Your startups of the quarter

Place 1: Deepdrive secured the title “Best Munich Startup” in July 2023 and remained your number 1 throughout the entire third quarter. Vincent Berger, Business Development at Deepdrive, accepted the award at the Munich Startup Festival and said: “Our joy about this award is enormous! Thank you to Munich Startup for giving Munich startups a stage at the festival. I also find it exciting to see that the topic is now being appreciated at a high political level.” (Photo: Lukas Lindner / Munich Startup)

Place 2: Second place went to Sushi Bike with a successful funding round in July. Since 2018, the Munich startup has been selling e-bikes – and has done so without venture capital support until now. With its first financing round, Sushi Bikes managed to convince several investors. In an interview with Gründerszene, Sushi Bikes founder Andy Weinzierl explained that the money from the financing round will primarily go into marketing and the expansion of internal processes. (Photo: Bene Müller / Sushi Bikes)

Place 3: Third place went to Synbiotic. The Munich cannabis company announced in August that it has acquired a majority stake in Cannacare Health with its CBD brand Canobo and the emerging CBD network marketing subsidiary WellnetIQ. As part of the acquisition, investor and Cannacare shareholder Frank Otto also invested in Synbiotic with three million euros in the form of a capital increase. (Photo: Richard T / Unsplash)

Place 4: Also from July comes good news from Munich air taxi company Lilium, which raised a further 171 million euros. Lilium’s current financing is divided into several phases. First, Tencent committed to a funding injection of 89 million euros (100 million dollars). The tech conglomerate also pledged to invest an additional 67 million euros (75 million dollars) if Lilium succeeded in raising the same amount from other investors. The air taxi company apparently managed to do so. As Lilium reports, it raised 67 million euros (75 million dollars) through the placement of additional shares. In addition, Earlybird Venture Capital, BIT Capital, UVC Partners, Frank Thelen, and several board members and senior executives invested an additional 37 million euros (42 million dollars). Following this, Tencent released the tranche of an additional 67 million euros, as agreed in May. (Photo: Lilium)

Place 5: The ranking is completed by new Munich unicorn Helsing. The startup develops AI solutions to support military intelligence. In mid-September, the company successfully raised 209 million euros in its Series B and thus entered unicorn territory. (Photo: Bradpcs / Pixabay)