Startup jobs in Berlin · 500 600 700 800 900 1,000 February 2020 | Source: Dealroom.co Looking ahead, investment into Berlin startups has reached record levels. Most of the proceeds

Startup jobs in Berlin

February 2020

February 2020 | https://startup-map.berlin

The data in this report is sourced from https://startup-map.berlin, the most complete and detailed picture of Berlin’s tech ecosystem.

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Startup Jobs in Berlin

Initiated by

Supported by

3,752

2,935

1,958

Public database Qualified startups Final dataset


This employment report includes 1,958 verified startups with employment data.


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Initial dataset

Captured by the ecosystem map, using

multiple sources including news-flow

processing, web scraping, analytics, user-

submitted contributions and manual

research.

EXCLUDING: Service Providers, non-tech,

mature (founded before 2006), workspaces.

EXCLUDING: Companies lacking employment data

Source: Dealroom.co

THE EARLY DAYS THE FORMATIVE YEARS GLOBAL EXPANSION DIVERSIFICATION

23Kpeople

34K people

22Kpeople

6Kpeople

1999-2005 2006-2010 2011-2015 2016-now Employees today


Source: Dealroom.co

This report tracks generations of startups since 2006, some of which have developed into very big employers over the years.


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98 companies today

261 companies today

780 companies today

962 companies today


Source: Dealroom.co

Berlin startup jobs have soared to 78K, of which 19K (32% increase) added in the last two years. Younger startups create the most jobs.

Berlin startup jobs


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2016-now cohort ▶

2011-2015 cohort ▶

2006-2010 cohort ▶

1999-2005 cohort excluded

◀ +9K jobs

◀ +7K jobs

◀ +3K jobs

◀ Stable▪ 78K jobs from 2K startups

(84K jobs if including 1999-2005 cohort)

▪ Roughly 20% of jobs are in product development & software engineering

▪ Excluded are foreign startups with a Berlin office such as eBay, Facebook, Google

▪ Included are German founded startups that have been acquired by foreign companies, such as Lieferando, Lieferheld, Payleven13K

20K23K

26K

31K

34K

19K

20K

22K

5K

5K

6K

58K

70K

78K

2017 2018 2019

+19K jobs(17% per year)


The largest startup employer is Zalando. The top-10 employers contribute 17% of jobs, followed by a long tail of startups.


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Number of employees

1,000

Top 50: 28% of jobs

78K jobs100% of jobs

78,000

Source: Dealroom.co

1,958 startups

Top 10: 17% of jobs

500 300 200

VC backed exits

Current unicorns

Potential future unicorns

Rising stars


Source: Dealroom.co

Big names like Zalando have helped create a new generation of skilled people, in turn fuelling growth of new rising stars and potential future unicorns.


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View all 33 future unicorns »

View 100 rising stars »

https://startup-map.berlin/companies.startups/f/all_locations/anyof_Berlin/company_status/not_acquired/ownerships/not_public/valuation_max/anyof_800000000/valuation_min/anyof_200000000?search_id=6440

https://startup-map.berlin/companies.startups/f/all_locations/anyof_Berlin/company_status/not_acquired/employee_12_months_growth_rank/anyof_top%20half_top%2025%25_top%2010%25_top%205%25/last_funding_year_min/anyof_2015/launch_year_min/anyof_2009/ownerships/not_public/valuation_max/anyof_200000000?showMap=true&sort=-valuation

0K

10K

20K

30K

40K

50K

60K

70K

80K

90K


Source: Dealroom.co1. Amsterdam chosen as this was the subject of a previous similar study by Dealroom. Other cities coming soon.

Compared with Amsterdam(1) for example, Berlin startups employ twice as many people, as a result of having both more and bigger startups.

Cumulative number of employees


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Berlin1,958 companies78K employees

Amsterdam1,519 companies38K employees

0

50

100

150

200

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11


Source: Dealroom.co. VC backed startups only.

Startups in Berlin scale 2x faster than their Amsterdam counterparts, on average.


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Av

era

ge

em

plo

ye

es

pe

r co

mp

an

y

Age in years

◀ Berlin startups

◀ Amsterdam startups

Why do Amsterdam startups scale slower?

• Most Amsterdam startup successes are older than 10 years: Booking, Takeaway, Adyen, TomTom (so fall off this chart)

• Gitlab and Elastic moved to the USA

• Much smaller VC industry in Amsterdam. This may be related to the fact that the biggest successes (Booking, Tomtom, Adyen) were never backed by Dutch VCs

Why compare only Amsterdam?

• The direct benchmark is made possible by the Amsterdam tech ecosystem employment report, launched in 2019

• Other cities coming soon!


Source: Dealroom.co. Valuations are computed using valuation estimates based on Venture Capital rounds.

Jobs are not nearly as concentrated as startup valuation. The top 10 most valuable startups contribute 65% of value. The top 10 employers contribute 17% of jobs.

The top 10 most valuable startups contribute 65% of startup valuation


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Not meaningful

The top 10 employers contribute 17% of employees

13K

9K

21K

35K 78K

Top 10 Next 50 Next 500 Rest Total


While most companies are small, employees are distributed evenly across companies of different sizes.


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Companies by company size Employees by company size

–

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

2 - 5

6 - 1

0

11 -

15

16 -

20

21 -

25

26 -

30

31 -

35

36 -

40

41 -

45

46 -

50

51 -

55

56 -

60

61 -

65

66 -

70

71 -

75

76 -

80

81 -

85

86 -

90

91 -

95

96 -

100

101

- 10

5

106

- 11

0

111

- 11

5

116

- 12

0

121

- 12

5

126

- 13

0

131

- 13

5

136

- 14

0

141

- 14

5

146

- 15

0

–

1%

2%

3%

4%

5%

6%

7%

2 - 5

6 - 1

0

11 -

15

16 -

20

21 -

25

26 -

30

31 -

35

36 -

40

41 -

45

46 -

50

51 -

55

56 -

60

61 -

65

66 -

70

71 -

75

76 -

80

81 -

85

86 -

90

91 -

95

96 -

100

101

- 10

5

106

- 11

0

111

- 11

5

116

- 12

0

121

- 12

5

126

- 13

0

131

- 13

5

136

- 14

0

141

- 14

5

146

- 15

0

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

500

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20


Source: Dealroom.co

A relatively small group of startups achieve hyper-growth. But there is a large group lesser known startups creating lots of jobs (even more jobs in absolute sense).

Berlin companies by age and number of employees


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Age

Em

plo

ye

es

High profile companies

Employment “belly”

250

240

230

220

210

200

190

180

170

160

150

140

130

120

110

100

90

80

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20


Source: Dealroom.co

The center of gravity in terms of jobs lies in companies up to 9 years old and up to 70 employees. This group contributes 50% of jobs.


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Number of employees

Age of company50% of jobs

1K

1K

1K

1K

2K

2K

3K

4K

4K

4K

5K

5K

5K

9K

12K

Finance and insurance service provider

Real Estate

Transportation and storage

Public administration, Defense, Social insurance

Hospitality

Manufacturing industry

Construction industry

Trade

Education

Other economic service

Health and social services

Freelancing, scientific and technical services

Production industry

Information and Communication

Startups

Service areas


Source: Bundesamt für Statistik Berlin Brandenburg and Dealroom.co

Startups are a significant contributor to job growth in Berlin.

Nr of new jobs created 2017-2018


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2%

2%

2%

2%

2%

3%

3%

3%

3%

3%

4%

4%

4%

5%

10%

21%

Manufacturing industry

Transportation and storage

Public administration, Defense, Social insurance

Trade

Hospitality

Health and social services

Other economic service

Finance and insurance service provider

Production industry

Service areas

Real Estate

Freelancing, scientific and technical services

Education

Construction industry

Information and Communication

Startups

% growth 2017-2018

38K

1517

172 12744

37

34

9

-

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1,000


Source: Dealroom.co

Looking ahead, investment into Berlin startups has reached record levels. Most of the proceeds will be used to build teams.

Number of Berlin startups by funding received and average size


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No funding €1-5M €5-15M €15-25M €25-50M €50-250M €250M+

Av

era

ge

em

plo

ye

es

1,517 Berlin startups (70%) are not venture

backed.

Record VC investment in Berlin companies

€ 2.1B

€ 1.1B

€ 1.9B

€ 2.2B

€ 4.1B

2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

February 2020 | https://startup-map.berlinPage / 16

A rapidly expanding network of interconnected ecosystems.


Live since July 2019

Coming soon!

Live since October 2019

Live since March 2018

Live since February 2020

February 2020 | https://startup-map.berlinPage / 17

There are already several ecosystem solutions in five major hubs in Germany.


https://map.gruenderallianz.ruhr/dashboard

https://monitor.hinterland-of-things.de/

https://startup-map.berlin/home

https://startup-map.cologne/dashboard


Explore the underlying data in this report: startup-map.berlin/dashboard

3,800+ startups & scaleups

200+ Accelerators, workspaces

1,200+ funds & corporate investors

3,000+ Funding rounds & exits


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https://startup-map.berlin/dashboard

Documents

Startup jobs in Berlin · 500 600 700 800 900 1,000 February 2020 | Source: Dealroom.co Looking ahead, investment into Berlin startups has reached record levels. Most of the proceeds