A month has passed, and here is the collection again. A roundup of the most relevant snippets with funding rounds overview. Thank you so much for being a paid subscriber! ❤️
👩🏻🍳 Hallman & Klee was awarded a Michelin star. Regular readers will remember we recommended it three weeks ago! In total, with the new addition last week, we now have 22 restaurants with stars in Berlin, the highest number in Germany.
You can earn €25-€120 for helping as a volunteer in the European elections on the 9th of June. Unlike other elections, you can apply with any of the EU passports. (Look for Onlinebereitschaftserklärung, somehow my link got broken twice) They are looking for 30.000 volunteers, so take the chance.
An exceptionally important and well-written essay by Adam Tooze to understand German-Israeli relations (Israel’s security as a key part of Germany’s Staatsräson) around the Gaza crisis. It involves submarines.
Career: Akira Kurosawa’s 1-minute excellent advice on showing up day after day. When climbing, never look at the top because you will get frustrated.
Career: If your company recently went through layoffs, this might actually be a good time to ask for a raise. People are the company’s number one asset.
Timeless: Things that DON’t work by dynomight. I cannot agree more about 10. Expecting people to follow written instructions. Also, 27. Picking stocks and 32. Quality over quantity.
Reddit choice of the week is this great explanation from Tolstoy_mc about why during inflation, coffee and restaurants are getting so much more expensive for the regular Joe/Jane. The longer the supply chain, the worse it gets.
💬 Briefly:
Stats: In the last quarter of 2023, the bankruptcy proceedings in Berlin grew 12.4% YoY to 1,516. (St. BB)
Numa will invest in 82-unit serviced apartments in Wedding. Opening planned for Q2 ‘26. Careers.
A reader sent me evidence of how startups were disrupting the insurance industry: their policy was sold twice in the last 2 years, which means they are with their third insurance company now. 🤡
Tagesspiegel (🇩🇪, €) made a list of the top 10 best-paying Berlin employers based on Kununu data with a minimum of 50 submitted salaries. I’ve often featured many here, but was recently sceptical about Cariad (VW’s software company).
Because I clicked on one ad, my Instagram stories are full of law firms offering deletion of bad Google reviews. It’s a big business because I get a lot of ads served on the “Löschhelfer” Google query. With this templated business model, businesses can harass reviewers for a couple of EUR. Here is a BZ report on a not-named popular Café in Mitte (🇩🇪). A part of me is, “fuck it, who cares,” but a part of me is like, “Let’s name the bars and restaurants doing it.” What do you think?Spoiler alert: I decided we can’t really do anything against it without getting bullied.
Timeless: This is one of the long reads that answers pretty much every question you could think of about eating healthy. One for your bookmarks. Now get that carbs! And beans!
💬 Briefly:
Stats: On average, we eat 51.6kg of meat annually (-430g YoY) in Germany. Out of which 27.5kg is pork, 13.1kg poultry and 8.9kg red meat. (FAZ)
Activist investor hedge fund Sachem Head started a 3.6% position in Delivery Hero. This usually means nervous C-level management and stock price appreciation. Last week, the stock settled at +18.47%.
♡ I loved this pitch for Berlin from 2018. The pitch doctor also mentioned EyeEm and N26, both featured in today’s Briefly section:
If you ever want to start a company in Germany/Berlin, here is a guide to bookmark. Buying an existing off-the-shelf company is also available if you need it earlier.
Career: “Find people to talk to or collaborate with by searching across the /about, /ideas and /now pages of 6054 personal websites.” A lot of Berliners if you try the “Berlin” search.
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Now N26 also turned on stock and ETF trading. What a crowded market!
Volocopter’s plans to start running regular flight services in Paris during the Olympics are in danger. One problem is the necessary approval, and the other is local opposition. If, they will fly “by invitation”. (Capital, 🇩🇪)
🚨 If you haven’t yet, check out this cool dashboard for the Salary trends data. We don’t store your data input.
🎥 Kino International, a former GDR “premiere” cinema, which celebrated 60. years last November, will close for two years of renovation on the 13th of May. If you want to catch it in its current glory, here is the programme. It’s worth it.
🇪🇺 Everyone with an EU passport can also vote in Berlin in the coming EU elections on the 9th of June. Here are instructions on how.
🤖 In Germany, we have constitutionally forbidden Sunday shopping. Now imagine a shop run completely by robots. Could this automated shop be open on Sundays? Apparently not. The legal battle (Verdi vs Tegut) over automated shops in Fulda started four years ago, and the judge said the small-service store still qualified as a shop. (FT, €) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Career: This essay is a good primer on How to Recognize What You’re Really, Really Good At. So, what’s success? Spending your days doing mostly the things you love.
Timeless: Tit for Tat always wins. A must-see video about the game theory, the beauty of cooperation and being nice to people. What Game Theory Reveals About Life, The Universe, and Everything by Veritasium (25+ min).
Reddit choice of the week is this gorgeous graffiti by 1UP crew. Also seen is Paradox Paradise left and right. If you want to see it live, go here.
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Grocery delivery news: Flink raised $100M from most of the existing investors, maybe also to fight off Knuspr (formerly known as Bringmeister), which is starting in Berlin on the 22nd of April. Crowded! WiWo (🇩🇪) reported that Getir might pull out of Germany. (It eventually did!)
Thai retailer Central Group bought the remaining share of bankrupt KaDeWe. According to RBB, the company was struggling for years. (🇩🇪) Extremely high rents from their owner (Signa) surely didn’t help. Financial engineering until you hit the wall?
After a stellar 2023 performance, Q1 sales of ASML (microchip equipment producer with a presence in Berlin) came in at 21.6% lower than expected.
ArrakisTaiwan-based TMSC also lowered the outlook.RBB reports that Apple Maps started to record German streets for their “street view”. This time they’ll also do it on foot (in Berlin between 23.5 and 31.7). The whole thing should be documented by mid-August.
❤️ We have trash investigators like “Bronko” in Berlin (🇩🇪), so make sure you don’t do anything stupid (fines are going to significantly increase as well: 250€ for a fag, €3.000 for 2kg of trash and €8k for a sofa). BSR removed 40.000 m3 of illegal trash in 2022! I wish dogs would also leave a signature on their sh*t, because some of their owners clearly have no shame.
💦 The Berliner published the results of their sex survey (n=2,075). Findings include high acceptance and practice of non-monogamy (40% defining their relationships as some form of non-monogamy) and the cultural influence on sexual identity (35% reported that living in Berlin has changed their preferred relationship type).
🤔 Bayer, the former German pharma champion and aspirin inventor, is in big trouble. €34.5B of debt, €2.5B loss in 2023 and poor pharma pipeline. Bill Anderson, CEO since June 2023, learned “that the company’s rules and procedures handbook was longer than War and Peace,” so his plan now is to save €2B by cutting most of the middle managers and asking nearly 100,000 employees to ‘self-organize’. (Fortune) Wild!
Career: LinkedIn compiled a list of the 25 best companies in Germany based (🇩🇪) on eight factors: advancement opportunities, skill growth, company stability, external job prospects, company affinity, gender distribution, educational level of employees, and employer relevance in the specific country.Twelve of the companies have a presence in Berlin: Siemens, Sanofi, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Kering, Karl Storz, Bain & Company, Amazon, Fresenius Group, Deutsche Bahn, Thermo Fisher Scientific, McKinsey & Company, and Pfizer.
Career: The best way to get a pay raise is to:
Timeless: The vorfreude secret: 30 zero-effort ways to fill your life with joy has some great ideas for example: treat yourself, go on a mindful walk, make time for silence.
Reddit choice of the week is this rare burst of (spring-related?) positivity on r/berlin and the quote from Anneliese Bödecker added by someone:“Die Berliner sind unfreundlich und rücksichtslos, ruppig und rechthaberisch, Berlin ist abstoßend, laut, dreckig und grau, Baustellen und verstopfte Straßen, wo man geht und steht – aber mir tun alle Menschen leid, die nicht hier leben können!” Goosebumped!
💬 Briefly:
Stats: In 2023, the average asking rent per sqm was €13.60, an 18.3% increase from the previous year. Kreuzberg and Neukölln saw nearly a 25% increase. (🇩🇪, RBB)
Autodoc (Berlin, auto parts e-commerce) reached unicorn status (€2.3B) after taking on a private investment from Apollo Funds. In 2023 they generated €1.3B+ in net revenue and €130+ million of adjusted EBITDA.
According to FinanceFWD (🇩🇪), Forge, a US-based company, expects to obtain a BaFin license within 18 months. This is significant because Forge allows insiders to sell shares ("secondaries") prior to IPOs. However, don’t get too excited yet, the transactions will need to be between €2M and €50M.
HelloFresh reported Q1: a 74.6% drop in adj. EBITDA to €16.8 million with record revenue of €2.07B. They target 2% to 8% revenue growth for the fiscal 2024.
Funded in Berlin & Germany
peaq | Berlin | Blockchain technology for decentralized applications | $15M | Careers.
ELEMENT | Berlin | White-label insurance products | €50M | Careers.
Kranus Health | Berlin | Digital care in urology | $5M | Careers.
Bavest | Frankfurt | AI for financial data and investment portfolio analysis | €1.1M | Careers.
Gunzilla Games | Frankfurt | Game development | $30M | Careers.
Protembis | Aachen | Medtech device for brain protection during heart surgery | €30M | No careers.
Watttron | Freital | Digital temperature control systems | €12M | Careers.
Ecoplanet | Munich | Energy management software using sensors and AI | €3.5M | Careers.
Recare | Berlin | Digital discharge management in healthcare | €3.2M | Careers.
Blackwave | Munich | Carbon fiber structures for aerospace | €6.1M | Careers.
Stackfield | Munich | Privacy-focused all-in-one collaboration platform | €10+M | Careers.
Zolar | Berlin | ClimateTech for renewable energy projects | €100M loan | Careers.
Scavenger AI | Berlin | AI-based business consultancy | €1.1M Pre-seed | Careers.
Kalia Lab | Berlin | Clean chemical production technologies | €39M | Careers.
Torg | Berlin | Digital marketplace for food and beverage industry | €2.7M Seed | No careers.
Vyoma | Munich | Satellite-based space debris monitoring | €16M | Careers.
Proxima Fusion | Munich | Development of fusion power plants | €20M Seed | Careers.
Interloom | Munich | AI-enhanced robotic process automation | €2.8M | Careers.
Olivaw | Munich | Robotics platform for cross-manufacturer integration | €1.2M Pre-seed | No careers.
Finmid | Berlin | Embedded fintech solutions for marketplaces | €35M | Careers.
Pliant | Berlin | Virtual credit card provider for flexible transactions | €18M | Careers.
Cozero | Berlin | Carbon accounting platform to reduce emissions | €6.5M | Careers.
ChefCoco | Berlin | Meal delivery service with personal chef customization | undisclosed | No careers.
Aiperia | Würzburg | AI-based planning platform to reduce food waste | €7.5M | Careers.
Parloa | Berlin | AI customer service integration | $66M Series B | Careers.
GetYourGuide | Berlin | Online travel experience bookings | ~€9M | Careers.
Terra One | Berlin | AI-optimized battery storage projects | €7M Seed | Careers.
Deltia AI | Berlin | AI and computer vision for assembly lines | €4.5M Seed | Careers.
goodcarbon | Berlin | Expansion of team and technology for sustainability | €5.25M | Careers.
roclub | Berlin | Teleoperations for medical devices | €4M Seed | Careers.
Cultimate Foods | Berlin | Cell-cultured fat components for meat alternatives | €2.3M Seed | No careers.
Smart Reporting | Munich | AI-driven medical reporting | €23M Series C | Careers.
Neoshare | Munich | SaaS for large-scale project financing | €19M | Careers.
neurocare | Munich | Digital therapies for mental health | €16M | Careers.
Markt-Pilot | Esslingen | SaaS for dynamic pricing of spare parts | €40M Series A | Careers.
Thanks for reading! ❤️ If you have an idea, drop it in the comment.