2026-07-23
Berlin and Munich as startup cities
Berlin is still Germany's densest founder city and the largest share of national tech ecosystem value. Munich is the other pole: university-heavy, patent-dense, close to industrial buyers, and more competitive on venture capital than the last-cycle story suggested, especially in deep tech. The Deutscher Startup Monitor 2025 from Bundesverband Deutsche Startups puts Berlin at 18.8% of surveyed startups, Bavaria at 15.0%, and Munich itself at 7.5%. Dealroom's Berlin tech ecosystem report with the Berlin Senate is sharper on scale: Berlin is Germany's largest tech hub, 43% of national ecosystem value, with more than 1,600 VC-backed companies. Funding volumes between the two metros have been converging. Day-to-day founding still looks different in each city, so the useful question is which bottleneck you have this year.
What the reports still agree on
The Deutscher Startup Monitor 2025 still shows a concentrated map. Berlin is the largest single city share in the survey at 18.8%. North Rhine-Westphalia sits at 18.7% when you look at the state, and Bavaria at 15.0%, with Munich as the main Bavarian center at 7.5%. The same report notes that most German unicorns still sit in Berlin and Munich, and that those two developed hubs remain the easiest places to scale quickly. On Haus, the August 2026 directory snapshot matches that gravity: 37 programs and 54 communities in Berlin against 33 programs and 24 communities in Munich. Those counts move as we add and refresh listings, but the ranking has been stable.
Dealroom's work with the Berlin Senate puts a number on Berlin's scale that a founder survey cannot: €169 billion in combined enterprise value for VC-backed startups, 43% of Germany's ecosystem value, and 57 unicorns or thoroughbreds. Berlin startups have raised €4.9 billion since 2024, ranking fourth in Europe for VC investment and second for the number of rounds. Deutsche Bank Research makes the complementary claim that Munich punches through universities and patent density, while Berlin scores harder on funding access, valuation, and talent liquidity. That split matches what founders feel on the ground. Berlin has more operators between jobs and more international early hires. Munich has more industrial customers and more research spinouts sitting next to TUM, LMU, and UnternehmerTUM.
Funding volumes have gotten closer
The same Dealroom report notes that Berlin and the Munich metropolitan area now attract similar levels of VC investment. Recent years show converging volumes, with Munich catching up as deep-tech investor interest rises. The idea that all of the money sits only in Berlin belongs to the last cycle. The report also says Berlin's seed-to-Series-A graduation rate is among the highest in Europe and stronger than Munich's, so the cities still produce different outcome shapes. Berlin still produces more late-stage logos in raw counts. Munich is closing the gap on capital, especially for teams that look like industrial or deep-tech companies.
How the cities feel day to day still moves more slowly than fundraise headlines. Berlin remains the cheaper place to collide: meetups, operators between jobs, and communities that meet often enough to be useful. Munich is denser with industrial buyers, lab access, and university pipelines, and the social and financial cost of entry is usually higher. One city makes it easier to iterate on software and hire quickly. The other makes it easier to look credible next to a plant, a clinic, or a research institute. Plenty of teams treat the ICE as infrastructure and keep a week-on, week-off habit rather than picking a forever home.
How to choose for the year you are in
If your bottleneck is people - a cofounder, the first ten hires, constant customer chats - Berlin is still a structural advantage. The collision rate is what you are buying. Programs in Berlin and the city's community list are large enough that you can still waste a year in the wrong room, so you have to pick with some care. If your bottleneck is industrial buyers, lab access, or a deep-tech talent pipeline, Munich or a Munich-heavy week schedule is often the better fit. UnternehmerTUM and the TUM and LMU founding desks are part of that pipeline, which is why the Senate report treats Munich as the university model Berlin is trying to copy. Write down the bottleneck before you move a lease.
A lot of good teams now live where they sleep and use the other city as infrastructure. Investor weeks, demo days, and customer travel work as a ritual. The DSM's broader point still holds: Germany has real activity in NRW, Hamburg, and university towns, and those rooms show up in the communities directory. When a company needs to scale fast, Berlin and Munich still dominate the late-stage outcomes. Of the 15 new unicorns the DSM counts since 2022, six sat in Berlin and four in Munich, with the rest spread across Cologne, Chemnitz, Hamburg, Bruchsal, and a few other cities. Start where the work is, and keep a return ticket.