News & Podcast

On the first flight, it was over after 30 seconds. On the second, Spectrum reached orbit. Isar Aerospace has achieved a decisive milestone. Behind this rise are eight years of development work, millions in funding, and a Munich founding team with big ambitions. TUM Professor Chiara Manfletti explained in a Munich Startup interview ahead of the launch what really matters.

From their first prototype, which was still driven to investors in a van, to a unicorn with over 1,000 employees: Egym is one of the most prominent success stories in the Munich startup ecosystem. At the Munich Startup Festival, Egym founder and Co-CEO Florian Sauter spoke with Mathias Renz, Head of Venture Capital Magazin, about how an idea shared by two school friends turned into a billion-dollar company – and why naivety, persistence, and the right investors played a decisive role in the journey.

With Helsing, a defence tech company tops the list of Germany’s most valuable startups for the first time. The Munich-based company achieves a valuation of 16.6 billion euros in the Hurun Germany Unicorn Index 2026 – just five years after its founding. In total, Germany now counts 38 unicorns with a combined company valuation of 118.9 billion euros.

Two months after initial insider reports, the mega-deal is official: Helsing receives €1.6 billion in fresh capital and achieves a valuation of €16 billion.

Proxima Fusion has raised €411 million in a Series A2 funding round and is valued at more than €2.4 billion. The financing makes the Munich-based startup the best-funded and highest-valued fusion company in Europe and is to advance the construction of the world’s first commercial stellarator fusion power plant.

Munich mobility startup Finn has closed a Series D financing round of just under 100 million euros and reached a company valuation of over one billion euros.

Munich remains a unicorn hotspot: based on a current evaluation of our Munich Startup Insights, we show you which startups have crossed the billion-euro valuation mark. Click through the unicorn gallery and discover the most exciting scaleups in the city right up to true icons of the scene.

For a long time, the USA was the natural place of longing for ambitious tech founders: large funding rounds, rapid growth, a business-friendly environment. But this narrative is crumbling. A current Bitkom survey among founders of German unicorns shows: interest in the USA as a founding location is declining significantly. Instead, Germany and Europe are coming into sharper focus. But what’s behind this shift in sentiment? And how do founders outside the unicorn bubble think about it? We spoke with Benjamin Domnick, co-founder of Wow Urbane Utopien.

Quantum Systems significantly increases its valuation and receives a total of €340 million in 2025 – Europe’s largest dual-use financing to date. The Munich-based company plans further growth, technology expansion, and strategic acquisitions with this funding.

The Munich New Space startup Isar Aerospace receives 150 million euros from Eldridge Industries. With the investment, the valuation rises to over one billion.

The Munich-based drone startup Quantum Systems has completed a Series C financing round of €160 million and is becoming a new Munich unicorn. The capital will be used to drive forward international growth and technological development.

A current Bitkom survey shows: more than half of the founders of German unicorns rate Germany as unsuitable as a founding location. Comprehensive deregulation and stronger harmonization of the EU single market could convince them otherwise.