“For banks the pandemic meant that they had to digest 10 years of digitalization in only two years.” Paolo Sironi - Thought Leader and Author

Hello and welcome everyone to our 2021 Fintech Review for the German Speaking Area - Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, also called GSA. This is an annual tradition started in 2014, first in German, now in English. You can find the older reviews in the blog post below:

“Crypto is coming, no question. The metaverse is coming and exciting for me is the question how we will pay in the metaverse” Oliver Oster - CMO and Founder OptioPay  

“What struck me the most in 2020 is Crypto. It is sooo much more popular today than one or two years ago” Janis Dust - CMO and Co-Founder Epap

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“As people are going from in-person to remote a lot of [banking] processes have to be updated. It is basically a huge accelerator for the whole banking industry.” Frank Schwab - Co-Founder Fintech Forum

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“[Venture] Capital becomes more concentrated. It will get harder for the new kids on the block” Frank Schwab - Co-Founder Fintech Forum

Our Guests

Today I welcome our guests:

• Janis Dust - A young fintech entrepreneur, co-founder and CMO of epap (https://de.linkedin.com/in/jannisdust)
• Paolo Sironi - A fintech entrepreneur, turned global research leader in banking and financial markets as well as a book author (Website: https://www.thepsironi.com/, https://www.linkedin.com/in/thepsironi/)
  • You can buy his newest book here: https://amzn.to/30MLgOy
• Frank Schwab - Co-founder of Fintech Forum (http://fintechforum.de/) and multiple board member (https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankschwab/)
• Oliver Oster - Fintech entrepreneur, founding partner AQVC, founder and COO OptioPay (https://www.linkedin.com/in/oliver-oster-37611063/)

“10 years ago adding the valuation and market capitalization of the global top 500 banks and fintech unicorns plus the payment providers: 10 years ago banks represented 97% of that value, today they are down to almost 70%.” Paolo Sironi - Thought Leader and Author

This time I ask our guests 4 questions on the current state of fintech, their outlook and drivers for the future.

The questions are:

1) What is the strongest impact of corona on the financial and fintech world, immediately and in the future?

2) What is the most important development you have seen in total in 2021 for fintechs?

3) What do you see in 2022 for the fintech scene in GSA?

4) What field of fintech do you see becoming more important in 2022? Is it already the year of the green fintech?

Wishing you happy holidays from Frankfurt! We will be back on January 13th with an interview. Enjoy your time with family and friends and stay safe!

“The most obvious impact [of corona] for me was, that here in Berlin people have stopped paying cash and now pay by card or digital [cell phone or wrist watch]” Oliver Oster - CMO and Founder OptioPay  

The Audio Interview Podcast

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Fintech Reviews Since 2017

“Some neobanks retreated with their business from abroad. They understood that volume is not enough for a great value offer” Paolo Sironi - Thought Leader and Author

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUbiCAQc22WsxyePUkzBI-LKh1y4yy0sq

Feedback

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The Interviewer

This interview was conducted by Jörn “Joe” Menninger, startup scout, founder, and host of Startuprad.io. Reach out to him: LinkedIn Twitter Email

Find all links and show notes here: https://www.startuprad.io/blog/fintech-review-2021-germany-austria-and-switzerland-gsa/

HoHoHo Welcome to This Month in German Startups in December 2021 by Startuprad.io - in a news recording with Chris from New York City and me Joe, from Frankfurt am Main.

We recorded this new episode on Monday, December 20th. All news not included here will be published in our next news episode. There will also be our annual Fintech Review on December 25th and we will be back with an AI startup interview on January 13th. So we take a few weeks off around the holidays. Happy Holidays!

We are not there yet, so let's get started:

Today we bring you another new unicorn, a monster funding of 266 mn US$ at Mambu, Volocopter calls off its SPAC IPO and gets a backlash from its early crowd investors, also Jokr is now the 3rd quick delivery unicorn - in record time - and we have an update on Sono Motors. We also take a look at the State of European Tech survey by Atomico and several news pieces on the German Venture Capital Market, as well as VC in general.

Let's talk startups:

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Enablers

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This show was made possible by Hessen Trade and Invest with their brand Invest-in-Hessen. You can learn more about them here (in-hessen.com/">https://www.invest-in-hessen.com/). We also run a dedicated sub-podcast with all interviews and news in cooperation with them. Find it all here: https://anchor.fm/techstartupsgermany

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Find all links and extensive show notes here: https://www.startuprad.io/blog/this-month-in-german-startups-december-2021/

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We learned in our projects that charging electric cars is challenging for B2B and B2C customers Simon Vogt, Co-Founder and CSO &Charge

Our Sponsor Invest-in-Hessen

This show was made possible by Hessen Trade and Invest with their brand Invest-in-Hessen. You can learn more about them here (in-hessen.com/">https://www.invest-in-hessen.com/). We also run a dedicated sub-podcast with all interviews and news in cooperation with them. Find it all here: https://anchor.fm/techstartupsgermany

Charging can still be challenging for the EV driver. Simon Vogt, Co-Founder and CSO &Charge

The Founder

Simon Vogt (https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-vogt-a9a07931/), Co-Founder and Chief Sales Officer of Frankfurt-based startup &Charge is our guest today. They just raised seed funding to help online shoppers offset their climate impact and reward them with points e.g., for charging electric cars or using e-scooters.

Simon has collected already some experience in mobility. He worked in emobility projects of BMW, been with Porsche Consulting and finally been the coordinator for e-services for Porsche’s model Taycan.

Charging is more than refueling. You have time. Simon Vogt, Co-Founder and CSO &Charge

The Startup

The founding team realized that charging is different from refueling, so the team behind &Charge (charge.com/#/">https://and-charge.com/#/) realized that the charging EV owner has time on his or her hands. So, &Charge started connecting charging with eCommerce, so an online buyer gets rewards points for recharging their EV or using an e-scooter or similar stuff. Currently, they are covering 95% of the German eCommerce market with partnerships.

We help our customers to decrease the price of re-charging and the total costs of ownership. Simon Vogt, Co-Founder and CSO &Charge

Venture Capital Funding

They just raised a seven-digit seed round (https://buff.ly/3oW9C1m) but will surely look soon at a Series A funding round. Amongst their investors are the corporate venture capital arm of energy company Helen, called Helen Ventures and Porsche Ventures.

I could be considered a pioneer or dinosaur of emobility, I stared with it 10 years ago. Simon Vogt, Co-Founder and CSO &Charge

Find all links and show notes here: https://www.startuprad.io/blog/charge-just-raised-seed-funding-to-help-online-shoppers-fight-global-warming/

“To accelerate our growth, we need to buy companies” Pascal Lauria, founder and CEO Cogia

Our Sponsor Invest-in-Hessen

This show was made possible by Hessen Trade and Invest with their brand Invest-in-Hessen. You can learn more about them here (in-hessen.com/)">https://www.invest-in-hessen.com/). We also run a dedicated sub-podcast with all interviews and news in cooperation with them. Find it all here: https://anchor.fm/techstartupsgermany

“My goal is 10 mn Euros revenue. To reach this we need to keep buying [companies]” Pascal Lauria, founder and CEO Cogia

The Founder

Pascal Lauria (https://www.linkedin.com/in/pascallauria/) has a very diverse background, raised in the Rhine-Main-Area his studies took him to Canada. He later worked in Taiwan, Silicon Alley (New York’s startup hub) and in Silicon Valley. He took his experience to go back to Frankfurt and set up Cogia there (https://www.cogia.de/?locale=en_us).

“Acquisitions are not always successful. We are very aware of that. We are working on it. For example, in our last acquisitions, we did not lose even one employee.” Pascal Lauria, founder and CEO Cogia

The Startup

Cogia Intelligence (https://www.cogia.de/?locale=en_us) is a big data, ai startup. It provides in its current setup innovative products and solutions in the areas of web and social media monitoring, market research, and open-source intelligence. The company Cogia GmbH is the startup, the company Cogia AG is the listed entity. Pascal started Cogia in 2010 but listed Cogia AG only in 2021 in Düsseldorf. Then the two entities merged and so Cogia GmbH got listed. You can learn more about the listed entity here: https://cogia.ag/de/investor-relations/

“With the access to capital markets I want to do one to two acquisitions per year.” Pascal Lauria, founder and CEO Cogia

  Find all links and show notes here: https://www.startuprad.io/blog/cogia-just-ipoed-and-wants-to-use-the-access-to-capital-to-drive-market-consolidation/

We are looking at the whole western European used car market Stan Galik, Chairman of the board Driverama

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The used car market in Europe is quite fragmented. There are more than 50.000 dealers, buying and selling used cars. Stan Galik, Chairman of the board Driverama

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We are obsessed with transparency … the most trustworthy player will win. Stan Galik, Chairman of the board Driverama

The Founder

Stan Galik (https://www.linkedin.com/in/stanislav-galik-555b2219/) is today our guest. He has been focusing his studies on organizational behavior. He held several corporate positions before he started with Driverama. Driverama is the German startup of one of Europe’s largest used car dealers AAA Auto (https://www.aaaauto.cz/), entering the German market and competing with companies like Auto1. This is why we bring you this interview, looking at the increasing competition in the market.

When you sell us a car, we are checking in all regions and European markets and offer you the best price. We also already know where we will sell it. Stan Galik, Chairman of the board Driverama

The Startup

Driverama (https://www.driverama.de/) is buying up used cars in Germany, trying to utilize the European network and market data of its AAA Auto network. They are trying to offer the car seller the best price available in Europe and therefore competing head-to-head with large startups (Auto1 / Auto Hero, Heycar (VW), ….), existing platforms (Autoscout24, mobile.de, …) and local dealers. The market is currently really hot and we take a peak into it.

Driverama is a data-driven e-commerce platform for buying and selling used cars with the physical infrastructure of micro-branches that serve as car buying inspection points as well as pickup points for customers purchasing cars online. We aim to become the first truly pan-European cross-border eCommerce seller with international delivery.

Find all links and show notes here: https://www.startuprad.io/blog/driverama-wants-to-start-a-european-used-car-market-and-just-entered-germany/

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The Survey

Hey guys, this is Joe from Startuprad.io. Today we bring you an audio-only episode. We know this is uncommon, but there is a special occasion for this. The most comprehensive startup survey in Germany was published, so we wanted to bring you some highlights. This extensive survey is conducted by the German Startup Association in cooperation with partners annually since 2013.

Feedback

Reach out to us, here is our audience survey, to give us feedback, suggest topics, interview partners or just to say “Hallo!” https://forms.gle/mLV6mVKwGwKuut8BA

The Host

This interview was conducted by Jörn “Joe” Menninger, startup scout, founder, and host of Startuprad.io. Reach out to him: LinkedIn Twitter Email

Find all links and show notes here: https://www.startuprad.io/blog/germanys-most-extensive-annual-startup-survey/

Welcome to This Month in German Startups in November 2021 by Startuprad.io - in a news recording with Chris from New York City and me Joe, from Frankfurt am Main.

We recorded this new episode on Friday, November 19th. All news not included here will be published in our December News (to be published on December 23rd). There will also be our annual Fintech Review on December 25th and we will be back with an AI startup interview on January 13th. So we take a few weeks off around the holidays. We are not there yet, so let's get started:

Today we have escooter Tier’s newest funding and acquisition, N26 pulling the plug on their US operations already in January 2022, and the amazing IPO of Sono Motors on NASDAQ. There are also new unicorns, we proudly present Frankfurt’s first unicorn, the insurtech Clark.de. Also, Razor Group (an Amazon shop buyer) becomes a unicorn with a 125 mn US$ fundraising. In November, there is no unicorn tracker. We will keep our eyes open and maybe the next news will have a unicorn tracker companion.

Happy Thanksgiving to our US audience!

Let's talk startups:

Find all links and show notes here: https://www.startuprad.io/blog/this-month-in-german-startups-november-2021/

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Enablers

Invest-in-Hessen

This show was made possible by Hessen Trade and Invest with their brand Invest-in-Hessen. You can learn more about them here (in-hessen.com/">https://www.invest-in-hessen.com/). We also run a dedicated sub-podcast with all interviews and news in cooperation with them. Find it all here: https://anchor.fm/techstartupsgermany

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News Text and Show Notes

Find all links and show notes here: https://www.startuprad.io/blog/this-month-in-german-startups-november-2021/

The Enabler

This interview was made possible by Hessen Trade and Invest with their brand Invest-in-Hessen. You can learn more about them here (in-hessen.com/">https://www.invest-in-hessen.com/). We also run a dedicated sub-podcast with all interviews and news in cooperation with them. Find it all here: https://anchor.fm/techstartupsgermany

We started serveral early SaaS Platforms and Fastbill was one of them. We just solved our problems at the time. René Maudrich, MD Germany FreshBooks

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We have been one of the SaaS pioneers here in Germany. René Maudrich, MD Germany FreshBooks  

The Founder

In this interview, we talk to one of the most experienced fintech founders in the greater Frankfurt area. René Maudrich (https://www.linkedin.com/in/renemaudrich/) is the CEO and founder of Frankfurt-based accounting and invoicing fintech Fastbill. They have been bought by Toronto, Canada-based, fintech unicorn Freshbooks (https://www.freshbooks.com/). He now holds the position of managing director of FreshBooks Germany.

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We became a top 3 provider in GSA (Germany, Switzerland and Austria), but we also have clients in 13 other countries. René Maudrich, MD Germany FreshBooks

The Startup

Fastbill (https://www.fastbill.com/) was one of the early fintech startups, that have been around, before fintech was a thing. They help small companies and freelancers with their invoicing and accounting. They are a top 3 provider for this kind of software in Germany. You can learn more about them here:

Also, Mario (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mahachemer/), the CTO of Fastbill has been a frequent guest. Mario is also part of the frequent crew of our annual fintech review. You can learn more about the company, him, and René in our interviews linked below.

We bootstrapped for six years before we took VC money. That was a bit too late. I would recommend it later. René Maudrich, MD Germany FreshBooks

The Exit

FreshBooks already knew Fastbill from events. FreshBooks was interested in purchasing a stake in Fastbill with their next investment round. During the conversation, they decided on an outright takeover. FreshBooks now owns all equity in Fastbill and the core team with René, Mario and Benjamin stay on board. All former Fastbill shareholders are now FreshBooks shareholders.

The Fastbill team is not permitted to speak about the transaction price. We can make estimates about the price range:

In 2019 they had approx. 2.5 mn Euros revenue (according to estimates in several databases). Assuming a growth to 3 or even 5 mn Euros annualized revenue in 2021 one can estimate the range of the transaction volume with normal multiples from 45 mn Euros at the low end to 110 mn € at the higher end, adding an “earn-out clause” of approx. 10% over the next few years.

Find all links, show notes and further readings here: https://www.startuprad.io/blog/fastbills-exit-to-canada-based-unicorn-freshbooks/

Meet TIS the world’s leading SaaS-B2B outbound payment platform

The problems we are solving for our clients now are the problems I had in my former corporate job. Jörg Wiemer, Co-Founder and CSO at TIS

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Want to be found by Business opportunities or contacted by new investors?

Get scouted by us, when we have a matching mandate and enroll your startup in our database: https://forms.gle/DmPtBKJH7MMmJoYo8

We don’t sell your data or spam you. We will even reach out to you before we include you in a scouting mandate.

  Our goal is for the topline 3x in the last three years. Jörg Wiemer, Co-Founder and CSO at TIS

The Founder

In this interview, we talk to Jörg Wiemer (https://www.linkedin.com/in/joerg-wiemer/) the co-founder, former CEO and current CSO (Chief Strategy Officer) of the grown-up tech company TIS (https://www.tis.biz/). Jörg had already an extensive corporate background with stops at Deutsche Bank and Douglas Holding (a beauty retailer). Was Senior Vice President and Head of Global Treasury at SAP, where he saw an opportunity and took a leap into entrepreneurship. In 2010 he co-founded TIS.

Joe always wanted to interview them, because they have been an important early success story that made startups sexy again. Also, any current or aspiring entrepreneur can learn a lot from Jörg in the interview.

Jörg has a lot of good advice from his early times starting TIS. You will find it in the last 1/3^rd of the interview.

For us … getting venture capital early was a good decision. Jörg Wiemer, Co-Founder and CSO at TIS

You don’t want to optimize your shareholdings in the company, you want to maximize your chances of success. Jörg Wiemer, Co-Founder and CSO at TIS

The Tech Company

TIS has been part of FT 100 Europe’s fastest-growing companies in 2019, 2020, and 2021.

TIS stands for Treasury Intelligence Solutions (https://www.tis.biz/) and is headquartered in Walldorf. Yes, the Walldorf is also home to SAP. The company has routes within SAP but is by now an independent grown tech company with more than 200 employees worldwide and a strong presence in Europe and North America. Startuprad.io always aims to bring you interesting founder stories, so it was about time to bring you the founder of a successful tech company.

Founders first have to do the hard work and then hire someone. Jörg Wiemer, Co-Founder and CSO at TIS

The Interviewer

This interview was conducted by Jörn “Joe” Menninger, startup scout, founder, and host of Startuprad.io. Reach out to him: LinkedIn Twitter Email

Find all links and show notes here: https://www.startuprad.io/blog/meet-tis-the-worlds-leading-saas-b2b-outbound-payment-platform/

Our software can assure, that the chip design you approve for production is correct. … we can guarantee that there are no bucks. Tobias Ludwig, CEO and Founder LUBIS EDA

Want to be found by Business opportunities or contacted by new investors?

Get scouted by us, when we have a matching mandate and enroll your startup in our database: https://forms.gle/DmPtBKJH7MMmJoYo8

We don’t sell your data or spam you. We will even reach out to you before we include you in a scouting mandate.

The faster you can get the chips in production, the higher are your profit margins. The first company takes almost all of the profits in this industry. Tobias Ludwig, CEO and Founder LUBIS EDA

A Brief Introduction to K-Town

This time we talk for the first time to a startup and a founder, based in Kaiserslautern (to the GI’s stationed close by known as K-Town). The city is locally also known as “Lautern.” This is a city in the German state of Rheinland-Pfalz, approx. 1,5 hours away from Frankfurt. They are known for their rich history, dating back to the 12^th century, and their great Technical University. The Technical University of Kaiserslautern is home to two Fraunhofer Institutes and the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems. They are also home to one of the locations of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), one of the world's largest nonprofit contract research institutes for software technology based on artificial intelligence, which shareholders include Google, Microsoft, SAP, and Daimler.

I found a colleague, working on a new method of hardware design. Tobias Ludwig, CEO and Founder LUBIS EDA

The Founder

We interview the founder Tobias Ludwig (https://www.linkedin.com/in/tobias-ludwig-5b1274a0/), CEO and founder of LUBIS EDA (eda.com">http://lubis-eda.com,https://www.linkedin.com/company/lubis-eda/). Tobias has developed software since he was 14, starting out writing websites. Ever since he was working, developing software, and studying. He also spent one year at Michigan State University on an exchange program. The company is an early-stage startup, providing software for the semiconductor industry, likely a game-changer for the industry.

If you have a problem with the design of your chips is faulty, you may only find out after you started production. Than you have to trash all the newly produced faulty chips Tobias Ludwig, CEO and Founder LUBIS EDA

The Startup

The software of LUBIS EDA helps semiconductor producers to accelerate their production of new (eda.com">http://lubis-eda.com,https://www.linkedin.com/company/lubis-eda/). In the chip industry, the first company to offer a new chip gets almost all the profits. Therefore, it is very important for semiconductor producers to be fast. The software of LUBIS EDA helps you to save up to 2 months in your development and assures your chip design is fault-free. With LUBIS EDA there is no need for starting over the chip development shortly before the production is about to start, since an error was discovered.

Conservative time savings estimate with our tool is 10%, which can go up to 20%. This may add up to two months in time savings. Tobias Ludwig, CEO and Founder LUBIS EDA

Find all links and show notes here: https://www.startuprad.io/blog/lubis-eda-maybe-a-game-changer-for-the-semiconductor-industry/