how does Anna spend her money?
Issue #171 (27 Oct) - 4 great companies; nextbike soon gone?; tips for free museums and a new snippet section.
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Programming note #171: This newsletter is constantly evolving, and I decided to make some changes in the Snippets section. The main reason is that I’d like to go stronger in the direction of a great weekly briefing that is fun, informative, but also inspiring.
And… we’ve got a new exciting content format: Money Talks, kicking it off with Anna. Let me know how you like it.
Please support this project by visiting our sponsors Feather and Knuspr.
🌟 Handpicked community
Meet — 7 handpicked events:
betabreakfast Sustainable Self-Care - Simple Practices Beyond Consumerism: Explore how self-care can be simple, accessible, and sustainable | Thu, 30/10 10:00 | betahaus Kreuzberg
Making Sense of German Health Insurance | Fri, 31/10 16:00 | online webinar
signals AI Roundtable #3 | Wed, 29/10 18:30 | signals Open Studios
How to Deal with Stress as a Startup Operator & Founder | Tue, 28/10 19:00 | Mindspace Münzstraße
Seed to Harvest #4 Harvest (Exit) - Private Equity transactions and value creation beyond | Wed, 05/11 18:30 | PATIO
FinTech Speed Networking | Thu, 06/11 18:00 | Industrious
Distributed AI Hack Berlin with €5k prize pool | Fri, 14/11 13:00 | Berlin
This could be your event! Advertise it.
Show cool stuff or Ask for something:
AD | Navigating German employment law shouldn't feel impossible. Whether you're facing a dismissal, negotiating a severance or dealing with works council issues – Dirk Scholz, a certified specialist for labour and employment law, is here to help. Advising employees and works councils in English and German, with expertise you can trust and a human touch you'll appreciate.
Community Call for Berlin Design Icons | Design a unique visual capturing Berlin's culture—icons, the creative scene, or a meme! The winning designs become a city-distributed sticker pack, showcasing your talent and making your mark.
Adi did a driving license and has some tips: "~2700€ is what it cost me to get a driving license in Berlin as a complete beginner."
Something interesting to share? Go for it.
👀 Handpicked jobs
3️⃣ job highlights of the week
AD | How is it to work at Almedia? Pablo says: "I joined Almedia because I wanted to take real ownership and move fast, and that’s exactly what happens here. You’re trusted to make things happen, take full control of projects, and see the impact right away. It’s a place where speed and responsibility go hand in hand.” You can explore all 50+ of their open positions here, find what excites you, and hit apply.
The remaining jobs are on the Handpicked job board. This week’s focus was Sales, Customer Success and Operations.
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☕️ Coffee Talk with Travis Todd
Travis is one of the OGs of the Berlin tech scene. In 2011 he founded Silicon Allee, one of the first tech communities in town, which is still running extremely strong, now together with the Fraunhofer Institute. Here is what he prepared for you:
Rosenthaler Platz - Rosenthaler Platz is the heart of Berlin's tech ecosystem, where the scene really started. Sankt Oberholz opened its first location there, and so much history is concentrated in that area: bars, restaurants, clubs, tech companies. Most of the cool places from back then are gone now, but Sankt Oberholz remains and has always supported new startups.
Margaret Atwood — MaddAddam trilogy - I’m on a sci‑fi tip right now. If you’re investing in deep tech, you have to read sci‑fi; Hollywood already did the hard lifting of deciding what tech should exist. MaddAddam trilogy is really underrated. Nobody’s managed to produce it for the screen yet, so it still feels like a hidden gem. Post‑apocalyptic, three books. Oryx and Crake is my favorite. And Atwood is just fantastic.
The Tangle - I’m a big media addict, and my second love is politics and policy. Tangle does a great job giving both sides of the (US) story. You get the viewpoint from the left, the viewpoint from the right, and then an editor’s take down the middle. It’s helped me deal with the anxiety around politics and the polarization we see today, and remember there’s still a big middle where we can come together.
🗞 Snippets
Berlin & Germany, career & timeless
I'm excited to test a new format: Money Talks, where I openly discuss money with Berliners. Income is taboo in Germany, but hearing how others manage and think about money offers a valuable insight. Happy to introduce you to Anna, 32F from Mitte.
I listened to your feedback and did another overview of under-the-radar companies in Berlin. This time I chose four: Carl Zeiss Meditec (pitched by a reader), GE Vernova, Bundesdruckerei and Camunda. If you know of any other hidden champions in town, send them over.
On Friday morning, several LAP Coffee stores were vandalised. I made a mistake of reading a few comments on Reddit on the matter. It’s amazing to see how confidently people make assumptions and how many can’t see 2 cm beyond their “it’s VC money to push out the competition” argument. I guess THAT TikTok started it, and you could shovel through bad takes for weeks.
Chancellor Merz caused an uproar, along with protests in Berlin, with his “Stadtbild / cityscape” deportation comment a good week ago. He is probably trying to eat a bit of the AfD’s cake, which could actually work (as previously shown in this newsletter. See also the poll below!). Expectedly, he received a backlash and needed to explain himself later. Some of the responses were great: I loved this video from Cossu, a comedian. This topic will stay with us, and while we are at it, in Berlin startups, 42% of the employees are immigrants! Politbarometer results show the following:
(edit after the newsletter was sent out: The poll itself sparked debate - ZDF polled Merz's Wednesday clarification rather than his original statement, but critics felt the presentation blurred this distinction. Full context.):
Instagram ZDFHeute. #ai_berlin hub, managed by Berlin Partner, opened at CIC Berlin to attract AI startups and boost networking. The idea is to connect startups, companies, researchers, and the government. They received an initial funding of €725k in 2025, intending to make it self-sustaining.
AD | Which is the best grocery delivery service? The jury is out there, but I really like Knuspr’s web interface and the fact that it gets delivered 3 hours later. They focus on high-quality (and often local) products, offer a loyalty program Xtra with free delivery and discounts and put a lot of care in upcycling and recycling. Try it by using code HANDPICKED for €10 off your first order.
Is Nextbike disappearing from our streets? They currently operate over 6k bikes without the required commercial permit after its publicly funded contract ended in July. They continued running the fleet independently without applying for a special-use permit. The court ruled that commercial bike-sharing at this scale requires authorisation, rejecting Nextbike's claim of general public use. The city ordered the removal of all bikes, but they’ll stay because of Nextbike’s court appeal.
Good news! Berlin is getting hundreds of thousands of additional trees over 15 years, with final approval expected next month. The program will cost around €3B and aims to make Berlin greener and better prepared for heat, drought, and climate change.
Autumn is perfect for museums: 11 tips for free or discounted museums in Berlin!
Career: Two anecdotal threads from Reddit: one about working at Zalando and the second one about changing from a messy startup to a boring big corp. Valuable insights, but of course, stay vigilant and don’t just believe what people say on the internet.
Career: I like this approach to prioritisation: decide which balls you can drop because they are plastic. On how to juggle priorities. Related, I’ve been really thinking about Hofstadter's Law: "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law." What helps me is to put much less on the plate for the week compared to what I used to, but I still fail to finish some things.
Career: Related, two pieces on the impact of AI: if gen AI is advancing software engineering so much, where are all the new apps and tools and products and a paper on the unsurprising fact that cover letters became worse signals for workers’ ability, because they became more polished and tailored. But, luckily, not all is lost: “more time spent editing is associated with higher hiring success.”
Timeless: If we break out of the routine, the time will pass more slowly. Here are five nice ideas on how to break out of it.
Stats: One in five job postings in Germany offers remote work—up from under 5% in 2019, with the highest rates in Cologne, Stuttgart, and Düsseldorf (around 35%). Berlin is at 28%. Another data source puts 31.2% of Berliners working from home at least once weekly
Wanna work with me? We have plenty of options. Approach me anytime. Numbers are a bit outdated:
Berlin-related headlines
Carcinogenic material at Mauerpark: hundreds of tons of asbestos debris still stored in central Berlin (read)
BVG campaign against stench at Kottbusser Tor: Kotti to smell like citrus or lavender soon (read)
Black-Red coalition slashes Grün Berlin funding drastically, park closures possible (read)
Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf to install speed cameras against street racers at its own expense (read)
Briefly on business, tech and economy
Bad news: Meta -600 in AI teams.
USA & crypto: historic levels of corruption by coffeezilla.
Should we worry about AI's circular deals? Noah Smith says no.
GetYourGuide is adj. EBIDTA profitable for the whole year, 16 years after being founded. Trade Republic was profitable second year in a row. This one wasn’t on my bingo card: Flink has been profitable since August.
Lieferando couriers walked off the job last Thursday to protest the company's planned layoffs.
dm (confirmed), Rossmann and Lidl are considering the expansion into the pharmacy business. Bad for Redcare Pharmacy and DocMorris?
Quantum Systems (Munich, defencetech) acquired Spleenlab.
SAP Q3 25: revenue +7% (€9.07B), op. profit +12% (€2.48)
Tesla Q3 25: revenue +12% ($28.01B), op. profit -40% ($1.62B).Enpal (Berlin) raised €700M from the banks to fund private solar installations, energy management and heat pumps. Careers. Meanwhile, MM investigated allegations of "modern slavery" among Enpal installers.
Weekly social and outside interests
Reddit: An interesting discussion on the subtle giveaways that someone is lying about being from there.
Does the news reflect what we die from? Of course not.
💸 Funded in Berlin & Germany
Galakto | Berlin | Kids audio story player | €4M | Careers.
Roclub | Berlin | Remote MRI/CT scan platform | $11.7M Series A | Careers.
Every Health | Berlin | LGBTQIA+ healthcare provider | €1.1M Seed | Careers.
Etalytics | Darmstadt | AI industrial energy monitoring | €8M Series A | Careers.
Xelera | Darmstadt | Data center application acceleration | €1.5M | Careers.
Enzo | Heidelberg | Smart water monitoring for buildings | €4M | Careers.
1000 Satellites | Mannheim | Decentralized coworking network | €1.6M | Careers.
smartbax | Munich | Antibiotic drug development | €4.7M | No careers.
😅 Meanwhile
did you ever notice that the greatest patriots never live in “insert whatever regime they cheer for”
Igor Ranc
Founder & Curator of Handpicked Berlin
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