Berlin The Hamburg energy start-up 1Komma5 has already done it. In June, despite the financing crisis, Philipp Schröder’s company became a unicorn after only 23 months, i.e. a company valued at more than one billion dollars. In the most recent round of financing, 1Komma5 collected a total of 215 million euros.
Like the Berlin solar unicorn Enpal, the start-up benefits from the fact that investors continue to be very interested in everything to do with renewable energies.
On behalf of the venture capitalist Creandum, the data service Dealroom has determined which start-ups have the best chance of imitating it in the middle of the crisis. There are currently 13 start-ups in Germany that are already valued at more than 600 million dollars, but have not yet exceeded the one billion mark.
At the top of the list are fintech Vivid, lending platform Auxmoney and Berlin blockchain start-up Matter Labs. This is followed by the coaching platform Coachhub, the aerospace start-up Isar Aerospace and the remote maintenance software provider Anydesk as well as the heating app Tado.
>>Read more about this here: Start-up 1Komma5 Grad becomes a unicorn
Among startups and investors alike, unicorn status is a coveted currency associated with prestige. As a rule, this also increases the probability that a unicorn will go public or be sold in the foreseeable future, which promises the investors high returns.
According to venture capitalist Atomico, there were a total of 352 unicorns in Europe at the end of 2022, including 36 in Germany. Especially during the Corona boom, start-ups collected so much money from investors almost every week that they reached the billion dollar valuation.
Hopes for unicorn status can be dashed quickly
That changed radically with the turnaround in interest rates, persistently high inflation and the Ukraine war. In the meantime it is again a special thing to achieve the unicorn status. Dreams of advancing into this league can quickly burst.
Real estate agent McMakler experienced this at the end of June. For a long time it was at the top of the dealroom list and then suddenly dropped to 25th place. Although the company was recently able to collect 20 million euros in capital from investors, according to company and investor circles, it had to accept a devaluation.
According to several people familiar with the financing round, the company’s value halved to around 400 million euros in the most recent round. Company boss Felix Jahn does not want to be put off by this. The aim is to build the best real estate platform in Germany, emphasized Jahn in the Handelsblatt. “Everything else follows from that, maybe unicorn status and one day an IPO.”
McMakler has been considered a stock market candidate since the entry of the British investor Baillie Gifford two years ago. Baillie-Gifford partner Peter Singlehurst accompanied the 20 million round and advises founders to be flexible: “Having the company valuation on the payment service Stripe halved was an important signal for the industry. He showed others that a lower rating doesn’t mean failure. Ratings go up and down.”
>>Read more about this here: McMakler cuts valuation in half in new round of financing
According to investor Earlybird, unicorn status could soon be achieved at Isar Aerospace. “Once the rocket has been launched successfully at Isar Aerospace, commercial success is not far away due to the huge excess demand for rocket launches. The company will then become a noteworthy unicorn overnight,” said Earlybird partner Hendrik Brandis.
The aim of Isar is to have rockets on the launch site and then satellites in low earth orbit (Leo) by the end of the year. In order to finance this, Isar collected a further 155 million euros in March at a valuation of probably around 800 million euros – and was thus already close to the one billion mark.
At Isar, there are already indications that in the event of the rocket launch, several investors will be willing to inject more money into the start-up. In general, however, start-ups are currently finding it much more difficult to obtain capital than during the corona crisis.
London-based venture capitalist Atomico expects a total of $51 billion to flow into startups in Europe this year, less than half the amount raised in 2021. Less than a fifth, i.e. nine billion dollars, is likely to be available to German companies.
Job cuts at start-ups continue
“This puts pressure on start-ups to grow more sustainably, become profitable more quickly and delay the so-called runway, i.e. the time until the next round of financing becomes necessary,” says start-up expert Daniel Breitinger from the Bitkom industry association .
In order to make themselves less dependent on investor funds, many of the so-called futurecorns (unicorns soon to come) also have to reduce their costs. This often happens through job cuts.
In June of this year, for example, employees had to leave the company for the second time at the Einhorn candidate Coachhub. Coachhub justified the decisions with the economic environment, similar to McMakler. The start-up has laid off 250 employees since last summer.
The heating app specialist Tado is listed by Dealroom as the seventh most likely soon-to-be unicorn in Germany. In January, the Munich company secured 43 million euros from investors – including Kiko Ventures.
This was also necessary because Tado was not able to get money from the stock market as originally hoped. Because the IPO planned last year via a shell company (Spac) had to be cancelled.
Kiko Ventures partner Arno Morteani sees great potential despite the failed capital market debut: “We got involved to turn Tado into an energy unicorn. Since the company is already the market leader in energy control in private households, the way there shouldn’t be that far.”
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