Last four issues. There are a lot of links, so you will need to open it in the browser to see all of them. A really big wall of text: I would like to make a compromise in the future - more charts and less text while making it readable in your email.
Extra
Excellent long-form storytelling about the importance of TSMC from Taiwan. “I Saw the Face of God in a Semiconductor Factory” by Virginia Heffernan.
Another interesting long-form on how a Croatian guy beat the unbeatable roulette. Spoiler alert: he did not reveal his technique.
ChatGPT empowered Looria, Buy it for life website, using mostly Reddit stuff.
4G will soon be on the moon, but not yet in Berlin’s U-Bahn.
Remarkable! How is this drop in life expectancy even possible? It must be related to obesity. (via Twitter)
And now to other links. Let me know what/how I should deliver this content to you. Maybe funding rounds separately?
Week of 6th
Doctorly, a Berlin-based health-tech company raised $10M Series A. Careers.
Polyteia, a Berlin-based government/governance digitisers, raised €5M. Careers.
Snuggs, a Berlin/Prague-based period underwear company, raised $5M. Careers.
Secfix, a Berlin-based compliance and security company, raised €3.6M seed. Careers.
Mily Technologies, a Munich-based last-mile delivery company, raised €1M. Careers.
Edurino, a Munich-based digital learning platform for kids, raised €10.5M. Careers.
Impossible Cloud, a Hamburg-based you guessed it, a cloud infrastructure company, raised €7M. Careers.
VisionHealth, a Munich-based health-tech company, raised €3M. Careers.
When thinking about business, the mantra is often to “go fast and break things.” In the worst cases, people will say that agile means no need to plan. It is clear, as this internal e-mail from move-fast-break-things Zuckerberg shows, that long-form writing helps towards excellent/good/better decision-making.
Berliner Zeitung has a comparison of salary levels between east and West Germany (🇩🇪). Berlin is still poorer than the average of West Germany but much better off than the rest of East Germany.
🎶 When I first arrived in Germany Peter Fox and his album Stadtaffe helped me with my German (Guten Morgen Berlin, du kannst so hässlich sein). After 14 years the man released a new song, Vergessen wie. Like a proper nostalgic fart, I like “the old stuff more.”
💡 To do a successful career and easy career pivot you should be early. AI whisperer is the next big thing: prompt engineering will be a massive trend in the coming years. Either as a job or a skill. So start soon.
I published a new article on handpickedberlin.com: The best of the best in/for Berlin. Make sure to bookmark it, so you can say in three years… “yep, I had that bookmarked already in 2023.”
Throwing things into the canals seems to be a thing in Berlin, and it makes you wonder what is wrong with people. Did you ever throw a scooter or a bottle in the river/canal? Me neither.
💸 Revolut posted its first annual profits (£39M), but not everyone was impressed (photo). I do not really like the tone of the first tweet, but here is a helpful analysis on the same topic. The beauty of accounting! Similar to Adj. EBITDA. But that is for another time and place. Klarna, on the other hand, posted a $1B loss, a 47% increase from last year. According to Sifted, CEO’s remuneration increased by 35% to $1.3M. Nice.
layoffs.fyi & other sources: ThoughtWorks (500), SAP Labs in India (300), Peek & Cloppenburg & Sleeperoo insolvent; Alex Springer cutting at “Bild” and “Welt” and going all-in in the US (€), Amazon closing logistics center near Berlin. Also, Taxfix took over Steuerbot, and MYNE took over Villa Circle.
r/berlin choice of the week is a guide for Blue Card holders changing their job within 24 months. I really hit the jackpot with my EU passport; gosh, we really have it easy.
For foreigners in Berlin speaking German, it might make sense to learn some of the Eckkneipe slang. (🇩🇪) I take Molle and Tulpe/Kugel with me.
🥗 Not a big fan of this particular YouTube channel, but I liked this HelloFreshreview. In sum: great recipes, but if you buy stuff yourself you will get more bang for your buck. Related, the convenience of food delivery is a promising business and is here to stay. This trend of restaurants gaining share from grocery stores is described in detail here. People simply cook much less?
Remember Wirecard, a former fintech darling of Germany? Here is an extremely long article from The New Yorker on how it all started and then went to shit. Worth a read and another proof we need badly need good journalists.
Week of 13th
🇩🇪 Berlin & Germany
trawa, a Berlin-based AI-based energy purchasing software, raised €2.4M. Careers.
Edgeless Systems, a Bochum-based public cloud security company, raised $5M. Careers.
Cellbox Solutions, a Norderstedt/Hamburg-based healthcare live cell logistics company, raised €6.5M Series A. Careers.
Alfadocs, a Munich-based HealthTech startup, raised €2M. Careers.
Ordio, a Cologne-based workforce management company, raised €2.9M. Careers.
Saclab, a Munich-based second-hand (aka pre-loved) luxury designer bags marketplace, raised €1.6M seed. Careers.
🧶 In short: Michael Andersen who SPAC’d Lilium (Munich) will join Grover, some say as an IPO prep; Lego sales are up 17% in 2022 - careers; for Klarna’s CEO it’s not so crazy to lose $100M a month; HelloFresh dropped a coconut milk supplier because of MONKEY labour allegations; in Kreuzberg, an SUV hit a tree and the Klima-neutrality-referendum billboard. The irony!
🛒 Back in issue #28, I mentioned Rewe’s Pick&Go at Schönhauser Alle 130; I never went but found this short reel from RBB of how it works.
It feels painful to see how everyone wants to become a version of TikTok. Spotify is next in line. Ok, fair enough. Somebody surely thought about it long and hard, but I personally just look at it to find a playlist.
🚌 Why is my bus named M19? Lemme try: M = metropole, 1 = each 10 minutes, 9 = Hmm. Not sure what I am missing, try it yourself. 140 worked better.
💔 Things break. I like these questions by Pragmatic Engineer to determine if you are firefighting too much? Applies to Data Engineering as well.
According to the report of Paritätische Gesamtverband Berlin has one of the highest poverty rates in Germany (20.1%, 2nd place vs Bavaria’s 12.8% ). The methodology says that a person is poor if their income is less than 60% of the median income in Germany. This means below €1.251 net per month for a single person.
🤳🏻 Used phones are a fantastic market, estimated at $67B, and well, sustainability is the next big thing, right? Rebuy, for example, grew 13% to €200M last year and has been profitable since 2019. According to Stiftung Warentest, all the companies have some improvement potential in how they rate wear. More at Handelsblatt. (🇩🇪)
r/berlin choice of the week is this hilarious comment on a photo of vandalized doorbells. Datenschutzultras is my new favourite German word! Thank you so much!
Companies are lining-up for potential BUBATZ (marihuana) legalisation. A great option if you want to gamble that it goes through would be to join one of these companies. (€, 🇩🇪)
🏘️ Building housing on Tempelhof is again becoming a topic, which is great because we can now all have strong opinions (exhibit 1 from Twitter, exhibit 2 from Reddit, exhibit 3 from Reddit) on Berlin’s housing problem. 🤡 Before you form one, try to think like a scout: “Is this true?” instead of “Can I believe it?”, especially when facing arguments that support your opinion. Interested in this scout mindset? I can offer you my book summary from late ‘22.
🤖 While everyone will be talking about the SVB collapse, you can have a break by watching this really good video from MKBHD about the main problems of generative AI as a search tool. I liked the point of Bing having nothing to lose by releasing early.
Week of 20th
🇩🇪 Berlin & Germany
Medwing, a Berlin-based healthcare recruitment marketplace, raised €44M in a Series C. Careers.
Deeploi, a Berlin-based IT-as-a-service startup, raised a €3M seed. Careers.
The Climate Choice, a Berlin-based platform for decarbonizing supply chains, raised a $2M pre-seed. Careers.
Intelligent fluids, a Leipzig-based deep-tech startup developing eco-friendly cleaning fluids, raised €10M in Series B. Careers.
Oculai, a Munich-based site management start-up, raised €2.5M. Careers.
Phytonics, a Karlsruhe-based start-up with a PV module anti-reflective coating technology, raised a seed funding round in the low seven figures. Careers.
Cashlink, a Frankfurt-based Fintech start-up, raised an undisclosed amount in a Series A. Careers.
Somehow Berlin again ended up last on the list of the friendliest German states. I think this is BS, because after eight months I see no difference compared to Baden-Württemberg. My semi-serious theory that this Berlin hate goes back to the times of the Unification of Germany (1866-1871) when Prussia basically took over, and nobody else liked it. 😅
🚁 A police helicopter has drawn an ugly bicycle in the sky over Berlin which reminded me how damn useless and wasteful these sky drawings are (this one even included a tribute to the Queen). And what do you see in the bottom right corner? What a dirty mind!
🏢 Galeria Karstadt, a struggling department store with the highest amount of nice older ladies selling stuff to rare buyers, will close 52 out of 129 remaining locations. I am relieved that our canteen at Hermannplatz will stay open. In Berlin, two of their locations will close (Müllerstraße and Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf).
🤡 Of course, decorative books for your home are a thing. This is no affiliate link because why would it be? I suggest going to your local antiquariat instead and getting them by the kilo. You might even open some. Books are cool.
💸 According to smartasset, after adjusting for the tax and cost of living in New York, a $100k salary feels like $36K. This made me wonder how does €100k feel in Berlin compared to other cities in Germany. Is anyone doing this for Germany?
🇩🇪 Germany badly needs workers and more subscribers to handpicked for Berlin, because “/../without more immigration or policy changes, the labour market will lose 7m workers by 2035, down from 46m now.” (via The Economist, €)
🗳️ Next Sunday some of you will be able to go and vote on a referendum to make Berlin climate neutral by 2030. Here is an explainer from exberliner, and well, if you were cynical you would say, “whatever the result, it does not matter; they won’t implement sh*t” and if you would be an optimist, you’d go, “cannot wait for 2030 and the climate neutrality!”
🌓 Samsung took fake-it-until-you-make-it a bit too seriously with their “space zoom.” I admire the ingenuity of the poster. But who knows, they could also be an employee of a competitor?
Amazon is doubling down on Return-to-office by The Pragmatic Engineer is another proof of the direction of how RTO policies are in fact silent layoffs and are sooner or later coming to Berlin too.
r/berlin choice of the week is this question on Yorck unlimited cinema subscription, which seems tempting because what is not to love about a great movie? Somebody got their bike stolen, and in the comments someone provided a template contract for buying used bikes.
In short: SAP sold Qualtrics for €7.7B; Siemens Energy raised €1.3 with a capital raise; Kanye West losing his mind will cost Adidas €1.2B; Ruuky, an insolvent Hamburg-based fintech found a PE buyer.
📸 I attended European Month of Photography this weekend (link to my Insta, sorry) and I warmly recommend the exhibiton in C/O. Many photos are fascinating and they almost made me buy my second photobook. 😅
Week of 27th
⛷️ Guess where in Germany the consumption of cocaine is the highest? Yes, exactly.
TechEU has a great overview of the neo-banks and their (mostly) losses across Europe. Banking is a hard business; move fast and break things until someone loses an eye.
🏙️ The city of Berlin's Senate Department for Economics, Energy and Public Enterprises published a report on Startup Employment 2023. Many interesting slides and facts: for example, in 2022, Berlin startups raised €4.9B, a 55% decrease compared to 2021. I am not sure about the employment database, but if 73K people work in startups in Berlin, this handpicked still has a long way to go. 🚀
27% of respondents in Schufa survey (🇩🇪) used Buy-Now-Pay-Later services, and as expected the amount of people missing their payments is rising. Tiny + tiny + small + small = big debt. Be careful.
↘️ Prices of real estate in Germany are falling for the first time after 16 years. But the mortgage will cost you much more today than last year. On top, “falling” at this point means 1.6-2.9%. This is not really a sale, is it? Related, Germans love to rent.
🥳 By latest 2026 all EU member states will need to implement Pay transparency measures which will require employers to provide salary information to job seekers, give employees the right to request pay information broken down by sex and job category, and, among other things, mandate reporting on the gender pay gap for companies with at least 100 employees.
💔 If you are counting on a big exit with ESOPs or similar programs, you could be in for a surprise and printed out with a big fat zero. This happened to Bonify employees (🇩🇪, sold to Schufa), but at least they will get a barbecue. 😅 More on liquidation preference from Investopedia.
An interesting story of a lead-generation landing page from Enpal (🇩🇪). Not a good development for the marketing department and good learning for other overly creative growth marketers.
Here is an interesting Why AI Won't Cause Unemployment take by Marc Andreessen (government vs tech capitalism) and a bit different opinion (goods vs services). You decide.
layoffs.fyi & other sources: Xing (68), interesting: Glassdoor (140) and Indeed(2200) too! Accenture (19k, cca 2%); Amazon (9k, also AWS); Totoli insolvent.
r/berlin choice of the week is the art of getting the Bürgeramt appointment with insider’s tips.
In short: Shein, a cheap fast-fashion brand opened a pop-up in Berlin; half of KaDeWe was sold to a Thai company; Scout24 announced up to €100M of stock buybacks; Sono Motors from Munich is close to insolvency; Bayern’s stadium will remain Allianz Arena at least until 2033; Zenloop found a buyer; HelloFresh will expand its product line to finished dishes to generate growth;
🇨🇳 Dan Wang’s 2022 letter is a long read, but I enjoyed the lockdowns section which gives an insight into how it was to be in China. “Friends spoke about three types of shock. First, the raw novelty of extended physical confinement. Second, the wonder of feeling food insecure in this age and in this city.” I left out the third one.
Raisin | Berlin | Investments in fixed-term deposits. | €60M Series E | Careers.
ampere.cloud | Berlin | Providing sustainable and efficient cloud services for businesses. | €5M | Careers.
Monite | Berlin | Helping B2B software companies manage finances, invoices, and expenses on one platform. | $5M Additional Seed | Careers.
Mainteny | Berlin | Helping maintenance businesses digitize their operations to increase efficiency. | €2.7M Seed | Careers.
NEX Aero | Berlin | Developing hybrid-electric aircraft for regional air travel. | €3.5M Seed | Careers.
IntegrityNext | Munich | A platform for companies to manage their ESG risks. | €100M | Careers.
Tidely | Munich | Providing financial management software for small and medium-sized businesses. | €3.5M Seed | Careers.
Mbiomics | Munich | Developing microbiome-based therapeutics for a range of diseases. | €13M Series A | Careers on LinkedIn.
AERA Health | Munich | Developing smart health and fitness devices to help people lead healthier lives. | €4M Pre-Seed | Careers.
DeepDrive | Munich | Developing electric motor technologies. | €15M | Careers.
comstruct | Munich | An online marketplace for construction materials. | €1.2M Pre-Seed | Careers.
Hubtic | Düsseldorf | A freight management platform for businesses. | $1.3M Seed | Careers not there yet.
Metycle | Cologne | Developing technologies for the recycling industry. | €1.5M | Careers not there yet.
Let me know what/how I should deliver this content to you. Maybe funding rounds separately?