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Germany

Europe · Pop. 83.5M · #8 startup ecosystem by EV

A public taster of the full Germany ecosystem on Dealroom — request a demo for live deal flow, founder pedigrees, AI-talent maps, and the full cap table for every company below.

1 Overview

5,470 Pool of Funded Startups

New Startups

2,423 Annual Startups FoundedAll new ventures

723 Annual Startups FundedReceived investment

get funded 30%

4,444Startups

1,775 Pre-Seed Startups$100K–1M

1,544 Seed Startups$1–4M

Pre-Seed to Seed 30%

1,125 Series A Startups$4–15M

Seed to Series A 32%

818Breakouts

549 Series B Breakouts$15–40M

A to Series B 33%

269 Series C Breakouts$40–100M

B to Series C 35%

208Scaleups

123 Mega Scaleups$100–250M

reach Mega 2.2%

85 Mega+ Scaleups$250M+

reach Mega+ 1.6%

95Valuation Outcomes

90 Unicorns($1–10B valuation)

reach Unicorn 1.6%

5 Decacorns($10–100B valuation)

reach Decacorn 0.091%

Pre-Seed

1,775

Seed

1,544

Series A

1,125

Series B

549

Series C

269

Unicorn

Decacorn

* C→Unicorn and Unicorn→Decacorn rates are derived from current counts (no founding-cohort data); the four mid-funnel rates use Dealroom's cohort tracking.

2 Largest rounds

Largest funding rounds in Germany

A live treemap of $100M+ rounds from the Dealroom API. Each cell is one round into a company headquartered in Germany, grouped by Dealroom sector.

Largest rounds in Germany - 2024–2026

Every $100M+ VC round into Germany-headquartered companies in 2024–2026, grouped by Dealroom sector.

- rounds · - raised

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3 Startup hubs

Inside Germany: 12 startup hubs, 833 universities

Hubs are sized by combined enterprise value; universities and research institutes by the startup founders they produced. Hover any point for its numbers; the lists rank hubs by EV and universities by founders.

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By enterprise value · 5-yr growth

1 Berlin/Brandenburg $184B 3.6× 5-yr

2 Munich $106B 7× 5-yr

3 Frankfurt $19.9B 3.9× 5-yr

4 Hamburg $17.1B 5× 5-yr

5 Stuttgart $16.3B 4× 5-yr

6 Cologne - Bonn $12.8B 6.2× 5-yr

7 Hanover $6.8B 5.6× 5-yr

8 Düsseldorf $6.6B 1.5× 5-yr

Universities · founders produced · 833 tracked

1 Technical University Munich 2,706

2 WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management 1,841

3 RWTH Aachen University 1,149

4 Technical University Berlin 1,117

5 Karlsruhe Institute of Technology 821

6 Free University of Berlin 820

7 Humboldt University of Berlin 817

8 Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich 751

4 VC investment

How much venture capital flows into Germany

VC investment into Germany-headquartered, VC-backed companies, broken down by round size, company location, sector and funding stage.

5 Founder origins

Where Germany's unicorn founders build

304 founders born in Germany are behind 163 unicorns; 33% of those were built in the US. Origins are resolved from biography and education history, not current address. Compare with the other origin countries in Europe, ranked by founders or per 1M inhabitants.

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6 Location comparison

Unicorns, decacorns and centicorns — Germany in a global comparison

Companies count where they were founded or are headquartered. Values are per 1M people or totals, as a share of the US (US = 100%) or absolute; bars scale to the largest value in each column. Hover any value for the per-1M rate and absolute count.

7 Patent intelligence

Germany startup IP portfolio: 189.7K patent families

Granted patent families assigned to startups headquartered in Germany. Aggregated across the country's hub-level filings — Bay Area, Boston, etc. roll up under the United States row, the same way Tokyo and Osaka roll up under Japan.

Granted patent families

189.7K

Filed by tracked startups headquartered in the country.

2272 patents per million residents · #14 globally

Top patenting hubs

1 Munich Metropolitan Area 91.6K

2 Cologne/Bonn Region, NRW, Germany 30.8K

3 Stuttgart Metropolitan Region 16.3K

4 Frankfurt Rhine-Main 13.6K

5 Düsseldorf Region, NRW, Germany 13K

6 Ruhr Metropolis, NRW, Germany 10.6K

8 Sector concentration

Where Germany punches above its weight

Sectors in which Germany's share of the global unicorn pool is bigger than its overall share. A 5× over-index means Germany is 5× more represented in that sector than in the global average. Source: top-hub aggregation across the 18 simplified sectors.

✈️ Aviation

11.4×

3 unicorns · 25.0% of global sector

⚡ Energy

4.15×

10 unicorns · 9.1% of global sector

🪖 Defence

3.26×

2 unicorns · 7.1% of global sector

🥗 Food

3.26×

4 unicorns · 7.1% of global sector

🚀 Space

2.85×

2 unicorns · 6.3% of global sector

🛒 eCommerce & Marketplaces

2.61×

10 unicorns · 5.7% of global sector

🚗 Transportation

2.59×

5 unicorns · 5.7% of global sector

📣 Marketing

2.40×

2 unicorns · 5.3% of global sector

More data

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Region Europe Continent / region · #7 region by EV Country United Kingdom Europe · Pop. 69.2M · #3 startup ecosystem by EV Country France Europe · Pop. 68.5M · #9 startup ecosystem by EV Country Netherlands Europe · Pop. 18M · #10 startup ecosystem by EV Country Sweden Europe · Pop. 10.6M · #12 startup ecosystem by EV

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