Large Deals Drive Overall Volume

The good news is that large deals drive the investments overall. We had an equal distribution of deals we tracked 14 deals in Q1 worth 393 m Euros and 14 deals in Q2 worth 77,8 m Euros. As so often some of the deals included in our statistics are not public knowledge.

We are not sure yet if the worsening funding environment is already shown in Q2 since we have seen Q2 performing even worse. Looking at the current numbers the area is still on track for a normal fundraising year. Q3 is traditionally low activity, but Q4 should bring a few larger deals. We are aware of several fundraisings going on right now.

Significant Deals

Some large deals drove the overall volume. We just wanted to highlight some here:

Q1 2022

• Operations 1 with 11,1 m Euros (https://buff.ly/330D7XU)
• Hy2Gen with 200 m Euros (the World’s largest private investment in green hydrogen) (https://hy2gen.com/200mio-investment/)
• Cansativa with 13 m Euros (https://buff.ly/3rOwQYS) the investors include Snoop Dog
• You can learn more here:

Germany has approved Cannabis For Medical Use, and Legalization for Recreation Is Next

• And the deal-making Volocopter a unicorn with 150 m Euros. You can learn more here:

Volocopter Is Now A Unicorn

Q2 2022

• Tvarit with 2,8 m Euros (https://buff.ly/3BOZy0W) Learn more here:

• Wingcopter with 40 m Euros (https://buff.ly/3oVCcPE). Learn more here:

• Enviria with 22,5 m Euros (https://buff.ly/3OIgsBH)
• Compredict with 5,5 m Euros (https://buff.ly/3zYXd2w). Learn more here:

Invitation to the Venture Capital Forum (VCF)

In 2022, we want to be an accelerator for financing in Frankfurt-Rhein-Main as part of the Venture Capital Forum. In this format, quarterly events will be held at which European VCs will pass on their valuable experience to founders and, with the flow of information, hopefully also strengthen the flow of money into the region.

You can learn more and keep an eye on the upcoming events. If conditions permit there will still be one event in September and one in December this year. Learn more here:

VENTURE CAPITAL FORUM

Outlook: Already passed half a billion Euros

We are actually very excited about what the rest of the year has in store for us. Looking at the deals that are already published for Q3 so far, our area has surpassed the 500 m Euros in funding already. Just the fundraising of Node Energy (7 m Euros) and Canyon Bicycles (30 m Euros) have pushed the area beyond the threshold. Trivia: investors in Canyon Bicycles include NBA player LeBron James.

Corona Aid Numbers

Adding to all that, we also found the corona aid investments the state of Hessen made with their investment vehicle Hessen Kapital I. The state invested less than 9 mn Euros in companies we would classify as startups in a total of 20 investments. So the average investment was around 440.000 €. Please don’t misunderstand, this surely made a big difference for many companies, but we would have expected an investment north of 10 m Euros at least. Note: The total investments of the vehicle included many more deals and larger total investments, but they did not pass our startup test.

The government invested 2020 5,8 m € and 2,9 m € in 2021 respectively. So the totals are not really changed by the investments. For this post, we will highlight the investments and deals in blue and red, since they are colors also used in the state’s crest.

Startups in Greater Frankfurt/Rhine-Main-Area Raised in H1 2022 more Funding Than in All of 2021 was originally published in Startuprad.io on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Everything changes, also Rhine-Main VC

At the end of 2021, we decided to end the partnership for RhineMain.vc. We will keep trying to bring you updates. For the time being RhineMain.vc will become a project of Startuprad.io

Invitation to the Venture Capital Forum (VCF)

In 2022, we want to be an accelerator for financing in Frankfurt-Rhein-Main as part of the Venture Capital Forum. In this format, quarterly events will be held at which European VCs will pass on their valuable experience to founders and, with the flow of information, hopefully also strengthen the flow of money into the region.

You can register here for the event on May 5th, 2022: https://www.eventbrite.de/e/venture-capital-forum-may-2022-tickets-308889505827.

Learn more here:

VENTURE CAPITAL FORUM

Let’s Talk Funding, the bad news

First up, the bad news. We must revise the numbers from the H1 2021 downwards, some deals went under, after announcing. This includes most prominently Volocopter, which wanted to go public with a 200 mn Euro SPAC deal towards the end of the year. They announced their intention in Q1 2021, and we included it in our data. In November they had to call off the deal.

Many of the early crowdfunding backers of Volocopter were not happy with the decision. They thought the IPO would be a big payday for them and now they are back with their early deal of 1% interest.

We are sure the leadership of Volocopter did not take this decision lightly and there have surely been a back and forth for quite some time, until they made this — surely — gut-wrenching decision.

Note: In the meantime, Volocopter raised funds at a unicorn valuation and the numbers will be part of the 2022 RhineMain.vc publications.

Volocopter Is Now A Unicorn

Let’s Talk funding, the good news

Second, the good news: Startups in the greater Rhine-Main Area (including cities like Mainz, Frankfurt, Darmstadt, or Mannheim) raised in total 320 mn Euros, or 363 mn US$. This is pure funding for the startups. We will also provide you with an overview of startup exits, IPOs, and a deeper look at Frankfurt’s first unicorn in separate articles.

2021 Gave Frankfurt its First Unicorn Startup

2021 Q1

We found in Q1 eleven funding deals. Of these several are not public knowledge. In total the deals we tracked raised 201,9 mn Euros (229 mn US$). Notable deals include Clark.de (69 mn €) and Bryter (60 mn €), as well as Captiq’s 30 mn € bond deal, Wingcopter (18 mn €) and the medtech Creative Balloons (15 mn €).

You can learn more about some startups, who raised funds in their respective interviews here:

Clark (69 m € / 85 mn US$), which later in the year went on to become the first unicorn in Frankfurt.

Wingcopter (18 m €) is also a very very interesting startup, combining several technologies to build drones (yes, a hardware startup). These drones can lift off and land as you would expect from drones, but also fly like fixed-wing aircraft. They use those capabilities mostly for humanitarian services to transport drugs or blood samples in remote areas in Africa or Pacific atolls. They also excluded any military applications of their technology in our interview. Learn more here:

Energy Robotics (2 m €) is a software startup. In combination with robotic hardware from other producers, they enable robots to make extensive autonomous inspection tours e.g. on unmanned drilling rigs or industrial complexes in order to look for leaks.

2021 Q2

In the 2nd quarter, we found twelve venture capital and venture debt deals. They raised in total 14,47 m €. Notable deals are Palturai (4 mn €) and Africa Green Tech (4 mn €).

Admittedly the total funds raised are a lower bound estimate, some startups disclosed only “seven digits funding”, where we assumed it to be 1 mn €. The same funding could turn out to be 9 mn €, but we are sticking to the lowest sum we get from public sources.

We could only track 18,47 mn € in venture funding, compared to 343 MN € in Q2 2019 and 368 MN € in Q2 2020. Admittedly BioNTech has been playing a large role in these quarters with their ramp of their products and preparation of their NASDAQ IPO. If we are controlling for their impact, the Q2 2021 is still the lowest total in funds raises, we have tracked so far. This may be due to corona. We hope there is a catch-up later.

You can learn more about Palturai, the Google of Business Data here:

2021 Q3

In Q3, we found — again- 11 deals. This seems to be a magic number for the regional startup scene. Keep in mind that the preparations of these funding rounds still took place under corona conditions. Notable deals include Focused Energy (13,3 mn Euros), Protagon formerly known as CrowdDesk (8,5 mn Euros), and Finlex (8 mn Euros). Here Wincopter again announced funding where investors included Uber Co-Founder Garrett Camp but did not disclose the funding amount.

Focused Energy is a project headed by two professors (Markus Roth from TU Darmstadt and Todd Ditmire from UT Austin). They are working on nuclear fusion with laser and target technology.

You can learn more about Protagon (formerly CrowdDesk) here, which is also the tool used by Sono Motors in their spectacular crowdfunding campaign in 2020, raising 50 mn Euros.

Interview 2020 (introduction to Funding-as-a-Service)

Their announcement — during the first Corona wave — to give the entry-level of their software free of charge

And Jamal El Mallouki, Protagon’s co-founder, is also chairman of the German CrowdFunding Association. We talked to him about the upcoming changes to crowdfunding in the European Union, likely a driver for their fundraising.

2021 Q4

It seems that in the final quarter the regional startup scene rebounded, and we could find 19 deals, which are not all public knowledge. The startups involved raised 61,4 mn Euros in funding (70,5 mn US$). Again, we have Wincopter with undisclosed fundraising from Japanese DRONE FUND.

Other notable deals include

Qualifyze formerly ChemSquare (12,1 mn Euros)

Bloomwell Group (8,6 mn Euros)

Thing-It (7,5 mn Euros) develops a proptech platform, on which is a technology platform for buildings. Learn more here, in our interview on their Series A round.

Finanz Guru (8 mn Euros) is a company, founded by twin brothers. They are known to have high-profile investors.

BITA (6 mn Euros) enables its clients to calculate tailored capital market indices. You can learn more about the founder and the startup in the interview here:

&Charge (undisclosed) helps online shoppers to protect the environment and you can learn more in their interview here:

Q4 2021 was also the time Frankfurt got its first fintech unicorn. You can learn more about it here:

2021 Gave Frankfurt its First Unicorn Startup

Also, 2021 was a year of exits for the regional startup scene. We will bring you an additional article about them soon. We estimate the total sum of the exits to be around half a billion Euros.

We are looking forward to hearing from you.

Startups in the Larger Rhine-Main Area Raised More than 300 mn € in 2021 was originally published in Startuprad.io on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

On December 9th NASDAQ listed Silicon Valley company Inpixon announced the acquisition of Eschborn (close to Frankfurt) based indoor navigation startup IntraNav.

Now Inpixion filed their annual report 2021 with the SEC (Link) and we took a look. It turns out that IntraNav was acquired for 1 mn Euros, 1,123 mn US$ at the time.

Inpixion writes:

“Note 10 -IntraNav Acquisition

On December 9, 2021, the Company, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Inpixon Germany, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Nanotron Technologies acquired IntraNav GmbH.

IntraNav will bring new, comprehensive products and technologies, and a broad IP portfolio to strengthen the Company’s established RTLS product line.

In exchange for a Purchase Price of $1.1 million, the Purchaser acquired all the outstanding shares of IntraNav.

The goodwill of $0.5 million arising from the Acquisition consists of an acquired workforce, as well as synergies and economies of scale expected from combined operations of Nanotron and IntraNav.”

The price is surprising since according to CrunchBase IntraNav has already raised 5.9 mn Euros to date.

IntraNav was acquired for 1 m Euros was originally published in Startuprad.io on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Volocopter raised 150 mn € (170 m US$) at a 1.5 bn € (1,87 m US$) valuation and joins the league of German unicorns. The investment is part of a Series E fundraising, which should raise up to 500 mn Euros (550 mn US$), so be ready for more news from them. The first trance is led by WP Investment from South Korea.

The company aims to produce electric VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft for air taxi services. Their proclaimed goal is to start with commercial flights for the Paris Olympic Games 2024.

The unicorn fundraising was announced on March 1st, 2022, and on March 8th the company announced a change in the CEO position. Dirk Hoke (formerly Head of Airbus Defence and Space) will take over from Florian Reuter, who has been the 5th employee of the company. Hoke is under a non-compete agreement until the end of August, so he will take over on September 1st.

Volocopter Is Now A Unicorn was originally published in Startuprad.io on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Vicampo Group is based in Mainz, which is part of Rheinhessen, Germany’s largest wine area. It is, therefore, no surprise that they are selling the fine wine and sekt (German version of Champagne) there.

In August 2021 Vicampo Group announced its sale to Viva Wine Group AB. Now Viva Wine went public in December 2021 on NASDAQ. The German eCommerce blog Exciting Commerce brought to our attention that they had to disclose the purchase price of 1,314.6 SEK, which equals approximately 125 mn Euros (~140 mn US$) in their IPO prospectus (Link opens prospectus as PDF).

They write:

“On 3 August 2021, Viva Wine Group AB acquired 100% of the shares and votes in the German company Vicampo.de GmbH. The company is an e-commence actor and operates two online shopping platforms — Vicampo and Weinfürst — with sales in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands and France. Both of these platforms target the lower price segment and thus complement Viva Wine Group’s existing business, which is targeted at a higher price segment. This acquisition also provides Viva Wine Group with a leading market position in Germany. The company expects positive synergy effects by coordinating the operation of these companies and the platforms. Vicampo.de GmbH has total assets of SEK 374.3 million. The purchase consideration amounted to SEK 1,314.6 million and was paid in cash.„

Vicampo Group Exit 2021 was worth 125 mn € was originally published in Startuprad.io on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Startuprad.io posted about this, as it happened, and later reposted it on Medium (https://medium.com/@startuprad_io/frankfurt-has-its-first-unicorn-startup-e009a28ed7c5). The insurance broker Clark became in 2021 the first unicorn. Clark is a classical insurtech startup of the first generation in Germany, which allows management and comparing of insurance policies on its app for retail clients. Of course, the clients are assisted by algorithms.

They have been in the news as they raised funding at the start of 2021, in total 85 mn US$, led by China-based Tencent (known in China for its messenger QQ). Tencent has also been an investor in some well-known companies. It owned at one point stakes in Snapchat, Spotify, Tesla, Ubisoft, Activision Blizzard, Epic Games, Mail.Ru, or JD.com.

The transaction that made Clark a unicorn is very complex. It apparently involved a share transaction, buying finanzen.de from Allianz insurance. They dealt directly with their venture arm called Allianz X. The transaction in total valued the newly combined company at more than 1 bn US$ ( ~880 mn Euros). Some news outlets also spoke of an investment of existing VCs along with the transaction.

You can listen to the interviews by Startuprad.io here. One from 2017, where they have just been selected by Bloomberg as one of the “50 most promising startups you have never heard of”.

There is also here the interview with the CEO and Founder Christopher via Startuprad.io as an audio or video interview.

2021 Gave Frankfurt its First Unicorn Startup was originally published in Startuprad.io on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In the time we cover here, Germany went through the 2nd and 3rd wave of corona infections, with partial lockdowns. This has been definitely a very challenging time for all of us, but startups told us that for some — not all — this made it much harder to raise funds.

We also heard about large swings in valuation, but in both directions.

Most deals disclosed in Q1 have been in preparations way ahead of time. Normally an entrepreneur in Germany estimates 6–18 months for fundraising, depending on their industry and development stage. So we may see more of an corona impact down the road.

But again, our deepest respect for all the entrepreneurs who achieved their funding goals, despite those very challenging times.

Let us get started with the headline: Startups in Greater Rhine-Main/Frankfurt raised 427,17 mn €, which is 499,14 mn US$, let’s say half a billion US Dollar. This time the startups in the area raised mostly classical venture capital, admittedly we also see the trend of venture debt funding here, especially with the Capitq 30 mn bond deal, plus a deal by Cansativa in revenue-based funding.

2021 Q1

We found in Q1 twelve venture capital or venture debt deals. Of these several are not public knowledge. In total the deals we tracked raised 401,9 mn Euros (471 mn US$). Notable deals include Volocopter (200 mn €), Clark.de (69 mn €) and Bryter (60 mn €), as well as Captiq’s 30 mn € bond deal, Wingcopter (18 mn €) and the medtech Creative Balloons (15 mn €).

You can learn more about some startups, who raised funds in their respective interviews here:

Energy Robotics (2 m €)

Clark (69 m € / 85 mn US$)

Wingcopter (18 m €)

2021 Q2

In the 2nd quarter, we found thirteen venture capital and venture debt deals. They raised in total 35 m €. Notable deals are Palturai (4 mn €) and Africa Green Tech (4 mn €).

Admittedly the total funds raised are a lower bound estimate, some startups disclosed only “seven digits funding”, where we assumed it to be 1 mn €. The same funding could turn out to be 9 mn €, but we are sticking to the lowest sum we get from public sources.

We could only track 17.27 mn € in venture funding, compared to 343 MN € in Q2 2019 and 368 MN € in Q2 2020. Admittedly BioNTech has been playing a large role in these quarters with their ramp of their products and preparation of their NASDAQ IPO. If we are controlling for their impact, the Q2 2021 is still the lowest total in funds raises, we have tracked so far. This may be due to corona. We hope there is a catch-up later.

Follow us on Twitter

We share on a regular basis published deals on our Twitter account. You can follow us here:

https://twitter.com/RhineMainVC

Startups in Greater Rhine-Main/Frankfurt raised almost half a billion US$ in Funding was originally published in Startuprad.io on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In total Rhine-Main raised 934.08 mn Euros (1.12 bn US$).

Most of the funding we have been tracking in all of 2020 was funding going to the Mainz-based NASDAQ listed unicorn BioNTech, which essentially avoided a decline of our tracked investments. BioNTech did prove worth the money and came up — together with their partner Pfizer — with the world’s first corona vaccine. Without this biotech company, the year would have looked much worse.

One point, which clearly shows in all the years we have been tracking so far is that more than half of the startup funding was already raised on June 30th. The two following quarters are usually weaker, with the summer quarter (Q3) — with the usual vacation time in Germany — proves to be especially low in actual investment activity.

Please note that the increase in funding may also be due to an increase in the publication of raised funds, or a better penetration of the market by our team. From the available data, we can say that the funding is trending upwards, also with growth in average funding. BioNTech has driven these values overall and excluding them from the calculation of average transaction size shows a dip in 2019, the year of the NASDAQ IPO for the biotech company. We will later get to that point.

The overall picture

The overall picture is good, mostly due to the investments in biotech, driven by the Corona vaccine. Thumbs pressed for a speedy V-shaped recovery.

Noteworthy fundraisings in 2020

Noteworthy fundraisings we tracked in Q1 2020

· Volocopters (>10 m €) https://buff.ly/2PpfpdJ

· Scoutbee (>10 m €) https://buff.ly/2O0Y4r5

Noteworthy fundraisings we tracked in Q2 2020

· Fintech TIS (>10 m €) https://buff.ly/3eEnKEK

Noteworthy fundraisings we tracked in Q3 2020

· None, only 3 smaller transaction (< 10 Mio Euros)

Noteworthy fundraisings we tracked in Q4 2020

· Proptech Bullfinch (>10 m €) https://buff.ly/35IrXnQ

· Insurtech Getsafe (>10 m €) https://buff.ly/3lU4aaM

· Fintech Solactive (>10 m €) https://buff.ly/3gwkMUW

· Computing provider Northern Data (>10 m €) https://buff.ly/2KOccFc

· Insurtech Clark (>10 m €) https://buff.ly/3nCyzeq

o An English interview covering the fundraising here: https://buff.ly/2L30ozq

Average transaction size

Since we talk such a lot about BioNTech, we were curious what impact the funding of the company had on the average transaction size. It turns out a lot! We calculated the numbers in total and excluding their fundraising and this shows the immense impact of one great company on the overall picture.

Other Noteworthy News in 2020

There are other transactions we want to draw your attention to. They are not included in our data, but we think none less, they are noteworthy. They include:

· German holding company Haniel buys majority stake in Emma, a “sleep tech” startup https://buff.ly/2Vv956V

· Fintech creditshelf makes first closing with 62 MN EUR for their first ‘Direct-Lending’ fund, investors include European Investment Fund (EIF) https://buff.ly/35JaCL5

o You can learn more about creditshelf here: https://buff.ly/3td67UB

· Not really included in Rhine-Main (and therefore not included in our data), but this IPO shows the appetite for tech IPOs in Germany, even during Q2 “Successful IPO despite Covid 19, Nuremberg based database company Exasol lists at Frankfurt Stock Exchange and jumps 50% during first trading https://buff.ly/2XwdDdY

· Axel Springer takes over the majority in the start-up FRAMEN — Frankfurt Valley https://buff.ly/34hVzJ1

o Learn more about the founding brothers here https://buff.ly/3oXM7lY

Keep to date

You can keep up to date, by following our blog here, or our Twitter account. On the social media channels, we also post on these channels content related to venture financing in the greater Rhine-Main Region.

Hashtags to follow

Have a look on Twitter for Frankfurt and the wider Rhein-Main area: #rheinmainrocks, #frmstartupscene #frankfurtvalley or #startupradio

Jörn Menninger founding partner of RhineMain.vc

Looking back at the Corona Year was originally published in Startuprad.io on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The quarter is surely record-breaking, especially given the nimble Q1 2019. One does not have to be a prophet to see that the impact of corona will be big and cannot be reliably estimated as of now.

We will keep you updated (as always) on the most recent funding rounds on our Twitter account.

Noteworthy fundraisings in 2020 Q1

The main driver has been again been several large rounds. In total, we had 310 mn Euros raised by only eight startups. As always we are under NDA for a few fundraisings and so we can not disclose all data here. Let us talk you through a few of them:

• Noteworthy is the second closing of Volocopters Series C, which totals 87 mn €. According to our tracking, only 32 mn Euros was additional funding https://buff.ly/2PpfpdJ
• Scoutbee form Würzburg closed 60 mn US$ (54 mn Euros) https://buff.ly/2O0Y4r5
• Again BioNTech has been present with a funding of 135 mn US$, for their corona vaccine search https://buff.ly/39ejGHW
• Also, we have Iwoca in our numbers, who raised 100 mn Euros to lend to their German clients (https://buff.ly/3aatsfb). What is also promising is that this investment could only be a test for further investments. The money was designated for the German market. Their German headquarter is located in Frankfurt and since they received the funding for the German market, we included them in our numbers.

The overall picture

We highlighted the 2020 numbers. We really hope that all startups and investors will get well through the current lockdown! Thumbs pressed for a speedy V-shaped recovery.

Keep to date

You can keep up to date, by following our blog here, or our Twitter account. On the social media channels, we also post on these channels content related to venture financing in the greater Rhine-Main Region.

Hashtags to follow

Have a look on Twitter for Frankfurt and the wider Rhein-Main area: #rheinmainrocks, #frmstartupscene #frankfurtvalley or #startupradio

Jörn Menninger for the partners of RhineMain.vc

Startup Funding in Times of Corona was originally published in Startuprad.io on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

CONGRATULATION to all startups who got funded!

Note: As of writing this, we are still chasing some details of 2019 numbers and we may correct these numbers upward again.

Noteworthy fundraisings in 2019

The main driver of this year's growth has been biotech companies, foremost Mainz-based BioNTech, which is looking to develop individualized cancer medicine. Not only have they been the most important driver of Venture Capital investments in Rhine-Main, but they also successfully listed on NASDAQ in October 2019. The investors so far made a good deal, as of writing this blog post, the share price more than doubled since the listing.

Another noteworthy company is Innoplexus, which is located very close to Frankfurt in Eschborn. They already raised 35 mn Euros in Venture Capital. They declared their intention to become the Google of Pharma (a search engine for scientists) and to raise an additional 40 mn Euros in additional funding.

Due to the definition of Rhine-Main for our Initiative, we include startups within approx. 2 hours drive around Frankfurt (similar to the San Francisco Bay Area). This does not match the established definition of the area but is a more realistic approach for the habits and needs of founders. Therefore also noteworthy have been the fundraisings of Volocopter (55 mn US$), Getsafe (17 mn US$), Thinksurance (13 mn Euros) and Scoutbee (10,6 mn Euros).

There is also a Thinksurance interview by our partner Startuprad.io on their financing round, as well as Thing-It.

Fundraising over time

Especially the Q2 2019 has been very important for the year in total. It appears to form our, — admittedly, spotty data — that Q3 is not the best time for startups to close a financing round, at least in Rhine-Main.

We have seen so far that usually, there is one strong quarter. In 2018 this has been Q1 (265,85 m €) in 2019 this has been Q3 (343,07 m €). They drive the lion share of the investments, which is usually due to one or two fundraisings.

In the future we expect the fundings to get larger. One or two outsized financing rounds will become less important, but the startups have to mature a bit more before they can pull it off.

The overall picture

The number of deals we have been tracking has increased to 39 (up from 28 in 2018), and we are working hard to get more coverage.

With the increased number of deals, we are also getting a better picture of the actual financing rounds and the interest of investors in Rhine-Main, especially Mainz, Frankfurt, and Darmstadt.

The split by industry over two years

One of the points of interest is always for us to uncover trends. 2019 has definitely been a good year for investments in blockchain startups in the area, where we found 6 deals. In contrast in 2018, we found no blockchain startup investment. One of the main drivers here is the local VC Finlab AG, which has a partnership with EOS to invest in blockchain startups. Finlab is also an important investor in the German fintech scene, of which some sings can be seen below.

Note: We split fintech startups as much as we could. PropTech and InsurTech are listed separately.

Also noteworthy, startups trading with medical Cannabis have gathered interest. This may be so due to the central location of Frankfurt with great connections via airport, train, and Autobahn.

Let us see how the whole picture.

We assume the “Hightech” startups, which could also be called Deep Tech startups will get more investments. Noteworthy is here the Technical University Darmstadt, which is doing some important work to get an ecosystem started.

Note: We are providing this overview to get more of a feel where the interest of the investors is going. If we would have provided a view based on money invested, there would have been an overwhelming share of biotech and a slice of “everything else”.

Also noteworthy

We try to provide a look in the Rhine-Main area, but not everything fits in our blog. None the less we will point out noteworthy investments. The first one we would like to mention is the only listed pure-play fintech in Germany, Frankfurt-based lending Startup creditshelf. They raised a diversified credit fund, dedicated to SME financing. The European Investment Fund is the Anker investor with 30 mn Euro.

Keep to date

You can keep up to date, by following our blog here, or our Twitter account. On the social media channels, we also post on these channels content related to venture financing in the greater Rhine-Main Region.

Hashtags to follow

Have a look on Twitter for Frankfurt and the wider Rhein-Main area: #rheinmainrocks, #frmstartupscene #rheinmainstartups #frankfurtvalley or #startupradio

Jörn Menninger for the partners of RhineMain.vc

The Venture Funding in Greater Rhine-Main has set a new record of 665 mn Euros in 2019 was originally published in Startuprad.io on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.