Startuprad.io

Hello and welcome everybody. This is E 767 of Startuprad.io, recorded solo by Joe Menninger from Frankfurt am Main. This is the first entry in a new series — the Unicorn Atlas. Every entry takes one European unicorn and asks who owns it, what it actually makes, whether the headline numbers hold up under primary sourci...

Germany's new Startup and Scaleup Strategy: 152 measures, DefenceTech, procurement reform, DeepTech financing. Why this is really about the European scaleup gap — and whether Germany can close it. Hello and welcome everybody. This is E 766 of Startuprad.io, recorded solo by Joe Menninger from Frankfurt am Main. A dee...

Europe's startup ecosystem isn't in a traditional recovery. In this special H1 2026 review, Jörn “Joe” Menninger analyzes why venture capital has undergone a structural rotation rather than returning to the previous cycle's patterns. Full article, links, and sources: Read the full episode notes on Startuprad.io Why th...

Could electricity — not chips or talent — be Germany's real AI bottleneck? In this episode, Jörn “Joe” Menninger covers the GreenTech Monitor 2026, the AI-energy nexus, and why data centers are now central to industrial competitiveness. Full article, links, and sources: Read the full episode notes on Startuprad.io Why...

More than €1.7 billion of defence-linked capital moved through Europe in a single month. In this news analysis, Jörn "Joe" Menninger examines why defence technology has become the dominant European venture asset s €3.5 billion valuation two years after founding, KNDS's preparation for Europe's largest defence IPO, and...

German venture capital has stabilised after a multi-year correction — but stable is not the same as strong. In this analysis, Jörn "Joe" Menninger unpacks a market that has stopped falling yet remains highly concentrated, with AI, defence technology, biotech, energy infrastructure, and robotics absorbing a growing sha...

Europe doesn’t just have a capital problem — it has a customer problem. In this scale-up series episode, Joe Menninger argues that even with funding fixed, European startups struggle to scale because institutions buy slowly: fragmented, risk-averse procurement that favors incumbents. Capital keeps startups alive; dema...

Europe’s venture market has matured — but the IPO dream still misleads founders, and “generative AI wrappers” may soon struggle to raise. Partech partner Simone Riva on where European VC actually works, the costliest founder mistake, and what makes a startup defensible. A clear-eyed read on capital efficiency, exits, ...

Capital accelerates everything — including your problems. Partech partner Simone Riva on when European startups should raise venture capital and when it quietly destroys discipline. Using Emma Sleep (≈€950M revenue, minimal funding) and Flix (capital-intensive, global) as bookends, he lays out the decision rules that ...

Europe doesn’t lack startup capital — it lacks the architecture to move capital from innovation to scale. In this scale-up series episode, Joe Menninger explains why the gap bites at Series B and beyond: a thin institutional LP base, too few billion-euro funds (11 vs 137 in the US), and the “dry powder” that can’t act...

May 2026 was the month DACH stopped catching up and started setting the pace. Joe and co-host Chris Fahrenbach — in his final news episode after 11 years — break down Helsing’s $1.2B raise to an $18B valuation, SAP’s €1B+ bet on a 15-month-old AI lab, Isar Aerospace’s orbital attempt, and why Bitpanda is heading to Fr...

DACH venture capital is undergoing a structural rotation. Capital is moving away from generic SaaS and toward startups tied to defense, space, industrial AI, procurement, tokenized finance, and physical infrastructure. This episode covers: - Why Munich is overtaking Berlin in venture funding - Why German defense p...

Building a company across Europe still means sitting on top of 27 different legal systems — so can “EU Inc,” the proposed 28th regime, finally be Europe’s Delaware? Nikolaus Bayer, deputy chairman of Business Angels Deutschland (BAND) and founder of IRIS Analytics (acquired by IBM), weighs the promise against the one ...

The battery is the most expensive part of an electric car — and for years, the only data on its health came from the manufacturer selling you the warranty. Marcus Berger, CEO of Aviloo, on building the independent, manufacturer-agnostic battery test that now covers 96% of EV models across 15 countries, just as the EU ...

Europe’s single market has 500 million customers — but for startups, scaling across it means re-entering a new legal, tax, and compliance regime in every country. This scale-up series episode names the cost: a “hidden growth tax” of regulatory fragmentation that makes cross-border seed deals close 3–5× slower than in ...

The hardest problem in quantum computing isn’t the algorithm — it’s getting your data into the machine. Nikola from quantum startup Haikyuu AI explains why scalable data encoding, not hardware, is the real bottleneck, and how flexible middleware (and their open-source Rivet toolkit) turns failed quantum pilots into us...

DACH venture capital has completed a structural rotation: out of pure SaaS, into companies that build physical things governments and enterprises can’t do without — defense, space, and sovereign tech. Joe and co-host Chris Fahrenbach break down the April numbers, Munich’s permanent funding lead over Berlin, and German...

Quantum computing isn’t waiting on physics anymore — it’s waiting on software. Mykola Maksymenko, co-founder and CTO of Haiqu, makes the case that middleware, not qubit count, decides whether quantum becomes real infrastructure: the software layer that tames noise, extends usable circuit depth, and makes today’s noisy...

Germany is no longer relying on startup momentum — it’s engineering the structures that decide how startups emerge and scale. Thomas Jarzombek, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Digital and State Modernisation, explains the architecture: 25 thematic DE Hubs and 10 university-based startup facto...

Headlines say the funding winter is over. The data says something sharper: Germany’s startup market isn’t recovering — it’s selecting. In this Q1 2026 review built from ~400 signals, Joe Menninger lays out three structural shifts: capital concentrating into fewer mega-deals, Munich overtaking Berlin, and an exit windo...