List of German startups to watch in 2020. Part II

Germany is one of the leading startup powerhouses in Europe, attracting $4.8 billion in venture capital funding in 2019. The Sifted team has chosen a list of startups to follow in 2020. AIN.TECH publishes the second part of 20.

  1. Penta

Founded: In 2016 by Aleksandar Orlic, Igor Kuschnir, Jessica Holzbach, Lav Odorovic, Luka Ivicevic, Matteo Concas, and Sir Gabriel Holbach                                                                  

Valuation: €32-€48M

Penta is a digital business bank platform designed to help startups and SMEs save time and money on banking. It automates bank accounts and invoices, offers online cashless banking services, and helps to open an online banking account in minutes, enabling consumers to manage their cash flows easily

  1. Kontist

Founded: In 2016 by Alexander Baatz, Catharina Bruns, Christopher Plantener, Madison Bell, Sebastian Galonska, and Sophie Pester

Valuation: €4-€6M

Kontist provides the banking services for freelancers, making finances easy. The company believes they are shaping the future of work, challenging corporate structures, embracing individuality and building successful businesses.

  1. Bilie

Founded: In 2016 by Aiga Senftleben, Artem Demchenkov, Christian Grobe, and Matthias Knecht

Valuation: €120-€180M

Billie is a fintech startup with a mission to reinvent working capital management for SMEs by offering innovative lending products. It is solving the order-to-cash problem through a fully automated invoice financing solution tailored to small businesses.

  1. Mapify

Founded: In 2017 by David Pflugpeil, Magnus Langanke, Patrick Haede, Sebastian Hade, Sebastian Haede, and Tobi Schnorpfeil

Valuation: €4-€5M

Berlin-based company Mapify is a social marketplace for travel experiences that connects travellers around the world through past and ongoing journeys. By developing a website and app, it has attracted users worldwide to share trips and spots in more than 160 countries. 

  1. Opinary 

Founded: In 2013 by Cornelius Frey, Max Meran, and Pia Frey

Valuation: €12-€18M

Opinary is a Berlin-based startup that established a new way for users to share their opinion in online content. Its technology helps 84 million monthly users to share their view with a tap and understand opinion trends at a glance. The Times, HuffPost, NBC, Toyota and Mastercard are already among the startup’s clients.

  1. Grover

Founded: In 2015 by Michael Cassau

Valuation: €150-€250M

Grover is a company that enables people to subscribe to tech products monthly instead of buying them. It allows private customers, as well as businesses, to get access to a wide assortment of over 1500 tech products such as smartphones, laptops, VR gear.

  1. Crosslend 

Founded: In 2014 by Oliver Schimek

Valuation: €140-€210M

CrossLend is a fintech that develops a European digital debt marketplace. It enables originators such as banks, savings banks, cooperative banks, special credit institutions offer their assets to institutional investors from all over Europe for purchase via a single central platform.

  1. Neufund

Founded: In 2016 Marcin Rudolf and Zoe Adamovicz

Valuation: €40-€60M

Neufund is blockchain-based asset tokenization and equity investment platform. The company’s technology enables virtually any incorporated entity worldwide to conduct a public offering on blockchain. 

  1. Wefox

Founded: In 2015 by Julian Teicke

Valuation: €1.55B

Berlin-based insurtech startup Wefox functions with brokers, insurance agencies, and individuals via a digital platform. The company facilitates simple and personalised consultations for different types of insurance.

  1. IDAGIO

Founded: In 2014 by Christoph Lange and Till Janczukowicz

Valuation: €40-€60M

IDAGIO is a streaming service specifically designed for classical music. It has subscribers in over 130 countries including the US and Canada. Since the startup’s launch, IDAGIO has been downloaded over 500,000 times.

  1. Lemoncat

Founded: In 2016 by Doreen Huber

Valuation: €24-€36M

Berlin-based startup Lemoncat is an online marketplace for high-quality business catering. Since its establishment, the company has spread to 80 cities in Germany with 450 caterers, making Lemoncat the largest online catering platform in the country. 

  1. CareerFoundry

Founded: In 2013 by Martin Ramsin and Raffaela Rein

Valuation: €18-€27M

CareerFoundry is a career accelerator for vocational tech skills. The startup builds online programs delivered by expert mentors to bring complete beginners up to employable standards in technology.

  1. Urban Sports Club

Founded: In 2012 by Benjamin Roth and Moritz Kreppel

Valuation: €40-€60M

Urban Sports Club offers a flexible sports flat rate. The mission is to help people lead a more healthy and active lifestyle. Club members can choose from more than 50 types of sports and more than 10,000 partner venues in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Belgium. 

  1. Orderbird

Founded: In 2011 by Artur Hasselbach, Bastian Schmidtke, Jakob Schreyer, and Patrick Brienen-Lucius

Valuation: €55M

orderbird is a cloud provider of iPad and Android POS system for the hospitality industry and the SMB Market. Over 5,000 customers including restaurants, cafes, clubs, ice cream shops and beer gardens in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland are already using the orderbird POS system.

  1. Adjust

Founded: In 2012 by Christian Henschel, Manuel Kniep, and Paul Müller

Valuation: €818M

Adjust is an app marketing platform. It includes measurement, fraud prevention, cybersecurity, and marketing automation products. The company now has 16 offices around the world. 

  1. Personio

Founded: In 2014

Valuation: €145-€218M

Personio offers cloud-based HR management and recruiting solutions and software for startups, and small- and medium-sized enterprises. The company enables its customers to store and manage all employee data and HR processes in one place.

  1. navabi

Founded: In 2008 by Bahman Nedaei and Zahir Dehnadi

Valuation: €40-€60M

navabi is a plus-size fashion retailer. It offers a huge assortment of brands for plus sizes globally, as well as clothes of their own brands. The pages of navabi feature weekly fashion editorial, weekly updated products and video presentations for each collection with style recommendations.

  1. Market Logic Software

Founded: In 2006 by Elizabeth Parsons Morgan and Olaf Lenzmann

Valuation: €180-€270M

Market Logic is a venture-financed corporation that provides marketing information systems to the marketing and research teams. Its clients include global brands from FMCG/CPG, healthcare, retail, high-tech, finance and communications sectors, and over 600 research agencies.

  1. Forto (previously FreightHub)

Founded: In 2016 by Erik Muttersbach, Fabian Heilemann, Ferry Heilemann, and Michael Wax

Valuation: €109-€164M

Forto develops digital logistics technology and services that go beyond transportation from point A to point B. The easy to use and intuitive platform allows their customers to optimize and, therefore, own their entire global supply chain processes. 

  1. ProGlove

Founded: In 2014 by Alexander Grots, Jonas Girardet, Manuel Boenisch, Paul Günther, and Thomas Kirchner

Valuation: €144-€216M

ProGlove develops industrial wearables that enable manufacturing and logistics staff to work faster, safer, and easier. Through its wearable barcode scanning solutions, process steps can be documented hands-free, giving instant feedback to the user. 

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