After a weak start to the year, the German venture capital market has picked up again. According to the KfW Venture Capital Dashboard, domestic startups raised a total of 2.4 billion euros in the second quarter. This is 45% more than in the same period in 2024. Since the beginning of the year, 4 billion euros have flowed into young companies.

At 1.7 billion euros, almost half of VC financing in the first half of the year went to technology companies involved in artificial intelligence (AI), according to KfW. These include the two new „unicorns“ Parloa and Quantum-Systems, which now have billion-euro valuations following recent financing rounds in the triple-digit million euro range. And the security startup Helsing, which raised more than 100 million euros, now has a valuation of more than 12 billion euros.

The scale-up segment proved to be the growth driver in the second quarter. These are larger financing rounds for companies that already have a working business model with which they want to expand. According to KfW, 57% of the funds invested were channelled into this segment. As many US investment companies specialise in this segment, their share of the German VC market also increased significantly. According to the figures, their share rose from 13% in the previous quarter to 31%.

Growth was also recorded in the venture debt segment. According to KfW, a new record year is emerging for this form of financing, which is still comparatively rare in Europe versus the USA. Since the beginning of the year, a total of 26 debt financings have been realised for German startups. In the previous record year of 2022, 46 of these transactions were recorded at the end of the year.