commerce | €2.5M Seed | No careers.
VARM | Berlin | Thermal insulation technology | €5.7M | Careers.
mogenius | Cologne | Cloud-native software management | €2.5M Seed | Careers.
CatalYm | Munich | Cancer immunotherapies | $150M Series D | Careers.
One Data | Munich | Data management software | €32M Series B | Careers.
trail | Munich | AI governance copilot | €1.45M Pre-Seed | Careers.
WorkerHero | Munich | AI-powered skilled worker recruitment | €4M Series A | Careers.
doinstruct | Osnabrück | Frontline worker training platform | $7.6M | Careers.
ECO2GROW | Bonn | AI-powered energy optimization platform | €4M Seed | Careers.
Sdui | Koblenz | School communication app | €21M | Careers.
😅 Meanwhile
they emailed them
✌️ Handpicked essentials and a treat:
✨ Berlin Events Weekly: the best resource for events in Berlin ✨
♡ 20% Berlin: all the Berlin news twice a week, in English! ♡
- How to learn German and get over “Genau” and “mit Karte, bitte”?
- Berlin Salary Trends Reports: How do you compare?
- ❓Surprise treat for the curious
- The best questions to ask at a job interview
- Write it down now! Or why you should journal at work?
- What do hiring managers look for in CVs?
- Sponsor Handpicked?
- Handpicked in media (podcasts and articles)
- Signing a new employment contract in Germany? Read this before.
- Don’t make these mistakes with your side hustle!
How did you like it? Let me know! ♡