More money for startups, more jobs thanks to startups

According to the startup barometer, 183 Berlin-based companies obtained venture capital at least once last year. In comparison, in Bavaria 69 companies attracted venture capital, making Bavaria the second federal state in the ranking in terms of the number of companies funded with venture capital. In 2015, a total of 2.1 billion euros in venture capital was invested in startups in Berlin; in 2014 this figure was just 891 million euros. In terms of the total amount of venture capital, Bavaria (258 million euros) was beaten to second place by Hamburg (296 million euros). The data compiled by the startup barometer is based on press releases and news reports.

Berlin is attracting larger and more frequent venture capital sums than London

Based on a Europe-wide comparison, Berlin took the lead for the second time over London, which attracted 1.8 billion euros of venture capital. Furthermore, in contrast to 2014, Berlin also outperformed London with regard to the number of investments. In 2014 London was ahead of Berlin with 149 respectively 106 venture capital investments, but the balance has since tipped in favour of the German capital (205) compared to its British counterpart (132). 

Since 2013, investments in startups Europe-wide (almost 5 billion euros) have more than doubled to over 11.7 billion euros (2015). Germany has now emerged as the leader. In 2013, with almost 1.6 billion euros of invested venture capital, the UK was clearly ahead of France (928 million euros) and Germany (650 million euros). In 2015, however, Germany saw investments of over 3 billion euros. During the same period, this figure was at least 2.6 billion euros in the UK and close to 1.6 billion euros in France.

Online retail popular with investors

In Germany venture capitalists invested the highest sums in the online retail sector (almost 1.8 billion euros). This was followed by FinTech (611 million euros) and software solutions for the B2B sector and big data (together 283 million euros). The delivery service Delivery Hero attracted the most venture capital in 2015 with a figure of 586 million euros.

Startups integrate foreign employees

According to the average figures of the Deutscher Startup Monitor that were published in autumn 2015, after 2.8 years a startup creates 17.6 jobs. On the basis of the DSM, Florian Nöll, Chairman of the German Startups Association, concludes that startups “have become an indispensable part of our economy, labour market and society”. In Berlin, one third of startup employees were not German nationals; Germany-wide this figure was 22 percent.

Contrary to expectations, the company founders surveyed in the DSM viewed the role of venture capital as less important than implied by the development shown in the startup barometer. The most important source of startup financing, according to 80 percent of the surveyed company founders, was their own savings. Venture capital was only ranked in fifth place, accounting for just 20 percent. This can be explained by the different data sources taken as the basis for the two studies as well as by the large number of young founders among the individuals surveyed in the DSM.