Munich's tech scene as seen in the MVV network map: The job platform Honeypot has mapped Munich's technology industry, from startups to DAX-listed corporations. The result is a deep insight into Munich's startup scene.
The "Munich Tech Map“ of the Berlin company Honeypot At first, it appears innocently as a blog post with nice illustrations and little insight. On the Munich MVV network map, small colored pins indicate which subway and S-Bahn stations Munich tech companies are located near. It quickly becomes clear, however, that Honeypot co-founder Emma Tracey has studied Munich's technology scene in detail and spoken with some of the key players. Less modest contemporaries call this a study.
The article provides a good overview of tech startup activity in Munich. At first glance, the lack of a Berlin bias is surprising. Startup players from the capital tend to ignore what's happening outside of Berlin—perhaps with the exception of California and Tel Aviv. In contrast, the very first paragraph states:
"While Berlin is the capital of Germany, Munich is its economic heartland. The Bavarian capital has the highest purchasing power of any German city and many of large German companies are headquartered here, including global corporations such as Allianz, BMW, MAN, Munich Re, and Siemens."
The connection between Berlin and the Californian startup strongholds should not be missed:
“To give a rough analogy, Munich is to Berlin what New York is to Silicon Valley.”
The article also provides some background information on Munich's rise through the division of Berlin, Munich's economic dominance and its consequences for local companies.
Actors, doers and experts
But the study becomes truly interesting in the details—away from the big, well-known narratives. As part of a more data-driven analysis, the author selected 200 Munich-based tech companies, from startups to large corporations. Accelerators, incubators, and VCs are also included. These companies were then divided into sixteen categories, such as mobility, fintech, and data analysis.
The criteria used to select the companies are unclear. Of course, the question of why one company was considered and another was not is unavoidable. Accordingly, one should — as in other studies with random samples — don't take the quantitative results too seriously. However, a special analysis might be particularly interesting for software developers, Honeypot's target audience: Which programming languages and frameworks do the selected Munich companies prefer?
Particularly exciting is another part of the analysis: Emma Tracey spoke with actors, makers, and experts from the Munich startup scene, including Gabriele Böhmer, editor-in-chief of Munich Startup. Jonas Girardet from ProGlove, Bragi-CTO Toby Martin, Sebastian Bärhold from IDNow, David Drews from Subscription alarm and many others have their say. Tracey thus manages to gain a deep insight into the Munich startup scene — and all from Berlin. But as she says Baby Shimmerless in Helmut Dietl's Kir Royal: „I think the truth can be written anywhere.” He’s right.
