German start-ups have strongly boosted their financial backing from investors and in the meantime left several European competitors behind. In the first half of 2018, a good 2.4 billion euros were invested in new German companies, up 13 percent on the same period last year.
German start-ups thereby outpaced French companies (2.0 billion euros) as well as those in Sweden and Switzerland, according to an analysis by the consulting company Ernst & Young (EY). Unchallenged at the top of the list of start-up investments was Britain at 3.1 billion euros, despite the forth coming Brexit.
The leading European cities as start-up venues were London with 2.0 billion euros, followed by Berlin at 1.6 billion euros, surpassing Paris which came next at 1.4 billion euros, the EY study showed.
Whereas in Britain it was young financial firms that received a great deal of start-up capital, in Germany the recipients were chiefly in the online merchandising sector.
The biggest deal so far in 2018 was the 450-million-euro investment by the Japanese technology concern Softbank in the company Auto 1, a Berlin online car dealership platform. Next came 207 million euros for the financial company Revolut in Britain, with the third-largest transaction being the stock market launch of the German online furniture firm Home 24 at 172 million euros.
Overall, Europe's start-up companies achieved record figures, with investments up 27 percent year-on-year at 10.2 billion euros, according to EY a record volume for the first half of a year. The number of financing rounds for the investments came to around 2,000, up 19 percent.
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A single purchase
