News & Podcast

Employees rarely quit because of the product or salary – poor leadership is often the real reason. Munich Startup expert Nico Reis explains why lack of trust, insufficient feedback, and weak leaders become a growth risk, especially in scaleups.

With the B2B startup Connect Hub AI, a platform is emerging that approaches recruiting and internal talent management in a data-driven, transparent, and human-centered way. Personality tests, matching logic, and a team-balance dashboard help companies fill roles with precision and make talent potential visible. Gabriela Galic, one of the two co-founders of the startup founded in 2025, in an interview.

The Munich-based company Spendit is expanding its portfolio with a wellbeing benefit designed to promote employee wellbeing. In collaboration with Wellhub, employers now have the opportunity to provide their employees access to fitness and wellness facilities, online courses, and partner apps for mental health, nutrition, and sleep across Germany.

In a working world where more and more people want to work part-time, the search for qualified part-time positions, especially in management roles, often remains frustrating. Johanna Fink, co-founder of Teilzeit.Talente, explains how her platform helps close the gap between demand for and supply of part-time jobs. Together with Moritz Orendt, she founded the job board Teilzeit.Talente in 2024. Here, not only are good part-time positions made visible, but the founding team also supports companies in addressing their labor shortages and becoming a part-time-friendly employer.

The Munich-based startup Mentessa develops a collaborative platform that uses artificial intelligence to automate knowledge sharing and networking in companies. The company was founded in 2019 by Tina Ruseva; her husband Andrey Andreev joined as co-founder in 2022. The company received funding in the same year, followed by EU support in 2023. How has the company changed since our last interview in 2019? Tina Ruseva answers these questions in our update interview.

Tina Ruseva founded Mentessa in 2019. Her startup is a “mentor at work” that enables personalized employee development. The platform enables more knowledge exchange and collaboration within companies. It provides individual suggestions for suitable matches for social learning, as well as for formal upskilling offers or jobs. Ruseva describes herself as a “woman in tech turned entrepreneur”. She started as a qualified media informatics graduate from LMU and at Microsoft, and after an MBA in Entrepreneurship & Innovation (TUM) launched her career as a founder. Since then, she has founded several startups and social organizations, including the “Big & Growing New Work” festival and the New Work federal association. On September 24, her new book “I don’t have to do anything” will also be published at Haufe.

Founder Catherine Leser wants to revolutionize occupational pensions with her 2021-founded startup Penzilla and thus make a societal contribution to closing the pension gap. The software of the company, which she founded together with her husband Christoph, takes over the administrative work for employers related to occupational pensions. Before Penzilla, Catherine Leser worked as a management consultant for CFOs and built service organizations for mid-sized companies and large corporations. Before that, the business graduate worked for a British company in business development and set up and opened the first German office at that time.

The Munich unicorn startup Personio wants to go public and is changing its legal structure. However, it will take some time before the plan is implemented.

According to media reports, Personio is leasing space in a new office complex in Munich’s Bahnhofsviertel district. In terms of contract value, it is reported to be the largest lease in Munich’s history.