News & Podcast

Vacation season is slowly drawing to a close. Time to pack away the sun hat and air mattress and read our weekly review. This week, we asked Silvernova 7 questions, spoke with the Media Lab Bayern and UnternehmerTUM’s Women Startup Initiative about the issue of too few female founders, and recapped Munich’s role in New Space. In addition, startup investments are up in 2026 according to the EY Startup Barometer, and Aily Labs is partnering with Google Cloud. Enjoy browsing!

With Strascheg Center for Entrepreneurship, a startup center was established in Munich that not only teaches entrepreneurial thinking, but also offers comprehensive support for prospective founders: From brainstorming on scrap paper to the first financing round, all in one place.

According to the EY Startup Barometer, German startups raised around 5.3 billion euros in the first half of 2026. While investment volume is rising, the number of financing rounds is falling. Bavaria ranks behind Berlin and Baden-Württemberg.

Fewer new hires, but also new jobs: A Bitkom survey among German tech startups shows how the use of AI is impacting employment and workforce planning.

Did you spend last week in a deck chair and miss out on what happened in the ecosystem? Then catch up with our review and click through the news of the week.

With the “GovTech Allianz,” 18 companies establish a joint advocacy group. The focus is on fair competition, digital sovereignty, and simpler procurement and purchasing processes.

A promising scientific discovery is a far cry from a successful biotech product. Between the lab and the market lie patents, financing, regulation – and above all, the decision to actually want to translate research into application. At the Munich Startup Festival, moderator Dr. Philipp Baaske and founders Yasmin Gärtner and Christina Port discussed why they are taking this step and why scientific success alone is not enough for them.

Not only earn money with your own work, but also solve the biggest societal problems of our time along the way? The Social Entrepreneurship Akademie is the go-to place for people who want to combine social thinking with entrepreneurial action.

Summer slump? Think again! There was plenty going on in the ecosystem this week as well. Click through funding news, insolvencies, and important funding opportunities for tech startups.

Next week, I’m swapping my usual home for an apartment in the Werksviertel, right by Munich’s Ostbahnhof. For five days, I will be part of the coliving community at Werk1. My goal: to look behind the scenes of a place where Munich’s startup future is being shaped.

Flix co-founder Daniel Krauss sees a strong home market, appropriate regulation, and local leadership teams as crucial foundations for international expansion. At the Munich Startup Festival, he discussed with Matthias Notz, Klaus Sailer, and Benjamin Domnik when startups should scale globally – and when a conscious focus on individual markets makes more sense.

More than 500 guests from the Munich startup scene gathered at the summer party of the Munich Technology Center (MTZ). Together with Baystartup, the MTZ invited guests to mark the end of the season – with networking, startup pitches, and the awarding of the winner of the Bavarian semi-final of the Female Founders Cup.