A month is around, and here is the collection again. I am testing a new approach: I kept only the most clicked and my favorite snippets, up to 6 per week.
Unpublished extras
Why are houses so expensive? American view, but valid for here too.
There are more than one million illegal wells in Spain and it is causing a problem!
Rate of empty apartments in Germany:
Week of 5th (June)
👎 Last week I mentioned the uselessness of reviews, and here is even more evidence, this time for GitHub stars. Markets in everything!
💩 Some of Berlin’s startups are laying off people generally badly needed in Germany (137k IT specialists missing), and many are now considering other cities. (🇩🇪) Given these facts, it’s bizarre how hard it is to get here, especially if you aren’t from the EU. As a bonus, you get bureaucratic hurdles and absolutely terrible housing situation. Berlin must do much more and stop f*cking around, or we will find out. Luckily for Berlin, many companies in other cities still think they can keep speaking German only. Related discussion on Reddit is also interesting; a lot of talk about salaries.
⛱️ We often joked with my former colleagues that some of our colleagues are chillers. Logically, the larger the organisation, the easier it is to hide yourself. Here are first-hand accounts of how some people get away with doing nothing at work—a typical management problem.
🛒 Berlin will get yet another grocery delivery service: Picnic from Amsterdam. They told me they intend to grow to 500 people in the coming year. Careers. What a space!
❤️ To fight the small d*** energy people on K’damm, they started to test Germany’s first noise camera! (🇩🇪) Fully support and hope for a big and aggressive deployment everywhere.
😔 Bad news: Taxfix (120, 20%), Coachhub (10%), McMakler (60, 8%) saying the real estate market is the worse ever; Hallhuber (Munich) is insolvent again; Tastillery, Aidhere (Hamburg), Boxbote (Augsburg), Expertlead (Berlin) insolvent.
Week of 12th (June)
🤖 Everyone with 10 minutes had an opinion about AI in the last six months. And Marc Andreessen summed the discussion up extremely well. I like his “AI will save the world” optimism and the analysis, especially the points about Baptists and Bootleggers. 'Baptists' genuinely believe in the existential risks of AI and support regulations to avert disaster, and 'Bootleggers', typically CEOs, stand to profit from regulatory barriers insulating them from the competition. Worth a read!
REPORT:
Like probably everyone who wanted a ticket, I also got one for Himmel unter Berlin (Issue #52); it was worth it. Several excellent installations, and I am looking forward to the next one.
Based on advice in Community Kleinanzeigen, I also went to Supalife Kiosk and sadly had no method; I just browsed and browsed again and again. Ultimately, I bought a sketch of Siegessäule and am now on the market for a used Bohrmaschine.
🚅 Deutsche Bahn will offer ICE and IC tickets for under €10, valid from June 11 to July 31, including short routes only, such as Berlin-Wittenberg and Hamburg-Bremen. They should have done Berlin-Leipzig.
📸 This video from a new opening of “The Alchemist” in Mitte (spoiler: everything is social-media/influencer ready) reminded me of this fantastic and weird article on How TikTok Took Over the Menu. “Another common issue is how to handle the disruptive LED flashlights needed to shoot video in dark dining rooms.” OR “Wherever the influencers land, once they are in a dining room, they’ll need something to record. The more action that can happen in front of them, the better.” PLEASE MAKE IT STOP.
r/berlin choice of the week is the culture of (excessive) tipping. Do you do it at a bar? Unrelated: I LOLed when reading that “Cremating cats was probably overkill” when someone asked what you can do if your apartment burns down.
🛴 Bad news for micro-mobility companies: The April referendum banning electric scooter rentals in Paris from September has stirred the industry. A McKinsey study (Handelsblatt, 🇩🇪) reveals that 35 of the world's 100 most populous cities have already banned e-scooter rentals, citing safety and public space concerns.
Week of 19th (June)
💸 According to the Office for Statistics Berlin-Brandenburg (🇩🇪), you are considered wealthy if your monthly net is at least €3,803. In 2022, nearly 9% of Berliners met this threshold, about 1% more than the national average.
🌳 Weeks of drought caused the lice on the Linden trees to literally piss on the cars and streets below. Then it rained, which in turn caused the streets to become so slippery that the police needed to issue a warning—more on the topic and why beekeepers actually loved it at RBB (🇩🇪).
🎩 If you are currently working on your CV, here are a few good concrete tips from a LinkedIn post. Low on the usual balast, recommeneded.
I really enjoyed this essay on blowing your life regularly bySasha Chapin. It is true that “in a dramatically new situation, you have no choice but to act your way into being someone else.”
🤗 Senate Department for Economics has a great page to welcome all new Berliners and offers free welcome tours; the next one is this Saturday. Let me know if it was any good.
📈 Berlin's rental index (Mietspiegel) will rise by 5%, pushing the average rent to €7.16 per square meter, the first time it's surpassed €7. The new index replaces the 2021 figure of €6.79. A great FAQ on this concept of regulated rent is available here. (🇩🇪) On the other hand, the cucumber index is dropping! Less square meters but more cucumber for your euros.
Week of 26th (June)
👥 On the last day of 2022, Berlin had 3.75M registered inhabitants, a 2.1% y-o-y growth. (Amt für Bevölkerungsstatistik)
🚌 You now know that BVG’s buses installed the dark mode on their screens also during the day: white screens were disturbing the drivers.
↘️ German house prices fell by a record 6.8% in Q1 2023. It seems to be a buyer’s market. The cost of refinancing will also increase, which might be painful for many overly ambitious investors/buyers in times of low-interest rates.
🪦 RIP Oda! A Norwegian grocery delivery company with big plans in Germany is leaving with 30.6. In February this year (Issue#40), they still hoped for €250M in revenues. I never ordered, and groceries really are a graveyard of ambition.
🤓 Something different from Reddit this time: life hacks that saved you money, time, or made your day-to-day activities easier? If you look close enough, you will find some of them in your life. I almost always take the stairs.
🥣 Are you looking for a restaurant to celebrate your new promotion, birthday, severance pay or a job? Try Hallmann und Klee in Berlin-Neukölln. The owner Sarah Hallmann just got awarded the title of “Restaurateur of the Year” from Gault&Millau. A seven-course menu costs €95, with an additional €65 for a beverage pairing. If this is too pricey, there are plenty of alternatives, for example, Falafel in berlin.de or Buya Ramen Factory (if a soup is worth north of 13€ is a question for another time). I can also warmly recommend Berta, and you should ask to sit at the kitchen/bar.
Funded in Berlin & Germany
GetYourGuide | Berlin | Travel add-ons marketplace | €182M in equity and credit financing | Careers.
Tools for Humanity/Worldcoin | Berlin | Tools to bring blockchain and digital identity technologies and products to billions of people | $115M Series C | No careers.
SellerX | Berlin | A platform for accelerated growth of e-commerce brands | €60M | Careers.
Glassdollar | Berlin | Platform for leading corporations that want to systematically purchase startup solutions | €2.0M seed | No careers.
SPYCE5 | Berlin | Blockchain and Web3 infrastructure, data, and digital identity as a Service. | €1M Angel | No careers.
Proxima | Munich | Focused on spearheading the fusion energy sector | €7M | No careers.
Smartbax | Munich | Working on biotech solutions | €1.2M Seed | No careers.
bNear | Cologne | Facilitates seamless remote working environments through its virtual office SaaS | €1M | No careers.
Enpal raised €430M in debt for its solar leasing unit. Careers.
Payrails | Berlin | Scaling its next-generation financial operations (FinOps) platform | €13.5M Seed extension | Careers.
Spectrm | Berlin | Conversational marketing platform that helps brands to sell more on the biggest messaging platforms with marketing chatbots | €6.5M Series B | Careers.
Delphai | Berlin | AI models specifically trained to understand the global business landscape | €4.7M (with €900K grant from the German government) | Careers.
Biddz | Berlin | Connects fans and artists | €4.4M Seed | No Careers yet.
Tilta | Berlin | Building the technology that brings frictionless payment terms to B2B marketplaces and merchants | €4M Seed | Careers.
Wonnda | Berlin | Connecting brands with European manufacturers via its B2B marketplace | €1M | Careers.
Bookingkit | Berlin | Europe's leading booking and reservation management software for providers of tours and activities | €1M | Careers.
Nelly | Berlin | Digitising patient admin for doctors and medical professionals. | €12.5M Series A | Careers.
Caya | Berlin | Receive your postal mail digitally, reduce paperwork. | €6M | Careers.
FERNRIDE | Munich | Accelerating the transition towards automated and sustainable logistics with their autonomous, electric trucking. | €29M Series A | Careers.
Angsa Robotics | Munich | Improving waste removal for green spaces. | €2.5M | Careers.
Meshcapade | Tübingen | Creating 3D models of humans for e-commerce and fitness businesses using AI. | $6M Seed | Careers.
Thinksurance | Frankfurt | Providing insurtech solutions for commercial and industrial clients. | €22M | Careers.
Sparetech | Stuttgart | Providing a data platform for industrial spare parts. | $10M Series A | Careers.
Dntox | Düsseldorf | Helping companies test chemicals without using animals. | €1.4M | Careers.
Dynamic42 | Jena | Expanding organ-on-chip technology internationally. | Series A Undisclosed | Careers.
CleanHub | Berlin | Offering plastic credits for ocean waste management | $7M Seed | Careers.
Tomorrow University | Berlin | Building a remote-first accredited neouniversity offering courses in sustainability, entrepreneurship, and technology | $10M Series A | Careers.
Squake | Berlin | Industry solution for sustainable travel and logistics | €3.5M | Careers.
Cakewalk | Berlin | Solving the issue of security in access for employees for SMBs | €3M funding | No Careers yet.
Smalt | Berlin | Increasing talent supply and productivity in the climate trades | €1.0M seed | Careers.
COOKO | Berlin | Improving the livelihood of farmers and securing agro-forestry landscapes | €800K Seed | Careers.
1KOMMA5° | Hamburg | Platform for installation and service services around solar, power storage, and wallbox. | €430M Series B round | Careers.
Vyoma | Darmstadt | Providing space situational awareness and space traffic management | $9.2M Seed | Careers.
Atmos Space Cargo | Rheinmünster | Developing capsules capable of returning any cargo from space | €4M Seed | Careers.
That was it. Thanks for your support! ❤️ Leave a comment or reply to this email.