Tech giants in the making

ACCURE is an Aachen-based battery software startup which combines cutting-edge research with a practical understanding of modern industrial batteries used for, e.g., e-mobility or home storage systems. As a spin-off out of Europe’s largest university research group on battery storage systems, ACCURE has hands-on experience in working with battery data. As of today, ACCURE's cloud diagnostics have been applied to more than 200,000 battery modules.

Adjust is an app marketing platform that includes measurement, fraud prevention, cybersecurity, and marketing automation products for 50,000 apps. With Adjust, app marketers can analyze user behavior, user acquisition, marketing ROI, user lifetime cohorts and more. Founded in Berlin in 2012, Adjust has grown to more than 550 employees across 16 offices worldwide.

In February 2021, AppLovin (Nasdaq: APP), a global technology and apps platform that provides developers a unified set of tools to grow their business, announced the acquisition of Adjust.

Agorize organizes and runs Open Innovation Challenges for large corporates. Corporates do not only get strong solutions for actual technology-based problems, but also get access to talent early in their career. Next to its global community of 5 million innovators and 2,000+ organized challenges, more than 100 international companies trust Agorize, including Google, Microsoft, Airbus, Philips, HP, Deloitte, Uber, Paypal, Allianz and Axa.

The aifora retail automation platform enables you to predict how much your customers will buy, when, where and at what price. With a variety of AI-based solutions for pricing and inventory management, you are able to comprehensively optimize your merchandise management and automate all underlying processes. The Düsseldorf-based company serves customers such as Peek & Cloppenburg, Reno, NKD, Adler and navabi.

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Black Semiconductor is a deep tech company introducing a new generation of chip technology. By leveraging the material graphene to create powerful chip networks with unparalleled performance, thousands of chips are connected to interact as if they were one. The company's technology will enable transformative applications across industries, including efficient data centers, next-generation AI, and autonomous driving.

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Buena offers landlords the convenience of signing a property management contract online in just two minutes. With Buena, landlords can simply collect their rent without having to worry about re-letting, tenant management, finances, and more. The company is based in Berlin, but provides property management services all over Germany, including single units, entire buildings, and shared buildings through its state-of-the-art software platform.

With Cedalo, companies can anchor the use and integration of data in their digital transformation. The no-code software Streamsheets combines a robust real-time data processing server with a web front end and is considered the next evolutionary step for real-time data calculations as well as visualizations. With Streamsheets, data streams can be easily visualized and transformed using decision logics (e.g., if-then conditions) without programming knowledge. Each user can thus create his own application for data analysis. In addition, Cedalo offers Mosquitto, the most widely distributed and used MQTT broker.

Capmo enables construction and real estate professionals to finish construction projects on time and on budget. The company’s intuitive Construction Site OS replaces pen, paper and manual processes through digital workflows and smart construction analytics. Capmo accompanied over 10,000 projects across Europe and is used by smaller offices as well as by major construction firms such as Arcadis and Max Bögl.

CHRONEXT is the premier e-commerce destination for luxury watches. With its vast selection of over 7,000 immediately available luxury watches, CHRONEXT has already served over 100,000 satisfied customers worldwide. With 130 employees across offices in Cologne, Zug, London, and Hong Kong, CHRONEXT has established a worldwide presence and set its global foothold for continuous growth.

Circula is a Berlin-based software-as-a-service fintech that provides companies with a comprehensive employee finance app that, for the first time, combines fully digital accounting of employee expenses, travel expenses, digital employee benefits and a smart corporate credit card in one product. In doing so, Circula software is optimized for seamless embedding into existing finance and payroll processes and tech stacks. Circula was founded in 2017 by Nikolai Skatchkov and Roman Leicht in Berlin. As part of its internationalization strategy, Circula now serves Spain and the Netherlands in addition to the German market. Circula's 1,300 customers (as of January 2023) include DATEV, ABOUT YOU, Ebner Stolz, DFL, McMakler, Urban Sports Club, Infarm and Orthomol.

cleverly is an innovative online tutoring and mentoring program that helps students achieve their full potential. The focus is on preparing them for their future career. cleverly uses a holistic learning approach: Mentors support the development of personal skills, while tutors focus on building up professional skills.

The program was launched in summer 2021. The Founders behind cleverly are the experienced serial entrepreneurs Fredrik and Julia Harkort. Together they are parents of two children in school.

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COBI.Bike, founded in Frankfurt, built the perfect fusion between smartphone and eBike including a characteristic smart light. While cycling one can easily stay connected with all the apps and friends – all thanks to smart connectivity.  This way being on the move means not to miss a thing – from the latest updates to saving rides with Apple Health, Google Fit, Strava and determining real-time data such as cadence, heart rate, altitude, calorie consumption and more.

In 2017, COBI.Bike was acquired by BOSCH.
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cofenster enables companies to unlock the power of video by producing videos at scale, fully-automated and with an unlimited number of users. Their solution not only produces the video, but also automatically renders and cuts it, implements subtitles where needed and includes Corporate Identity elements. Among many others, cofenster's customer base comprises Carlsberg, Stada, Microsoft, Beiersdorf and Rewe Group.

Contiamo’s data science platform enables companies to leverage the potential of their data to make better decisions. Data from any source can be easily connected and analyzed within the platform. Unlike traditional business intelligence solutions, Contiamo offers access to self-service data analysis and visualization in real-time. Global leaders such as Telekom, Daimler, CBRE, Deutsche Bahn or Linde Group trust Contiamo with their data.

In 2021, Contiamo was sold aspart of a secondary transaction.

CrossEngage is a SaaS open marketing platform that combines a customer data platform with cross-channel campaign management capabilities. It easily integrates with all data sources and marketing channels so that customers can keep their existing marketing infrastructure. By enabling a more personalized communication, CrossEngages is trusted by clients such as Deutsche Bahn, Scout24 or Depot.

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Dexory (formerly known as BotsAndUs) is a data-driven robotics and AI company which believes in human and robotic collaboration. The aim is to create a fleet of autonomous service robots to work alongside people while driving efficiency across customer service, operations and analytics. The London-based venture and its robots serve companies such as British Airways, MediaMarktSaturn, Heathrow Airport and dnata.

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everstox is a Munich-based Logistics-as-a-Service platform which offers scalable and data-driven warehousing and fulfillment for e-commerce, B2B and retail via a network of independent European logistics service providers. Customers such as YFood, vly or Razor Group trust everstox with the independent network of renowned warehouse logistics and fulfillment partners, enabling transparent, efficient and eco-friendly logistics solutions across Europe.

Embold is on a mission to drive a global movement for clean code across software development. The venture has created an intelligent software analytics platform which enables companies to improve their software quality and productivity by identifying, prioritizing and fixing hotspots in the code. With offices in Germany, India, and Tokyo, Embold integrated their solution for customers such as Bosch, Sanofi, Magna or Bofrost.

With its world-leading 3Dmaps, FATMAP provides the ultimate tool kit for mountain adventures. By workingwith mountain professionals, safety experts, pro-athletes, and its community oflocal experts, FATMAP brings together detailed, up-to-date route planninginformation with intelligent terrain analysis tools to help today’s adventurersplan with confidence and live better adventures. Over three million users enjoythe experiences FATMAP brings and its community of hikers, mountain bikers, skiers and trail runners arealready active in over 100 countries around the world.

On January 24^th 2023,Strava announced the acquisition of FATMAP.

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Munich based Filics, founded by Gregor Kolls, Robin Konrad, Julius Lutzer, and Markus Weber, is an innovative concept for the intralogistical transport of goods. With their Filics Unit, two mechanically independent skids driving autonomously into Euro pallets or Euro grid boxes, lifting them and moving the load in a direct way – safe for personnel and digitally controllable – they are set out to change the future of logistics. The innovative shape of the Filics Unit enables the most space-efficient pallet transport in the world. The space required for maneuvering, turning, moving and transporting is reduced to a minimum – the pallet itself.

With the help of AI Freshflow is focusing on the grocery sector’s fresh produce which is faced with the daily challenge of estimating the correct order amount. Their AI is a game changer in the food sector estimating the perfect order while taking weather, local events, holidays, best before dates, seasonality and more into account. The overall mission? To tackle the challenge of reducing food waste globally by building the food supply chain of the future.

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Getsafe is a digital insurance company which creates an easy, flexible and enjoyable insurance experience for everyone. Getsafe replaces complexity and manual paperwork with smart bots and automation, allowing customers to file claims or change their coverage in real time with just a few clicks. Founded in 2015 by Christian Wiens (CEO) and Marious Blaesing (CTO), Getsafe currently has more than 400,000 highly satisfied customers.

Happycar is a meta-search engine for rental cars. With its service, the company is positioned as pan-European partner for rental car companies and multiple brokers. Customers benefit from a best price guarantee under consideration of fuel policies and insurance conditions. With more than 140,000 car rental locations across the globe, the Hamburg-based company serves more than 320,000 customers worldwide.

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HiPeople’s platform creates in-depth talent insights to make hiring easy for everyone. It does so by automating candidate reference checks from request, to collection, and analysis. Longer term, the company is developing a candidate analytics platform to provide rich data and insights on each candidate and enable what it frames as “data-driven” hiring. Today, HiPeople operates as a remote-first company and services reputable customers such as SumUp, Celonis and Staffbase.

how.fm is providing multi-language onboarding and training solutions for manual workers. With customers such as e-commerce fulfillment provider Ingram Micro or fashion brand Tommy Hilfiger, they are primarily focused on ensuring health and safety compliance in the warehouse. Furthermore, how.fm is also training new and temporary staff on forward and reverse logistics skills and work instructions, including re-trainings for continuous improvement.

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Since 2015, Innoactive has been providing virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) solutions to customers in various sectors. With Innoactive's software platform, VR and AR applications for planning, simulation and training can be created quickly, easily and with consistently high quality. Today, customers such as Volkswagen, Audi, General Electric, Deutsche Bahn, Fraport and Lufthansa value Innoactive's solution.

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Berlin-based software developer Lana Labs innovates the way companies analyze and improve their processes. As a spin-off of the renowned Hasso-Plattner-Institute for IT Systems Engineering, Lana Labs builds upon the latest insights in process analytics research. Today, Lana Labs provides customers such as Telefonica, KPMG or Kreissparkasse Köln with a flexible and fully automated method of process analysis.  

In 2021, Lana Labs was acquired by Appian (Nasdaq: APPN).

LeanIX - often referred to as the Google Maps for your IT - helps organizations to map out their IT landscape by offering a Software-as-a-Service solution for managing Enterprise Architecture and multi-cloud environments. This enables organizations to make faster, data-driven decisions in their IT. The company was founded in 2012 by Jörg Beyer and André Christ and its innovative solution is used by hundreds of leading brands worldwide, including Volkswagen, Adidas, Bosch, DHL, Merck and Vodafone. 

LeanIX was acquired by SAP in 2023.

Lumifrom is an intuitive inspection- and audit-app for industries ranging from food and hospitality to retail to facility management and beyond. With their service Lumiform revolutionizes the workflow of the deskless workforce by digitizing all quality and safety operations bringing them together in one single app. By offering 12,000+ ready-made checklists and templates which companies can adapt to fit their use case, inspection time is cut down immensely, the entire tracking is fuss-free, and you can finally say goodbye to clipboards, paper trails and long email communication.

MARKT-PILOT’s unique software-as-a-service offering provides for the first time total market transparency for spare parts and equipment in mechanical engineering. With their solution the company is offering deep insights into competition, delivery times, which supplier, retailer or online platform sells which spare part and helps to analyze and identify price adjustments.

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Marta is a European digital platform set out to revolutionize the care sector known for being complicated, intransparent, expensive, and simply exhausting. Marta is proof that it does not have to be this way. Their solution is an AI-driven platform enabling matchmaking between care seekers and caregivers, increasing transparency and a person-to-person experience. The overall goal? To improve the 24-hour care market by building a platform that brings caregivers and families together without any other intermediaries.

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Nanoleq, a Swiss wearable technology company headquartered in Zurich, is rethinking and reinventing health monitoring based on smart textiles. Founded in 2017 by fourbiomedical engineers coming out of ETH Zurich, the company produces key ingredients for durable and reliable smart textiles for B2B customers. As a result of those product's best-in-class properties the clothing accurately tracks e.g. EMG, ECG, or EEG signals in real time.

Nanoleq recently launched its own consumer brand Oxa. With Oxa you can do something powerful, you can't do with any other wearable: Bring your heart and breathing into the same frequency. This "resonance breathing" is a strong stimulus to your autonomic nervous system and extremely relaxing and can help against stress, decrease sleep onset, and improve cognitive performance.

With the clear view to enable fast and standardized integration of data and new business models as quick as possible, the Munich-based company created a Finance API platform to manage APIs as well as to fulfill recent regulatory requirements and digital processes. -Founded in 2015 by Oliver Dlugosch and Florian Pahl, the company enables banks, such as UBS or Berenberg, to keep pace with innovation and new digital players.

NoMagic provides robotic pick-and-place systems for order preparation and fulfillment that can be easily adapted to agile stores and warehouses. Founded in 2017, the Warsaw-based company provides a solution that automates tedious tasks while reducing the cost of fulfillment. For instance, Cdiscount, the #1 French e-commerce platform integrated NoMagic's Magicloader to pack single-product orders autonomously from large picking carts.

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Onedot was founded in 2014 to make product data consumable by applying self-developed artificial intelligence. With this vision in mind, the first intelligent platform for commerce and industry has been built to source, onboard and distribute product data. Over 100 millions products have already been processed and used to train the Onedot AI. Among others, companies such as Conrad, Würth, Swisscom or Cyberport rely on Onedot's solution.

OneWelcome provides Identity-as-a-Service for frictionless privacy-protected consumer services and security-enabled workforce processes. Millions of consumers and hundreds of thousands of employees – across industries like banking, insurance, utility, media & publishing, travel & services, retail/e-tail and governments & non-profit – rely on OneWelcome on a daily basis. For instance, customers such as the European Central Bank, WMF or PostNL trust OneWelcome's services.

In 2022, OneWelcome was acquired by Thales (Euronext Paris: HO)

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The Cologne-based start-up Ordio was founded in 2021 by David Keuenhof and Gregor Pilz in Cologne. Their mission: Digitalizing the workforce management and scheduling of companies with shift operations. The Ordio app offers numerous functions: from digital personnel files and preparatory payroll accounting to time recording and absence management, as well as checklists for task management and shift planning, in which employees are involved in real time. Thus, all essential tasks and processes related to shift work are digitized and centrally combined in one app. The special feature: Both employers and employees can access and manage information.

parcelLab is the globally leading Operations Experience Management platform, closing the experience gap post-sales and beyond, transforming operational complexity into opportunities to outperform. Their branded communications give businesses over 30 million new opportunities to connect with their customers, every single day. Among parcelLab’s more than 500 customers are global brands such as IKEA, Bose, Puma, Farfetch and Nespresso. 

QuantPi, the state-of-the-art platform for Explainable AI, with its technology's holistic approach is set out to make AI safer and more understandable to the different stakeholders in society, research and business.

Rencore’s award-winning software helps to scale time-consuming cloud governance and maintain business continuity, simplifying lifecycle management, external user control, and cost management. Founded in 2013 in Sweden and headquartered in Munich, Germany, Rencore’s software is already trusted by world leading organizations like DHL, Barclay, Siemens, Microsoft, Lufthansa and more.

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Founded early 2021 in Berlin reverse.supply enables fashion brands to enter the recommerce market. The company combines an enterprise grade web shop that can be integrated into the customers’ existing web shops with the operational excellence of running the complex logistics to do second hand commerce. As are liable partner, reverse.supply stands closely with its customers and helps them to become more sustainable, by taking control over the full life of their products.

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Sharpist is a results-oriented, digital coaching provider with the mission to drive the growth of organizations and their people through 1:1 digital coaching and personalized learning journeys. Learners in organizations from more than 30 countries worldwide meet their personal business coach from an international network of certified coaches via the Sharpist’s mobile or web app. For ideal learning success, the coaching is supplemented with personalized learning content. Founded in2018 by Hendrik Schriefer and Fabian Niedballa, Sharpist now employs close to 100 people in its Berlin and Munich offices.

Sunhat is a software startup based in Cologne that helps companies process sustainability verification requests from B2B customers and their partners more efficiently. The software automates processes such as preparing responses, reviewing evidence, and collecting data while significantly reducing manual effort. As a result, corporate sustainability teams can save time and money and focus on their essential tasks.

Staffbase provides an internal communications platform to unite companies and their employees behind a common purpose. The Staffbase platform can be used via branded app, desktop browser, email or chat, with the goal of establishing a community and shared purpose at work. Since its launch in Chemnitz, Germany, in 2014, Staffbase has become the global leader for digital employee communication, with more than 1,000 customers and over 2 million employees reached worldwide.

Statice develops and distributes a software for the anonymization of personal data for (1) data protection purposes of corporate customers and (2) for enabling corporate customers to share or sell anonymized data with 3rd parties. By using Statice, organizations such as Viessmann or la Mobilière can dramatically reduce the time-to-market of new products and services while ensuring a compliant use of personal data at all times.

In 2021, Capnamic's share in Statice was sold to the strategic partner PwC.

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Synctive is the all-in-one-solution for equipment-as-a-service. With their management-software, they provide a flexible and reliable solution that bundles all relevant information, data and business processes in one place. It’s the fastest way to not only introduce your machine-as-a-service-model, but also to test and scale it.

Strava is the leading subscription platform at the center of connected fitness, with more than 100 million active people in 195 countries. The platform offers a holistic view of your active lifestyle, no matter where you live, which sport you love and/or what device you use. Everyone belongs on Strava when they are pursuing an active life.

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Tanso Technologies is a software company based in Munich founded by Till Wiechmann, Gyri Reiersen and Lorenz Hetzel which offers a carbon intelligence suite to industrial companies, which helps them gather, manage and report carbon footprint emissions on Scope 1–3 on both corporate and product levels and in alignment with the leading standards. With their solution Tanso is shedding a light into the darkness by automating processes in carbon accounting and building the data foundation that is necessary for effective emission reduction. Building on this companies can actively manage their carbon footprint and develop crucial competitive advantages.

Tanso is already used by leading manufacturers such as Heller, Duravit, and Aquis among others.

The ADEX is a global technology specialist for data management. A data management platform wasdeveloped with The ADEX DMP for technology that segments and analyzes data froma large variety of sources and structures. Customers then use the relevant datafor internal purposes or allow it to be used by external partners. The data isavailable in real-time for relevant target groups on digital marketplaces, suchas The Trade Desk, Xandr, Google or Adition, for advertising purposes. Variousthird-party data suppliers are integrated within ADEX DMP.

In 2017, The ADEX was acquiredby Virtual Minds, a ProSiebenSat.1 Media strategic investment.

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35up is democratizing cross-selling among online merchants regardless of their size enabling them to create additional revenues. With their headless API, which can be easily integrated into the checkout process, 35up's powerful solution is increasing basket size from day one – without inventory risks or time consuming product onboardings.

Based in Munich, Travador was founded in 2013 to focus on the rapidly growing event travel opportunity offering  its clients a unique experience at the most competitive rates. Whether customers are looking for wellness, music, sports or arts - Travador always offers its users something special that turns their short trip into a unique experience. Up to date, they have served over 100,000 customers with unique travel memories.

In 2020, Travador was sold aspart of a secondary transaction.

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The Berlin-based unu team creates mobility solutions to connect people with their city in the best possible way. The unu vision is all about enabling people to embrace the full potential of their cities on a smart electric scooter. unu stands for innovative and forward-thinking technology and design that is 100% electric powered. In 2021, unu opened its first flagship store in the German capital, with more to come in the following year.

In 2022, unu was acquired by a syndicate led by Pon Holdings.

Userlane is a navigation system for software, allowing users to immediately and fully operate any software application without prior knowledge. Userlane’s interactive guides steer people through processes in software applications and provide step-by-step on-screen assistance by showing users how to accomplish tasks in real time. As of today, more than 28 million users in companies such as Deutsche Bahn, Commerzbank, Debeka or Personio have been trained by Userlane.

Voxalyze is a leading platform in Podcast Visibility Optimization changing the game for creators of all sizes to optimize the acquisition of new listeners by making the audience and their preferences visible. Having redesigned podcast analytics from the ground up, Voxalyze is providing a holistic view on data to make informed decisions about content and strategy in general.

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Workpath is a Munich-based solution provider that supports companies with its software platform at every step from agile goal management with OKR to end-to-end strategy execution centered around outcomes. With the help of Workpath technology, customers develop greater adaptability and effectiveness in strategy execution. This enables organizations to meet the demands of dynamic markets and a new working world. 

Workpath was founded in 2017. Companies such as Bosch, E.ON and Ströer rely on the services of Workpath

Wundertax offers online solutions for handing in personal tax returns in Germany. The Berlin-based team has developed a series of bespoken tax tools for different target groups with a large focus on the user experience and simplicity of use. Not only have over 100,000 users saved time, but they were also able to claim the maximum tax rebate with minimal effort, amounting to over EUR 100 million up to date.

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ZAGENO is on a mission to accelerate scientific innovation by streamlining purchasing processes of the life science industry with its award-winning, first-of-its-kind eCommerce platform. With approximately 25 million product SKUs from 5,000 unique brands, ZAGENO makes online shopping convenient, efficient, and reliable for any research material. Founded in 2015, ZAGENO has offices in Cambridge (US), Berlin (Germany) and Wroclaw (Poland).

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Zeotap was born in Berlin in 2014, providing high-quality data to marketers. The company soon recognized a bigger challenge: brands needed to be able to create multi-channel personalized experiences, but doing so required a means to action customer data. And so in 2020, zeotap launched its Customer DataPlatform (CDP), that enables marketers to unify, enhance and activate their customer data in a world that prioritizes data privacy and compliance.

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