Global Insights for Innovators 🇩🇪 🇪🇺🌎 #8
$84m for Wandelbots, $69,420,000 for Dune Analytics and Peloton's wild ride
Hi everyone,
2022 kicked off with more crazy funding rounds in emerging spaces like Crypto and Industrial Tech, as well as turbulence in public markets that create some interesting acquisition opportunities. More on that below.
We also spoke to Janette Wiget, CFO of Merantix (Germany’s leading AI venture studio) to get her take on how to transfer AI research into applications for corporates.
Enjoy!
The FI Berlin Team
And now... the news
Our take on what's going on and what it means for you.
🇩🇪 What happens in Germany...
No code, no problem - Dresden-based robotic software company Wandelbots raised an additional $84m to build and expand their developer community and work on interoperability to cover a range of robotic systems. Wandelbots is creating a software layer that allows anyone to teach robots new skills using a ‘trace pen’ instead of writing code. Investors in the latest round include corporate VCs like Next 47 (Siemens) and Microsoft.
So what? Germany is particularly strong in industrial tech thanks to its strong industrial base and many potential clients being Germany based. The space is still rather nascent in Europe but we’re seeing more and bigger funding rounds - unsurprisingly often led by corporate venture funds who are also interested in becoming customers and driving the development. Wandelbots is set to become a global winner and there are many more earlier stage companies in Germany who could be next.
🇪🇺 What happens in Europe...
The latest meme – Web3 analytics platform Dune Analytics raised a $69,420,000 Series B, making the Norwegian-based company a unicorn only 6 months after they raised their $8m Series A. Some of the money will be used to educate and incentive ‘Dune Wizards’, the decentralised counterparts to ‘Wall Street Analysts’ who use Dune’s dashboard tools to make crypto data consumable for everyone.
So what? There are good reasons why the crypto space is producing unicorns much quicker than ever before: 1) Many crypto platforms create internal economies and incentive systems that need liquidity to get them going; 2) the decentralised nature of crypto platforms comes with a global addressable market from day 1, and once product-market-fit is found you need firepower to get to scale; 3) there’s soo much money thanks to new specialist funds and dedicated web3 teams in crossover funds (like Coatue, who led the round). To get involved as an investor you need to think twice whether you’re set up to play the game and what you bring to the table - and you have to embrace the meme culture that doesn’t even stop at round sizes.
🌎 What happens around the world...
Peloton’s wild ride – Nike and Amazon are rumoured to consider buying Peloton after the market valuation collapsed due to supply chain issues and over-investments. Co-Founder and CEO John Foley is also stepping back to make room for a new chief executive. Peloton’s market cap reached a $50bn valuation last year before falling back to below $8bn this month. Truly a wild ride…
So what? The current market shake-up is overdue as the world is moving into a post-pandemic state and people are less interested in buying Pelotons and more interested in actually going out. Peloton was always an interesting acquisition target, mainly because there’s hardly any other consumer company valued below $50bn that receives consumer attention for more than 20 minutes several times a week (ideally..). Potential buyers now see an opportunity to buy Peloton at a discount. With more turbulence ahead, there might be other pandemic winners on sale in the future.
Asking an Innovator
Today with Janette Wiget, CFO of Merantix, the Berlin-based, Softbank-backed Artificial Intelligence (AI) Venture Studio that through its unique incubation platform, seed financing and exceptional teams of entrepreneurs and engineers transfers world-leading research into products that will change existing and create new industries.
How is Merantix transforming AI venture building?
Merantix's unique approach to building and investing in AI companies in a venture studio ecosystem differs significantly from typical financed incubations. Together with entrepreneurs and as institutional co-founders, we build companies from ideation to scaling. Especially in a field like AI, it is essential that startup companies are supported by an ecosystem of data, researchers, talented engineers, the necessary industry network and financiers with an understanding of the field. All this is offered by the Merantix ecosystem and ensures a higher probability of success in building ventures.
How do you see the AI ecosystem in Germany?
There are some very exciting new AI ventures and solutions being built here in Germany, but I do believe we are lagging way behind our potential. On one hand, it is definitely the regulatory circumstances here in Germany and the EU. But I see a bigger issue elsewhere: the transfer from world-leading AI research institutions with strong engineering talent to globally leading engineering industries and strong SMEs. This is where we need to become stronger.
How can German corporates launch new AI propositions?
The problems of transferring research into (corporate) practice are multi-faceted, but in general, I feel it is oftentimes an issue of culture and talent, but also vision. This is why one of our first ventures at Merantix was Merantix Labs, our AI solutions provider. The team at Labs has set out to help SMEs across all industries, from ideating new AI solutions to setting up the right framework for the implementation and up to the actual building, running and maintenance of them. Further, we have opened up the AI Campus Berlin, an innovation and collaboration space for AI companies, researchers, policy-makers and startups, where we have many events and meetups lined up that invite corporates to come and interact, and hopefully ignite the spark that will lead them to harness the power of AI.
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