European Tech Sovereignty: The November 2025 DACH Startup News Briefing

WEBVTT 1 - > Foreign. 2 - > Your podcast and YouTube blog covering the German 3 - > startup scene with news, interviews and 4 - > live events. 5 - > Hello and welcome everybody. This is Joe from Celebrate IO.

6 - > Welcome to this month in German, Swiss and Austrian startups. 7 - > November 2025. One more news and the year's over. Chris, 8 - > isn't it crazy?

Yeah, well, yeah. So 9 - > what have we still time to turn it around. That's my motto. 10 - > Welcome to our monthly startup news covering 11 - > the most important developments from the innovation and tech 12 - > entrepreneurship scene in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

You're 13 - > listening to the top news for November 2025 released today. 14 - > November 27th, Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. so 15 - > if you're tuning in from the States, Happy Turkey Day.

Enjoy long 16 - > weekend and thanks for making part of your holiday listing 17 - > ritual. As always, we split the news into 18 - > two parts. Today's episode highlights the headline 19 - > worthy stories shaping the Dach and European ecosystem 20 - > this month. Our deep dive into November landscape including 21 - > analyzes market shift and founder level signals will follow 22 - > on Monday.

Already December 1st, our 23 - > regular news will be published again for December 24 - > 18th. We'll then wrap up the year with our annual 25 - > FinTech review on December 23rd right before the Christmas break. 26 - > To give you a heads up for the new year, our first 27 - > 2026 episode will be January 15th, 28 - > featuring a special interview with Polar Steps. 29 - > I'll be on medical leave for all of January, so 30 - > Chris has to do some interviews and will fill the gap.

There will 31 - > be no regular startup news for January 2026, 32 - > but don't worry, we'll be back in full rhythm with a combined 33 - > January and February News episode on February 26, 34 - > 2026. Today's episode Chris is again 35 - > in New York, just returned from the Emmys. You've been to the Emmy 36 - > ceremony, right? Well, to be honest, it was 37 - > the International Emmys and that's kind of like the dirty stepchild of 38 - > it all.

So it's in a hotel ballroom in the 39 - > middle of midtown New York, but nevertheless it like glamorous. 40 - > And what's really cool is that they actually allow press people to 41 - > be in the main room and then you have all the different dinner tables from 42 - > the different countries rooting for their entries and Germany 43 - > even won. So that was cool. And it was a very cool 44 - > German show about the last days of eastern 45 - > Germany and explaining what life was like in eastern Germany for a younger 46 - > audience.

And the producer said, I just wanted to 47 - > create something about the time when Germany 48 - > was the happiest country on earth. That was sweet. 49 - > Totally. I'm actually joining from Germany from Frankfurt.

And 50 - > Chris, I was wondering, because this is Thanksgiving Day, do you once 51 - > again eat that tofu thing. Don't get 52 - > me wrong, I like tofu, especially the spicy one. But not for 53 - > Thanksgiving. Every time you're calling me 54 - > out on this, I think I won't get it.

So I will be at a 55 - > friend's place. They already said that they will have plenty of 56 - > vegetarian options. And I mean the good thing is if you're vegetarian you can 57 - > always just stick with stuffing. So that's good.

58 - > I'm also not a huge fan of the tofurkey. I think. I mean but also, 59 - > I mean turkey is also some dry meat. It's not 60 - > great if people are honest.

So even the 61 - > real thing is not great. One one day I'll invite you over. 62 - > You'll be here for my Thanksgiving turkey and then you'll 63 - > reverse this statement. Not if you behave like this.

64 - > Okay, let's talk startups. By the way, all of our 2025 news 65 - > coverage you can find on our Pillar page. The startup 66 - > ecosystem 2025 the ultimate hub. Our 67 - > sponsor A quick break for something every founder should 68 - > hear.

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Visit 82 - > not.com startup radio code 83 - > Plex when you talk to sales Chris, 84 - > there is actually a very nice turkey in our show. Notes you 85 - > want to take over from here the highlights. So to 86 - > give you the bit the lay of the land for today's episode we are going 87 - > to look at at the highlights of 88 - > our edition today of the November 2025 edition 89 - > and we see in Europe's startup 90 - > landscape that we see signals 91 - > in AI infrastructure, something we have 92 - > been doing for quite a while now.

It's like the most big. It's the 93 - > biggest topic usually in these days in all of our 94 - > episodes Defense tech, Robotics, biotech, 95 - > Cloud sovereignty, fintech recalibration and 96 - > energy transition. So overall we see 97 - > that Europe and especially the D region is still 98 - > trying to kind of reinvent itself around those new booming 99 - > industries around deep tech dual use systems and 100 - > sovereign digital capabilities. We are seeing that 101 - > founders no longer rely solely on apps on top of 102 - > platforms, but more building the platforms themselves.

We're seeing that 103 - > infrastructure becomes more and more important and industrial layers 104 - > themselves. So a major current this month 105 - > was the consolidation of AI as a capability 106 - > in different industries, not just as something for 107 - > consumers, for direct consumers. In the end we see 108 - > that the dominant narrative now wasn't chatbots, marketing tools, it was 109 - > AI for critical infrastructure including nursing, 110 - > nursing workflows, robotics, dexterity, drone 111 - > autonomy, supply chain intelligence, satellite navigation 112 - > and enterprise orchestration.

This all signals a shift towards 113 - > a native European industrial strategy, also a 114 - > very important topic given the political landscape, 115 - > geopolitical issues like trying to be more 116 - > independent from the us, Russia and China. And so we are seeing that 117 - > AI becomes a shorthand for automation, verification, compliance, 118 - > efficiency, safety, topics like this. Another 119 - > micro trend is the migration of capital into sovereign, 120 - > defensible and strategically aligned technologies.

So we see 121 - > defense tech, space tech, secure communications and quantum 122 - > combined with large scale funds for health tech, climate tech and 123 - > deep tech all pointing to a landscape in which investors are 124 - > rewarding high ip, high barrier, high durability 125 - > categories. Fintech though by 126 - > contrast is entering a period of structural normalization. 127 - > Complaints are still spiking. We already talked some from time 128 - > to time about this as well.

Layoffs are continuing, crypto offerings 129 - > are expanding, even though a bit more cautiously than they used to. 130 - > And we see that. We see political debates around the digital 131 - > euro, cash abolition and regulatory AI. 132 - > European fintech there as always.

Or as we see also 133 - > with multiple topics, Europe is 134 - > emphasizing more a compliance first approach. 135 - > So keywords here are for example neo 136 - > broker reliability, fraud prevention and digital identity. 137 - > That's my little first overview. I hand it over to you.

138 - > Awesome. And also in the deep dive just wrote the script and I remember 139 - > that we have new funds investing including in Europe 140 - > worth more than 1.8 billion euros. So 141 - > there's a lot to come.

Just sticking with the highlights. The energy 142 - > and climate tech ecosystem continued into infrastructure 143 - > reality not innovation theater. Funding for battery 144 - > tech, smart metering, energy storage, grid digitization 145 - > and retrofittable industrial decarbonization 146 - > underscores a broad shift. Climatech is entering a 147 - > the procurement area where industrial demand, 148 - > ROIs, integration and transparency and scaling 149 - > pathways.

Keywords dominating the current 150 - > trends battery analytics, smart grid management, climate 151 - > resilience, industrial retrofits, renewable integration, 152 - > corporate decarbonization and energy security. The 153 - > broader wheat sustainability has moved from virtue 154 - > to competitive advantage. Finally, 155 - > November Europe's identity crisis and its emerging 156 - > answer with funding at a five year 157 - > low but deep tech breakthroughs at multi year 158 - > highs, the ecosystem is bifurcating.

On the one 159 - > side, startups relying on burn brand and narrative. On 160 - > the other side, companies building sovereign clouds, 161 - > robotic hardware, biotech platforms, defense system 162 - > and mission critical AI. Europe 163 - > is placing trips in later and the D region is becoming the 164 - > testing ground for the continent's innovation and sovereign 165 - > strategy this month. Keywords Map implies Europe's next 166 - > decade won't be shaped by consumer ads, but 167 - > by compute autonomy, infrastructure and 168 - > resilience.

So you are on the right channel 169 - > for that with Startup Radio. We always love 170 - > to get feedback from you guys. There is a link to to 171 - > Google form also. This 172 - > episode goes live on Thursday November 27, 173 - > 2025.

Tune into our Internet radio 174 - > station and after a short ad break, Chris will be back with the top 175 - > news. 176 - > Welcome back and thanks for helping us paying our energy bills. So 177 - > now let's have a look at the top news. We are starting off 178 - > with Quantum Systems.

It's a Munich based defense tech 179 - > startup. They are specializing in AI powered aerial 180 - > intelligence and drone systems and they are preparing now for a new funding round 181 - > of approximately 150 to 200 million euros targeting 182 - > evaluation near 3 billion billion as of October 183 - > 2025. As always with this, I mean at some point we probably 184 - > need to make a special episode about the meaning of valuations these days 185 - > because especially in the AI sector we see a lot of it is 186 - > really not overblown but there's, let's say there's a lot 187 - > of fantasy in the market as the Germans would say.

Do you remember in 188 - > 2021 where we did have an external 189 - > additional unicorn tracker because there have been so many, 190 - > so many unicorns created. That kind of feels a little bit 191 - > like that. But you have to keep in mind at this time in Corona it 192 - > was just a shift everybody thought Corona would keep, would 193 - > keep coming and everybody would move into digital. Here 194 - > there's an actual threat and there are governments behind with 195 - > multi year spending plans.

So I really do hope it's a little bit different 196 - > than that. Even though it feels the same, I have to admit that. 197 - > Yeah. So and we see with Quantum 198 - > Systems that they are one of those like that they are in a pretty specific 199 - > and rare position because they are one of the few European players 200 - > in drone solutions for government and for industrial 201 - > clients.

So we see here that lead investors are 202 - > Balderton Capital that is 203 - > joining strategic backers like the Airbus Defense and Space 204 - > and Henzald. So we see also that there's now a deeper, 205 - > there's now a deep tech crossover and in 206 - > capital returning to Europe's sovereignty tech 207 - > stack. So and we see overall obviously that the 208 - > global drone security market is expanding 209 - > because there are the realistic threats of 210 - > infrastructure and hybrid warfare.

So 211 - > this is a Quantum system story grab and 212 - > the German remote driving startup they have announced 213 - > $410 million strategic partners to 214 - > accelerate the rollout of their teleoperated mobility 215 - > solutions 216 - > across South East Asia's major 217 - > cities and that will mark one of the largest mobility tech alliances of 218 - > the year. Grab this is the 219 - > dominant app of the region and Ride Hailing network 220 - > plans to integrate Vase Human in the loop remote 221 - > driving platform to improve fleet availability, safety and 222 - > operational efficiency in markets where full autonomous vehicles remain 223 - > impractical.

Vase Tele driving system relies 224 - > on trained drivers operating the vehicles from centralized control hubs 225 - > and they are pretending, hoping, 226 - > claiming to offer a scalable alternative to cost intensive 227 - > self driving stacks while maintaining high compliance and urban 228 - > safety standards. And this collaboration now positions V as 229 - > Europe's most globally validated tele driving company, 230 - > showing also a competitive rise of Germany's Germany Deep 231 - > Tech.

In a category long dominated by US 232 - > and Asian players, Trade 233 - > Republic is moving toward a landmark 12 billion 234 - > euro valuation according to a new report from Manager 235 - > magazine in German Business and Economics magazine, marking one of the strongest 236 - > valuation trajectories in European fintech despite the sector's 237 - > broader correction. Trade Republic is a Berlin based neo 238 - > broker that has expanded far beyond zero 239 - > fee stock and ETF trading and is now offering 240 - > a wealth building platform that includes interest bearing cash accounts, 241 - > crypto investing, fractional shares, long term saving plans, automated wealth 242 - > tools.

So it's more like a full full on suite. By now 243 - > rising retail investor activity in Germany and a more 244 - > disciplined balance sheet struct have strengthened the company's 245 - > fundamentals even though in Germany we always have 246 - > Bafin most important finance watchdog of the government 247 - > and they are putting increasing pressure on operational 248 - > quality and compliance automation across the sector. 249 - > So we see here though that Trade Republic now really becomes this 250 - > beacon and becoming a bellwether and benchmark 251 - > for the whole industry.

252 - > Flexion, moving to Switzerland is a Zurich based 253 - > robotic software startup claiming to build the 254 - > brain for humanoid robots. They have 255 - > closed a 43 million euro 50 256 - > million US dollar Series A round in November led by 257 - > DST Global Partners and Nventures, which is the venture 258 - > arm of Nvidia. Other participants are 259 - > Red Alpin Process Ventures and Moonfire. And the 260 - > special thing about Flexion is that they are not hardware heavy 261 - > but they are more focusing on the reinforcement learning the 262 - > simulation to reality software stack and 263 - > yeah so yeah as they say the brains of it all so that the Robot 264 - > bodies can perceive, plan and act in human centric 265 - > environments.

With labor shortages, aging 266 - > demographics and manufacturing automation demands intensifying 267 - > across Europe, timing is strategic. The company aims to scale 268 - > compute platforms its bank, expand its Zurich R and D 269 - > base and open a US presence by next year. 270 - > So there we also see that robotics infrastructure and software First 271 - > Autonomy are now becoming more important in the 272 - > Dach region. Soin Nova Partners, a European life 273 - > science venture capital firm based in Paris, London and Milan 274 - > has closed 650 million euro 275 - > flagship fund Capital 276 - > XI I guess Capital 11 in November 277 - > because November is the 11th month obviously 278 - > significantly exceeding its initial target and bringing its 279 - > platform deployment above 280 - > 1.

5 billion euros over the past year. 281 - > With the back backed investments already underway, the fund will 282 - > target pioneering biopharmaceutical and medical 283 - > companies in Europe and North America. 284 - > They put an emphasis here on Immuno, Immuno, 285 - > oncology, digital health and diagnostic platform. 286 - > Here also we see that there's an LP confidence in Europe's life 287 - > science innovation stack.

And yeah, we see 288 - > that biotech founders are maturing beyond seed 289 - > and pre clinical phases all over Europe. 290 - > That leaves us leaves me 291 - > with the top news handing it over to you. Let's take the 292 - > top news from Chris. Let's talk about 293 - > Schwarzkoop, something I'm sure a lot of people 294 - > outside of Germany have never heard, but they are the company behind for 295 - > example the retailer Lidl and 296 - > Kaufland.

They are one of 297 - > Europe's largest retail conglomerates and operate the several 298 - > the sovereign cloud platform Stack it 299 - > announcing a monumental 11 billion euro 300 - > investments into new European data center and I 301 - > and AI compute infrastructure slow 302 - > Yarn instantly positioning Germany as a serious contender 303 - > in a hyperscale and sovereign cloud raise. Stack 304 - > it, which already is a serious content in the 305 - > hyperscale. Again, Stack it, which 306 - > already makes itself a GDPR aligned alternative 307 - > to aws, Azure and Google Cloud 308 - > will use the new capital to expand secure data 309 - > campuses, energy efficient campus clusters and 310 - > AI optimized server forms designed especially for 311 - > enterprise workload across industry, retail and 312 - > manufacturing.

With AI adoption rising across 313 - > the dark region and energy pressure threatening cloud 314 - > reliability, Schwartz move strengthens 315 - > European control over sensitive data and 316 - > reduces its reliance on US hyperscalers 317 - > that lines with Brussels sovereignty Push 318 - > for founder building AI agents, LL platforms and compute 319 - > intensive says in Germany, this makes a 320 - > generational shift. Compute scarcity is becoming a 321 - > strategic market and Dach finally has a dominant 322 - > heavyweight Europe prepares a 323 - > multi billion fund to scale tech champions 324 - > European Commission is, according to press reports, 325 - > preparing a multi billion euro scale up Europe fund 326 - > designed to solve the region's chronic late stage capital gap and 327 - > accelerate the growth of deep tech AI, climate 328 - > base and industrial technology champions.

Backed 329 - > by the European investment bank and private market LPs, the 330 - > program aims to keep European startups from being forced into 331 - > US Capital markets or early acquisition 332 - > pathways, positioning the fund as a strategic 333 - > counterweight to US Mega funds and 334 - > China's industrial policy financing. 335 - > The initiative directly targets the CRC and beyond 336 - > bottleneck which has historically pushed 337 - > European founders to relocate or re 338 - > domicile and offer long term capital for companies building 339 - > sovereign cloud systems, defense tech, robotic platforms, 340 - > biotech, therapeutics, Slow Joe, 341 - > industrial AI and green transition infrastructure.

For 342 - > the founders, this fund could be transformational. It 343 - > provides domestic growth capital at global scale 344 - > that's it for the overview and the top news this month. We'll be 345 - > back on Monday, December 1st with a with a deep dive. 346 - > Chris, it was a pleasure as always.

Yes, thank you. And if 347 - > someone was watching on the screen, I needed a tissue and 348 - > you didn't want to hear this, but it was urgent. Thank 349 - > you. And yeah, please tune 350 - > in for the second part of this month's overview.

351 - > That's all folks. Find more news, streams, 352 - > events and 353 - > interviews@www.startuprad.IO.

354 - > remember, sharing is caring.