The Hottest Start in Berlin in 2024

German innovation is not limited to the nation’s capital. In fact, some of this year’s most productive startups are based hundreds of miles away. AI startup Alpha Alpha is from Heidelberg. Helsing, which sells AI to European armies, was founded in Munich. However, both companies operate offices in Berlin. The city attracts too much talent to ignore. Universities, such as TU Berlin, are churning out Generative AI innovators and the capital is such a magnet for international talent that many offices operate in English, not German.

It’s also a very young city—half of its population is under 45, something GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke, who grew up in Berlin, notes. “I founded my last startup back in 2009 and I clearly remember how much energy, time, and focus it required—having a lot of young, diverse and international people, and highly motivated professionals with that energy and hunger gives Berlin an edge,” he says. And, Berlin has döner the best kebab.

BlueLayer

By 2050, the carbon credit market is expected to be a $250 billion industry. Startup BlueLayer caters to that growth by building customized software for companies and NGOs ready to benefit. Its customers—including conservationists like Permian Global—run projects ranging from reforestation to aerial photography, and use the startup’s software to process their data, and connect with buyers and investors, while helping credit providers verify their credits with international registrars. Launched in 2022, BlueLayer has raised $10 million (8.9 million euros) in investment and counts three of the top 10 credit issuers worldwide among its clients. “It’s an old automation software,” says Vivian Bertseka, one of the three founders of BlueLayer along with Alexander Argyros and Gerardo Bonilla, “but for an industry that worked almost exclusively on Excel.” bluelayer.io

The Cambrian

Cambrium, founded in 2020 by Mitchell Duffy and Charlie Cotton, uses AI to design collagen-like proteins. Instead of sourcing them from animal products, the startup raises them on farms. “We are one of the companies that are trying to get involved with solid software engineering [and AI] by putting physical things into the real world,” said Cotton. The company has received $11.6 million (10.3 million euros) so far, including from Google’s AI venture fund Gradient Ventures. Skincare products using Cambrium’s first protein, a collagen called NovaColl, are expected to hit shelves later this year. Cambrium.bio

Name AI

In 2020, three veterans of the Chinese technology behemoth, Tencent, came together to create basic models for search. Attracted to Berlin by the city’s open source culture and software engineering skills, the trio behind Jina now claims 9,000 users and 400 paying customers, who turn to the company when they want to build a public or internal search engine for their data. Jina Models promises to convert PDFs, Word documents or images into a language that AI models can understand to enable accurate Google-style searches. A law firm may no longer be able to search for documents using the case number. Instead, Jina AI CEO and founder Han Xiao explains that they can simply ask: “Find a case where Microsoft loses to Google”. After raising $39 million (€34.8 million) in a series of early stage VC funds including Canaan Partners, Xiao and co-founders Nan Wang and Bing He plan to expand into the US, raising revenue to -$500,000 (€447,000) per company. per year, and increase user numbers. “We want to compete with OpenAI,” Xiao said. name.ai

Finally

Endel is a premium app that uses artificial intelligence to create one endless piece of music, constantly adapting to the user’s environment. The app uses the phone’s accelerometers to create a rhythm that synchronizes with the steps of its listeners. When they start running or skipping, the tempo catches up. Calling itself a “sound wellness” startup, Endel is part of the active audio trend, where music has a purpose—to help people exercise, sleep or focus. “We want to create technology that harnesses the power of sound and helps you reach a certain state of consciousness,” said CEO Oleg Stavitsky, one of Endel’s six founders. Launched in 2018, the company has since raised $22.1 million (19.1 million euros) in funding, including Amazon’s Alexa venture fund, and is seeking one million active users per month. In 2023, the company struck a deal with Universal Music Group to use its technology to create new “sounds” using the work of established artists. endel.io

Stab

To understand Slay’s success, credit must be given to Pengu, the company’s pet app that has become the startup’s most popular product with over five million users. Founded by Fabian Kamberi, Jannis Ringwald, and Stefan Quernhorst, Slay created Pengu to be part game, part social media, where friends or couples can raise a digital penguin together. The company, which has raised $7.6 million (€6.8 million) in total, including Accel, is currently expanding Pengu’s ability to personalize its communications, connecting a series of LLMs to a 3D engine to create visuals. . Pengu may respond to a child who tells them they are being bullied by giving them a drawing or sending personalized notifications for them to enjoy. kill.cool

Ovom Care

Ovom Care is a fertility startup using data and machine learning to take the guesswork out of fertility medicine. Since its launch in 2023, co-founders Felicia von Reden, Cristina Hickman, and Lynae Brayboy have opened the company’s first fertility clinic in London—leaving behind a difficult regulatory process in Germany—and are already treating hundreds of people. Alongside the mobile clinic, patient app and clinical management system, Ovom also offers machine learning algorithms that analyze patients’ blood tests, data from wearables, gamete analysis and ultrasound images to match the type and timing of treatment. “We are now entering the era of precision medicine,” said CEO von Reden. “We sew [fertility] through technology”. That idea attracted 4.8 million euros ($5.3 million) in seed funding led by Alpha Intelligence Capital. During the next year, the company plans to attract medical tourists from all over Europe to its second clinic in Portugal, where treatment costs are expected to be cheaper. ovomcare.com

Felicia von Reden, founder and CEO of Ovom Care.

PHOTO: THOMAS MEYER

Dryad

When Carsten Brinkschulte’s daughter started protesting against climate change in 2018, the serial telecom entrepreneur began to think about how he could use his knowledge to benefit the planet. The result was an initiative called Dryad, launched in 2020, designed to be a wildfire early detection network. “Think of us as the Vodafone of the forest,” said Brinkschulte, one of the company’s seven founders. Dryad’s solar-powered mesh networks enable sensors to send alerts when they detect fire, even in remote areas where there is no signal. To date the company has sold 20,000 wildfire sensors and related hardware in 50 countries around the world, from Canada to Thailand, and to customers ranging from local governments to humanitarian companies looking to protect their infrastructure in hot weather. Dryad has raised 22 million euros ($24.6 million) so far, including from German deep tech fund eCAPITAL. dryad.net

UltiHash

The rise of power-hungry AI has prompted the International Energy Agency to warn that the electricity used by data centers could double in just two years. As environmental groups discuss the threat technology poses to the climate, Ultihash startup has been developing an efficient way to reduce the data center needs of companies doing power-intensive machine learning or training their models. Founded in 2022, Ultihash has developed an algorithm that CEO and founder Tom Lüdersdorf says can reduce companies’ data storage needs by 60 percent, meaning they need less data center space and reduce their carbon footprint. The company has raised $2.5 million (2.2 million euros) despite being in the dark. Lüdersdorf plans to launch the product later this year, after beta testing with more than 300 companies. ultihash.io