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State · Europe

Nordrhein-Westfalen

State · Germany · Pop. 18.2M

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

🦄 New unicorns by year
1
Annual $1B+ outcomes, unsmoothed
🐎 Cumulative thoroughbreds
15
Company revenue history, 2016-2025
Enterprise value
$29.4B
Actual EV series, 2015-2025

Largest rounds

Largest funding rounds in Nordrhein-Westfalen

A live treemap of $100M+ rounds from the Dealroom API. Each cell is one round into Nordrhein-Westfalen-headquartered companies, grouped by Dealroom sector.

Largest rounds in Nordrhein-Westfalen - 2026

Every $100M+ VC round into Nordrhein-Westfalen-headquartered companies in 2026, grouped by Dealroom sector.
- rounds · - raised
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Top sub-locations

Inside Nordrhein-Westfalen: top 4 metros

Metros inside Nordrhein-Westfalen ranked by combined enterprise value, paired with their 5-year growth multiplier.

By enterprise value
1 Cologne - Bonn $14.2B
2 Düsseldorf $6.6B
3 Aachen $2.2B
4 Ruhr Area $2B
By 5-yr EV growth
1 Aachen 7.1×
2 Cologne - Bonn 4.5×
3 Ruhr Area 3.5×
4 Düsseldorf 1.5×

Startup funnel

Nordrhein-Westfalen's power-law funnel

From the first cheque written to a $10B+ outcome. Each arrow shows what fraction of companies at one stage graduate to the next, tracked by founding cohort.

Pre-Seed
434
Seed
190
Series A
132
Series B
61
Series C
27
Unicorn
10

* 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.

VC investment

How much venture capital flows into Nordrhein-Westfalen

VC investment into Nordrhein-Westfalen-headquartered, VC-backed companies, broken down by round size, company location, sector and funding stage. Live from the Dealroom Next Gen API.

Notable companies

Top private companies in Nordrhein-Westfalen

Up to 20 names per tier from Dealroom's tracked dataset. Decacorns are valued $10B+, unicorns $1B+, thoroughbreds have crossed $100M in revenue.

Unicorns $1B+ valuation 10
secunetOVHcloudDeepLFlaschenpostNiCE CognigyThe StepStone GroupDash0TrivagoLeanIXTonies
Thoroughbreds+ $100M+ revenue 15
GEAOVHcloudTrivagosecunetDeepLCLIQ DigitalToniesESFORINSchüttflixThe StepStone GroupChronextSurplexjobvalleyNext KraftwerkeFashionetteFlaschenpost

Academia

Nordrhein-Westfalen's academic flywheel

Companies founded by university alumni or spun out of research, plus the institutions producing the most founders tied to Nordrhein-Westfalen.

University-linked startup formation
334
University spinouts
1,064
Total alumni-founded companies
706
Of which startups (<$15M raised)
270
Breakouts ($15M-100M)
88
Scaleups ($100M+)

Location comparison

How Nordrhein-Westfalen stacks up

Compare Nordrhein-Westfalen with peers from the same country (Germany) — switch between combined EV, 5-year EV growth, and a growth × size view. Expand the table for the full ranking.

$183B
$115B
Nordrhein-Westfalen
$27.7B
$16.7B
$14.5B
$7.1B
$3.9B

Combined enterprise value of each ecosystem.

Premium analytics

What we don't show on this page (yet)

Sector breakdowns, founder origins, AI-talent leaderboards and live deal flow are gated to logged-in Dealroom users. Book a demo to access the full Nordrhein-Westfalen dataset — or see a sample on the Dealroom app.

Sector breakdown
Where Nordrhein-Westfalen's unicorns concentrate
Fintech
AI / Enterprise SW
Health Tech
Biotech
Cybersecurity
Consumer
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Capital autonomy
Nordrhein-Westfalen's domestic vs foreign capital mix
% domestic VC by stage
Cross-border lead investors
Sovereign-fund participation
Foreign-LP exposure
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Recent momentum
Nordrhein-Westfalen's VC investment trajectory by stage
2024 vs 2025 by stage
Round-size trends
Stage-conversion deltas
Quarterly velocity
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Founder origins
Where Nordrhein-Westfalen's startup founders come from
By country of origin
Per capita
Top universities
Top alumni-factory companies
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AI talent
Top employers of AI talent in Nordrhein-Westfalen
Core AI roles
Frontier AI roles
YoY hiring growth
Senior + lead engineers
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Deal flow
Live deal flow & funding rounds in Nordrhein-Westfalen
New rounds last 30 days
Stage breakdown
Active investors
Round-size trends
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Live company-by-company deal flow, full cap tables, founder pedigrees, hiring signals and revenue trajectories.