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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.

$27.7B+26%
Combined startup EV
$649.2M
VC invested (last 12mo)
1,117
Tracked startups
#55/ 69
Unicorns per 1M people · regions rank
🦄 Unicorns
10
10 live · +1 new in 2025 (incl. 0 new decacorns)
💎 Decacorns
0
🐎 Thoroughbreds
16
Top 1% growth · $500M+

Adjacent regions by EV

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.

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

Ecosystem signals

Beyond the headline — Nordrhein-Westfalen's underlying signals

Dealroom's deeper indicators of ecosystem health: where the capital comes from, how universities feed it, and the most recent year-on-year movement.

Capital autonomy
Share of Nordrhein-Westfalen's VC dollars sourced from domestic investors, by funding stage. Lower bars at scaleup mean more reliance on foreign capital for the biggest rounds.
Domestic capital
Startup
58%
42% foreign
Breakout
52%
48% foreign
Scaleup
14%
86% foreign
Academia
Companies founded by university alumni or spun out of research, captured across all tracked startups in 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+)
Recent momentum
2024 vs 2025 VC investment by stage in Nordrhein-Westfalen. 2025 figures are year-to-date.
2024 2025
Early ($0-15M)
$216.8M
$180.5M
↓ 17%
Breakout ($15-100M)
$222M
$355.2M
↑ 60%
Scaleup ($100M+)
$400M
$110M
↓ 73%

Vs. similarly-sized ecosystems

How Nordrhein-Westfalen stacks up

Peers chosen from the same country (Germany), sized closest to Nordrhein-Westfalen by combined EV. The scatter plots growth × current size — outliers in the upper-right are ecosystems compounding fastest.

Combined enterprise value
$183B
$115B
Nordrhein-Westfalen
$27.7B
$16.7B
$14.5B
$7.1B
$3.9B
EV growth (5-yr ×) vs current EV
peer median 3.9× 2.7× 4.6× 6.5× $7.1B $35.9B $183B EV growth (5yr ×) Combined enterprise value (log) Berlin Bavaria Nordrhein-Westfalen

Top overview

Germany — top regions

Top regions in Germany ranked by combined EV. Nordrhein-Westfalen's row is highlighted.

# Ecosystem Combined EV 5-yr EV growth Unicorns VC invested Tracked startups
1 Berlin $183B 3.6× 33 $2.6B 2,879
2 Bavaria $115B 6.5× 22 $3.3B 1,652
3 Nordrhein-Westfalen $27.7B 3.2× 10 $649.2M 1,117
4 Baden-Württemberg $24.2B 3.9× 6 $885.1M 691
5 Hamburg $16.7B 5.2× 5 $161.6M 653
6 Hesse $14.5B 3.0× 3 $196.4M 489
7 Rhineland-Palatinate $10.2B 2.7× 2 $75.8M 149
8 Saxony $7.1B 6.3× 1 $76.8M 271
9 Lower Saxony $3.9B 7.9× 4 $59.5M 184
10 Brandenburg $2.7B 2.7× 0 $142.6M 173
11 Saxony-Anhalt $2.7B 2.0× 0 $17.7M 80
12 Schleswig-Holstein $1.2B 5.7× 0 $7.2M 95

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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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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