(removed by r/berlin mods)

Hello everyone, I am testing a new update format, a collection of snippets from the "Briefly on business, tech and economy" section of the newsletter. One way or another Berlin related:

Week of 3rd of November (#172)

1. Bad news: Amazon -14,000 corporate roles (no data for Germany), Personio (Munich, HR software) -10% and ending its US operations.
2. Formel Skin (Berlin, skin care) will be acquired by Manual (UK). (Deutsche Startups)
3. Denmark abandons plans for chat control. It seems.
4. Intercom (customer service) will expand to Berlin with its R&D hub and hire 100+ people. Careers.
5. Besides e-scooters, VOI is now also offering 2,000 e-bikes for rent in town.
6. Grammarly is changing its name to Superhuman.
7. The minimum wage in Germany will be raised to €13.90/h on January 1st, and a year later to €14.60/h.
8. EQT (PE firm) is exploring a €10B takeover of Mobile.de (Berlin, used cars platform).
9. Bending Spoons (Milan) has acquired AOL. They also own WeTransfer, Evernote and Komoot.
10. Babbel (Berlin, language service) has acquired Wellspent (Berlin, screen time management app).
11. Cinven (PE firm) is considering a sale of think-cell (Berlin, PPT software) at a €3B valuation.
12. VW Q3 ‘25: operating loss of €1.3B with big problems at Porsche (€4.7B charges due to EV strategy changes). Not helped by the tariffs, with an expected cost of €5B this year.
13. Mercedes Q3 ‘25: revenue €23.7B (-7%), adj. EBIT €1.14B (+0.1% YoY).

Week of 10th of November (#173)

1. Bad news: 36% of German companies plan layoffs in 2026, only 18% will create jobs. Manufacturing outlook is bleakest: 41% plan cuts, only one in seven will hire. (IW, n=2000)
2. Tesla again posted a steep slump in sales in Europe (up to -88.7% in Sweden). The only exception was France (+2.4%).
3. After a six-month labour dispute, TikTok moderators (150) in Berlin will lose their jobs with a €17k base severance.
4. JP Morgan will need to pay €45M fine for systematically breaching AML requirements in 21/22.
5. Payrails (Berlin, fintech) is opening an office in Ireland.
6. Google will announce its biggest ever investment in Germany tomorrow, with different projects in Munich, Frankfurt and Berlin.
7. Deutsche Telekom and Nvidia are investing €1B in a new AI data center in Munich to provide secure AI services to the German industry.
8. DeepL (Cologne) is expanding beyond translations to launch its own AI agent for business applications.
9. Doctolib (healthcare, strong presence in Berlin) was fined €4.6M by French authorities for “abusing its dominant position” in the telehealth and online medical appointment booking sector.
10. Zalando Q3, adj. EBIT €96M (+3.2%). Zalando also became a new main partner of the German Football Association (DFB).
11. HelloFresh Q3: revenue €1.66B (-9.3%), adj. EBITDA €40.3M (-44.1%). They were under attack from a short seller.
12. McMakler (Berlin, real estate) has a new CEO, Steve Simmons. He replaced Benedikt Manigold.

Week of 17th of November (#174)

1. Is anyone surprised that TikTok’s algorithm is pushing political extremes?
2. Meta projected 10% of its 2024 revenue would come from ads for scams and banned goods.
3. The EU plans to eliminate the €150 customs threshold for Chinese e-commerce platforms like Temu as early as 2026. Get your orders in.
4. Another frontier lab, Anthropic, decided on Munich over Berlin.
5. Google announced a €5.5B investment in Germany through 2029, including expansion of offices in Berlin, Frankfurt, and Munich. Meanwhile, the EU Commission is launching a new investigation against them under the Digital Markets Act.
6. Related, Idealo (Berlin, comparison portal) sued Google for €3.3B in damages, claiming Google abused its search engine dominance for over 15 years by favouring its own Google Shopping service. The court ordered Google to pay €465M.
7. Vinted (2nd-hand marketplace, hiring in Berlin) will reach €10B in GMV and €1B in revenue in 2025, according to its CEO.
8. Parloa (Berlin, voice agents) is at “about $50M in ARR.”
9. Libra (Berlin, legal tech) is being acquired by Wolters Kluwer for up to €90M.
10. Knuspr (Grocery delivery) now handles nearly 5,000 daily orders in Berlin, with monthly orders up 90% year-over-year to 125,000. (Exciting Commerce)
11. GEMA (German music rights organisation) won a copyright infringement case against OpenAI for using popular song lyrics without paying royalties.
12. Trump-affiliated video-sharing platform Rumble agreed to acquire German AI infrastructure company Northern Data in a $970M deal.
13. Trade Republic customer complaints increased by 133% from January to September 2025 compared to the previous year, according to Germany's consumer protection association. They also introduced crypto wallets.
14. FC Viktoria Berlin (2nd division, women) got a US sports investor, Monarch Collective.
15. Siemens Energy Q4: revenue €10.4 (+9.7%), net income €236M (vs. negative €115M last year)
16. Delivery Hero Q3: GMV €12.2B (+7%), adj. EBITDA not reported

Week of 24th of November (#175)

1. Bad news: In Berlin, 1.75M m² of commercial office space is empty (8%). In 2026, the capacity is supposed to increase by 840k m².
2. The EU Commission is proposing scaling back GDPR and AI regulation.
3. Interesting, but a US-based (!) Diffraqtion won Slush 100, taking home €1M in equity. Slush is one of the most important EU-based tech events.
4. Cyber Innovation Hub of the German Armed Forces (CIHBw) in Berlin got a separate budget of €40M for 2026.
5. Picnic (NL, grocery delivery) is getting €430M of fresh capital to expand more in Germany. Rewe is its main competitor.
6. Schwarz-Gruppe (Lidl & Co.) will invest €11B in a new data centre in Lübbenau (1.5h south of Berlin).
7. Clark (Frankfurt, insurtech) is getting sued by its investor over a convertible loan.
8. Integral (Berlin, AI accounting) has acquired payroll provider cleverlohn. See the raise below as well.
9. Trade Republic reached a €12.5B valuation after a €1B secondary. Secondary deals enable a full or partial exit of early investors.
10. 24/7 fitness concept franchise Anytime Fitness (US) has big plans in Germany. They want to open 15 new gyms per year.
11. Pennylane (France, accounting) plans to hire 100 new employees for its expansion in Germany (HQ in Munich, but also with an office in Berlin).
12. Rumors. Neura Robotics (Berlin, robotics) reportedly raising €1B from Tether at €8-10B valuation. Quantum Systems (Munich, drones) €200M at €3B valuation. Time will tell.
13. Flatpay (Denmark, payments) raised €145M at a €1.5B valuation. They grow and hire in Germany a lot, surely impacting SumUp.
14. Langdock (Berlin, AI for enterprises) reached $12M ARR with less than 30 employees.
15. Klarna Q3: revenue $903M (+26%), adjusted operating loss of $14M (vs +$63M YoY). Shares lowest since IPO.

Thanks for reading. If you’d like to get these weekly, subscribe to the newsletter.