when company says "We're family"...
Issue #123 (04 Nov) – tech and dev jobs; two raffles; recruiters and CVs again; hottest startups in Berlin; movies about Berlin wall; impact in 90 days; You are not late! and 24 funded companies.
Programming note: 🇯🇵 Japan! What a country. After this life-changing break, I am back with recharged batteries and new ideas. We have a lot of catching up to do. I decided to list all funded companies in my absence because… why not? This means fewer links elsewhere.
Check out both raffles and our sponsors. You can become one yourself.
🌟 Handpicked community
is a place where we meet, share projects and ideas and look for help.
📨 Submit your input here.
🎪 Meet — tech & other events:
nocodeklub w. Sherzod Gafar | Heylama - AI Language School | Wed, 06/11 at 19:30 | SIBB
Guerrilla Org Design: Transforming from the Ground Up | Thu, 07/11 at 18:30 | Europace
European Defense Tech Meetup x Quantum Systems | Thu, 7/11 at 18.00 | Location Unknown
this could be your event - advertise it
😎 Show — Cool stuff / Shoutouts / Projects & similar:
🚀 ProductLab got the Product Management OG, Marty Cagan, to Berlin. It’s long sold out, and you can get one ticket—all you need to do is tag someone who should be reading Handpicked Berlin under this post. I will do a raffle this
Friday(correction: Tuesday evening) and inform the winner. (Tue, 12/11 at 18:00)🎁 We’ve got more goodies: you can win one of the three tickets for FemTechConf, the biggest event for women in tech and allies (Nov 21-22 here in Berlin, check the speakers). Winners will be informed on Friday. Enter the raffle here.
🦜 You can support a sexual wellness fundraiser by OhMyV: Vulva-friendly, vegan & science-backed vögeln f*cking gel.*
🔍 Ask — for a Service / Co-founder / Project help & similar:
Manoj is selling two Web Summit tickets (Nov 11-14 in Lisbon) for half the price. Email him.
Looking for the submission link? It’s below the title ⤴️
This section is also featured on LinkedIn in the weekly post.
*Sponsored
👀 Handpicked jobs
is a rotating selection of around 20 jobs from companies I’d check out.
Due to plenty of links, all the 20+ jobs with a focus on Tech & Dev (and more) are in the in the Handpicked online database.
You can also submit a job.
📢 Certified further training in International Online Marketing – boost your career now!
Looking for a way to stand out in Berlin’s competitive job market? Our 10-week International Online Marketing Manager course is your answer! It’s an interactive live online course, fully in English.
Stay ahead with up-to-date content, including insights into AI and cutting-edge marketing strategies. If you’re registered as unemployed in Germany, you could qualify for full funding with a “Bildungsgutschein”.
Gain the skills companies are looking for and take your career to the next level!
🗞 Top inspiration snippets
🇩🇪 Berlin & other good stuff
is a selection of links focused on Berlin/Germany, career, timeless content and business.
A fresh article in the series of recruiters' opinions on your CVs, this time from Luca Nikolaou! A great read.
A tip to remember. If you ever get stopped by BVG/DB controllers and have a valid ticket but need to restart your phone or need time to find it, never hand them your ID to avoid a stupid charge of 7€. (Reddit, 🇩🇪) Related, prices for BVG tickets will increase in 2025 by roughly 7,53% (regular tickets from €3,5 to €3,8).
Wired made a list of hottest startups in Berlin: BlueLayer (carbon credit market software), Cambrium (AI-designed lab-grown proteins), Jina AI (AI search models), Endel (adaptive AI music), Slay (app factory), Ovom Care (AI-powered fertility treatment), Dryad (wildfire detection sensors), UltiHash (data storage optimization), TheBlood (menstrual blood diagnostics), and Qdrant (vector database for AI).
Please sign the petition to unite the startup ecosystem in Europe. We badly need a move… somewhere!
Have you seen any of these 11 movies about the Berlin Wall? I learned German by reading Herr Lehmann!
Career: Is your company your family? Maybe, but never forget you are disposable and that the company will do everything required to survive.
Career: How to make an impact in your first 90 days? Paywalled, but still very useful. You can also use the graphic to generate ideas for 2025 goals.
Timeless: Luis Enrique speaking about his daughter’s death. Deeply moving and inspiring.
Timeless: You are not late by Kevin Kelly. He was so right: “Right now, today, in 2014 is the best time to start something on the internet. There has never been a better time in the whole history of the world to invent something.” Just change the year to 2024 and start.
📱 Weekly Social.
TikTok: Buying at Temu? Related, the EU Commission will investigate “whether Temu may have breached the Digital Services Act (DSA) in areas linked to the sale of illegal products, the potentially addictive design of the service, the systems used to recommend purchases to users, as well as data access for researchers.”
💬 Briefly.
😔 Bad news: Miro (-18%), Kraken (-15%), Meta (unknown).
Stats: The BER Airport winter schedule until the end of March will feature 69 airlines serving 133 destinations, adding eight new destinations compared to last year: Agadir, Lyon, Tromsø, Rovaniemi, Kairo, Liverpool, Dschidda, Faro.
VW is in crisis: their profits fell 42% in Q3, while sales dropped 8.3% YoY. They asked their employees to take a 10% cut. Mercedes didn’t do much better: profit dropped by more than half, sales by 12%.
After a long saga, Lilium (flying taxis) filed for self-administered insolvency after failing to secure state aid. Bad news for all the shareholders.
Trade Republic turned profitable with €14M pre-tax profit in FY2023, up from €145M loss.
HelloFresh's Q3 profit rose to €72M, with revenue up 1.9% to €1.83B. They raised EBITDA guidance but cut the revenue forecast.
Reddit posted the first-ever profit of $29.9M in Q3.
Avi Medical is under investigation by Bavarian and Berlin medical associations for billing irregularities. (Business Insider)
Scalable Capital applied for a full banking license with BaFin, preparing for the EU's payment for the order flow ban. (FinanceFWD) Bad news for Baader Bank.
The number of DACH unicorns declined to 54 from 58, the first drop since 2015. The only new addition was Egym. Total investments were down 70% to €4B from 2021 peak. (FAZ)
Siemens acquired US-based Altair Engineering, “a leading provider of software in the industrial simulation and analysis market.”
If you are into ice skating, you can check out ice rink Neukölln (in Werner-Seelenbinder-Sportpark), which opened on the weekend. Other options include Horst-Dohm Ice Stadium in Wilmersdorf, the ice sports halls in the Sports Forum Berlin in Hohenschönhausen and the Paul-Heyse-Straße Sports Complex (Prenzlauer Berg), and Lankwitz ice rink in Steglitz.
💸 Recently funded in Berlin & Germany
is a list of companies that received funding over €1M.
These are from last week:
Blacklane | Berlin | Premium chauffeur service | €60M | Careers.
Aignostics | Berlin | AI-powered pathology solutions | $34M | Careers.
Vara | Berlin | AI breast cancer screening | €8M | Careers.
GlassFlow | Berlin | Data streaming platform | $4.8M | Careers.
UnitPlus | Berlin | ETF-linked banking platform | €4.7M Seed | Careers.
Nuuron | Berlin | Digital Alzheimer's therapy platform | €3.5M Seed | No careers yet.
paretos | Heidelberg | Business analytics automation platform | €8.5M | Careers.
Vamo | Cologne | Heat pump solutions provider | €7M | Careers.
Emidat | Munich | Construction materials environmental tracking | €4M | Careers.
Govecs | Munich | Premium electric scooter manufacturer | €1.6M | Careers.
And these are from the weeks before:
Enpal | Berlin | Solar energy financing solutions | €1.4B debt and equity | Careers.
Vay | Berlin | Remote-driving technology | €34M Debt | Careers.
Dunia Innovations | Berlin | AI materials discovery platform | $11.5M | Careers.
Passionfroot | Berlin | Creator marketing platform | $3.8M Seed | Careers.
Nomos | Berlin | Dynamic electricity pricing API | $2.1M Pre-seed | Careers.
OroraTech | Munich | Wildfire detection technology | €25M Series B | Careers.
Rebike | Munich | Refurbished e-bikes provider | €13M | Careers.
Beyond Presence | Munich | Hyperrealistic avatar platform | $3.1M Pre-seed | Careers.
Padel-City | Munich | Padel tennis facilities provider | €3M | Careers.
Exomatter | Munich | Materials discovery platform | €1.7M Pre-seed | Careers.
Recyda | Freiburg | Packaging recyclability software | €6.3M Series A | Careers.
Tomorrow | Hamburg | Sustainable neobank | €5M | Careers.
Infinite Roots | Hamburg | Biotech food solutions | €2.6M | Careers.
Autarkize | Pfronten | Biogenic waste conversion | €2.3M Seed | Careers.
😅 Meanwhile
a mental illness case!
✌️ Handpicked essentials and a treat:
♡ 20% Berlin: all the Berlin news twice a week, in English! ♡
- all the Handpicked Articles worth reading
- How to find a great company to work for?
- Football in Berlin: where to play, watch and how to get involved?
- Berlin Salary Trends Reports: How do you compare?
- ❓Surprise treat for the curious
✨ Berlin Events Weekly: the best resource for events in Berlin ✨
How about smashing that like button?
Welcome back!
The Ig Nobel Prize is quite wild, and the finding on human ageing is even wilder 🤯