The Berlin startup scene seems to have largely avoided the dip in startup life that has been going on in other European cities. Although incubators and accelerators remain active in Berlin, the startup ecosystem is able to rely on the startup ecosystem itself. When you join an accelerator you get all your knowledge from a single program. In Berlin, you can rely on a broader ecosystem to provide you with the right tools and the right expertise. You can get a lot of information at meetups and regular events and piece everything together.

Leapfunder has gone from being entirely unknown to a recognized part of the ecosystem. Everybody seems to be aware of us and what we’re doing. We regularly organize startup trainings such as the Investor Readiness Sessions and the Finance Academy. Our monthly Investor Round Table Sessions have become a highly appreciated part of the Berlin startup ecosystem because startups have direct access to experienced informal investors.

We do as many events as we can fit and they are always full. There seems to be a huge latent demand for this kind of knowledge. Towards the end of 2018, we saw that, sometimes, the Round Table Sessions in Berlin were actually bigger than the ones in Amsterdam.

Here are our New Year wishes for the startup scene in Berlin in 2019:

1. More active angel investors should visit Berlin regularly
There is no denying that there is lots of entrepreneurship in Berlin. So why are not more Angel investors travelling in from elsewhere in Germany? After just a few, regular, trips to visit the ecosystem they will find opportunities for alternative investment that are not available everywhere. And right now, it seems there are more VCs than informals in Berlin.

2. Even more big-name startup success stories coming out of the startup scene
The startup ecosystem in Berlin will always benefit from its big name success stories. For any region: the more big success stories there are the more likely the investors will come towards that region. As more startups grow and produce success the branding of Berlin as a region will strengthen. The big name success stories coming out of some of the incubators are already having that impact, but more is more…

3. Streamline connections of the Berlin startup scene to IT talent in the rest of the world
Berlin is really full of creatives, but there seems to be a structural shortage of developers and tech experts. Forming an IT team in Berlin is super hard. One solution could be to have a few IT people on the ground in Berlin, but also have developers in remote markets where there is a lot of tech talent. Larger companies find it easy to offshore IT tasks, but we’re hoping that this solution will come to more and more startups also.

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