Germany is home to some of Europe’s best-known tech companies, including many in the fintech space, where Germany is the #1 player in Europe and the fourth largest in the world.  Investors (including government agencies) have spent $72 billion in funding over the last decade to support its startup ecosystem. It is now home to over 20,000 startups, including 30 unicorns (the most in Europe after the UK).

Tech companies in Germany have been recently soaked by a wave of funding activity, with players such as Qdrant closing a $28 million investment round in 2023 and Kittl securing $36 million this January. As these companies grow or receive funding, they'll likely seek skilled individuals to join their teams and scale up their products. This could potentially mean more jobs for software developers. In this article, we’re bringing up a list of the biggest and fastest-rising German software companies so that you can feel out the map and learn more about the star players.

🦄 The 10 biggest German tech companies

These are 10 leading tech companies based in Germany or from German founders. These are all well-financed businesses that are likely to offer good salaries and good career opportunities.

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N26

N26 is Europe's first 100% mobile and fully licenced bank, headquartered in Berlin. It became famous in mobile banking because people could sign up and verify their identity using their phones. They also hosted their full core banking stack on the cloud. These were radical ideas until recently. It monetises with premium accounts and lending services in over 15 European countries. In 2022, it reached 8 million customers and launched N26 Crypto. In 2023, it made $328 million in revenue, up 27% from the previous year. Yet, after Allianz X sold its 5% stake at a significant discount, N26’s value dropped from $9 billion in 2021 to $3 billion in 2023. Recently, it expanded its services by launching joint accounts and stock and ETF trading in multiple markets. With a diverse team of over 1,500 people from 80 countries, N26 cut 71 jobs last year—around 4% of its workforce—to focus on its “strategic priorities,” as they enigmatically stated.

Zalando

Zalando is an online fashion and lifestyle e-tailer based in Berlin. It also helps other businesses with their e-commerce operations. With 15,000 employees from 140 different countries, Zalando stands for inclusivity, ranking 35 on Forbes' 2023 list of the top companies for women. In 2023, its revenue was around €10 billion, a 0.72% increase from the previous year. As of April 2024, Zalando was valued at €6.2 billion. In 2022, it acquired a majority stake in Highsnobiety to expand its luxury offerings. Recently, it invested in Sealor, a platform aiding businesses in their e-commerce goals, based on Sealor’s success with global brands. In early 2023, Zalando announced layoffs, cutting up to 5% of its workforce across various teams. 

Trade Republic

Trade Republic is an online broker based in Berlin. It offers a range of investment options like savings plans, ETFs, and fractional stocks. It also introduced fractional bonds last year and a new card with a 1% saveback reward this year. It operates in 17 countries and has around 500 employees. Since its launch in 2019, it has added 4 million accounts with €38 billion in assets. In 2022, it received €250 million from Ontario Teachers, increasing their valuation to €5.4 billion. It also laid off part of its workforce in 2022, though the number of employees affected wasn’t officially shared. Reviewers on Glassdoor claim that 20% of the staff were let go.

Contentful

Contentful, a key player in digital content management, is based in Berlin. Its platform helps create, collaborate on, and deliver content for organisations worldwide, including nearly 30% of the Fortune 500 companies. Since 2019, its annual revenue has grown to nearly $200 million, serving over 4,000 customers, and its team has expanded globally to around 800 employees. In 2021, it secured $175 million in funding, primarily from Tiger Global, resulting in a valuation exceeding $3 billion. Contentful is recognised in the Forbes 2023 Cloud 100 list for their leading composable content platform. It recently experienced layoffs, though the exact number wasn’t disclosed.

Sennder

Sennder is a digital freight-forwarding company headquartered in Berlin. It connects big shippers with smaller freight carriers, managing a fleet of over 40,000 trucks across Europe—a sort of Uber but for freight transport. The key difference: these guys will likely become profitable quicker than the cab-hailing app. Leading European investors, including Baillie Gifford and Accel, have backed Sennder. In December 2022, its valuation was €2.1 billion. In 2023, Sennder partnered with Scania to launch JUNA, a joint venture promoting electric truck adoption for eco-friendly logistics. It also strengthened its partnership with Poste Italiane through a €2.3 billion deal. So they’re landing big-time contracts and not just living off their investment cash to grow.

SumUp

SumUp is a financial tech company founded by a German entrepreneur and headquartered in London. With nearly 3,000 employees, it allows more than 3.5 million small businesses to accept card payments. Although its revenue reached €150 million in 2023, it's still below 2020 levels. Despite this, SumUp remains profitable, particularly in Europe and Brazil. As of December 2023, its valuation stands at €8.5 billion, which seems high considering the company’s slowdown in growth and reduced profits since 2021. It recently closed a financing round of €285 million to expand into new markets like Australia.

Delivery Hero

Delivery Hero is a network of online food ordering sites based in Berlin. They take over so many competitor companies that, if you’ve ever ordered food through an app, the invoice probably came from them. It connects customers with restaurants and operates around 1,000 Dmarts—small warehouses for delivery—worldwide. This company already has more than 50,000 employees and considerable revenue. The enterprise valuation as of April 2024 is €12 billion, with total segment revenue reaching €10 billion in 2023, showing a 9.1% growth from the previous year. Yet, it has faced challenges, including selling its 4.5% stake in Deliveroo and dealing with activist investor Sachem Head Capital Management, who seeks changes in leadership due to concerns about operational performance. In 2023, Delivery Hero underwent layoffs, reducing the workforce at its Berlin headquarters and global service roles by around 13%. It also closed tech centres in Taiwan and Turkey.

Taxfix

Taxfix is an online platform based in Berlin that helps people in Germany file their taxes using a guided process with simple questions. In 2021, Taxfix earned €21 million in revenue. The last time it raised funding was in 2022, when Teachers' Venture Growth (TVG) led the effort to secure $220 million, which valued the company at more than $1 billion. The money was used to develop new products and enter markets outside of Italy, Germany, and Spain. With around 500 employees, Taxfix underwent restructuring in 2023, laying off 20% of its staff after acquiring one of the rival tax startups in their country, Steuerbot.

Grover

Grover is an online subscription platform for renting tech products based in Berlin. It has over 5,000 products available for rent in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United States. In 2022, Grover saw 354% YoY growth as more cost-conscious customers opted to rent electronics instead of buying them. However, it had to let go of around 40 employees, or about 10% of their workforce, to align with their targets for 2023 and break even. Despite the layoffs, it secured $110 million in funding from investors like Energy Impact Partners and COI Partners and $220 million in debt financing from Fasanara Capital, resulting in its valuation rising to over $1 billion in 2022.

Qdrant

Qdrant is an open-source vector search database based in Berlin. It provides an API service for finding the nearest high-dimensional vectors. Founded in 2021, it has 42 employees and has raised a total of $35.5 million in funding over two rounds. In 2022, it secured a €2 million pre-seed round of funding from 42CAP and IBB Ventures, followed by a $7.5 million seed financing in 2023 from lead investor Unusual Ventures. Recently, it raised $28 million in a funding round led by Spark Capital. In 2023, Quadrant introduced a new compression technology called binary quantization (BQ), meant to improve indexing speed and reduce memory consumption. This innovation has attracted high-profile users like Elon Musk’s xAI, a company developing the ChatGPT competitor Grok. In January 2024, Qdrant announced the availability of Qdrant Cloud on Microsoft Azure, and they've just launched Qdrant Hybrid Cloud, the first managed vector database that can be run anywhere.

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📈Rising German tech companies 

This section examines the key details of 7 promising German tech companies founded in the past 5 years.

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Razor Group

Razor Group is a “new-age” global consumer company based in Berlin that partners with e-commerce sellers to grow successful brands. Since starting in 2020, Razor has quickly grown to serve over 1 million customers with a portfolio of 4,000 products. The company has around 450 employees, with offices in Europe, North America, and Asia. Razor made significant moves in 2023, acquiring German competitor The Stryze Group and closing a funding round at $88 million. Quiet acquisitions of Valoreo in Latin America and Factory14 in Europe followed, but the big news came with the recent purchase of Perch, a leading Amazon aggregator in the US. This deal positions Razor at a valuation of $1.7 billion with a catalogue of 40,000 products across three continents, consolidating the company as the #1 player in the industry.

Flink

Flink is an online grocery delivery service based in Berlin that brings high-quality groceries to your doorstep within minutes. It operates in over 100 cities across Germany, France, and the Netherlands and offers flexible job opportunities, with hourly pay starting at €12.41 plus tips. With a total funding of $1.3 billion across 8 rounds, Flink's valuation hit $1.075 million in May 2023, with $427 million in revenue in 2022. Like many grocery apps, Flink thrived during the pandemic but is now facing challenges due to rising costs and lower demand. Currently, the Turkish rival Getir is in talks to acquire Flink, aiming to merge both services under the Flink name in Germany, creating a company that would be valued at $10 billion.

SellerX

SellerX is an aggregator of e-commerce businesses headquartered in Berlin. It specialises in helping entrepreneurs take their Amazon businesses to a higher revenue level by providing analytics, processes, and production support. In 2022, they faced some setbacks due to tech downtime and had to lay off around 28 employees from their 700-person workforce. However, in May 2023, SellerX rebounded by securing nearly $900 million in equity and debt financing. They also struck a deal to acquire Elevate Brands, a prominent US-based aggregator of e-commerce businesses. This move led to the formation of the SellerX Group, which became one of the largest and most profitable global consolidators of e-commerce brands. By May 2023, SellerX's valuation had climbed to $1 billion.

Vivid Money

Vivid Money is a Berlin-based digital banking platform offering various financial services like high-interest savings, investments, and cashback rewards, all accessible through a secure and user-friendly mobile app. The startup has secured over €200 million from prestigious investors like Ribbit Capital and Greenoaks Capital, resulting in a valuation of €775 million, and it currently employs an international team of 200 employees. In February, Vivid acquired the Luxembourg fintech Joompay, and announced its expansion into 23 additional EU countries. With this move, the Vivid app is now available across Europe, and thanks to its newly launched SEPA Instant, payments can now be made in real time.

MAYD Group

MAYD Group is Europe’s first telepharmacy platform headquartered in Berlin, providing quick delivery of prescription medicines 365 days a year. Since its launch in 2021, it has employed around 150 staff members from 40 different nationalities, along with 350 permanently employed riders. With an investment of €43 million, MAYD is leading the digitisation of the healthcare sector. In 2022, it secured €30 million in funding from US investor Lightspeed Venture Partners, which was used to accelerate its expansion in Germany. Currently, MAYD delivers over 2,000 healthcare-related products to over 70 cities and towns across Germany.

Kittl

Kittl is a Berlin-based company that offers AI-powered tools for design creation. Since its launch in 2020, Kittl has raised a total of $49.53 million over 5 rounds. Its latest funding round, $36 million from Institutional Venture Partners, was secured in January 2024. With a team of around 60 professionals with backgrounds in Revolut, Meta, and Canva, Kittl plans to hire an additional 50 people this year and is openly on the search for engineers, product managers and sales leaders. Among other features, the company has developed Kittl AI-X1, which they branded as “the first text-to-graphic generative AI model” in graphic design.

Pliant

Pliant is a modern Berlin-based financial startup providing corporate credit cards to businesses with good credit ratings and high spending habits. With multi-currency capabilities, it serves 11 currencies, extending its Electronic Money Institution licence across 25 nations in the European Economic Area. Pliant's core business revolves around its innovative cards-as-a-service (CaaS) model, which allows partner companies to create customised credit card programmes. The company secured €33 million in funding in 2023, the largest for any tech company in Germany, and obtained €100 million in debt refinancing. It reported significant revenue in 2023 and recently raised €18 million in an expansion fund headed by PayPal Ventures.

Get a job at the next big company in German tech 

Whether you are already living in Germany but looking for a job, planning to move there, or just stoking your interest in this country and its opportunities, you should definitely have a look at the German software companies listed in this article.

Many of these businesses are hiring in Germany, so there are chances of joining any of these teams. You just have to pay attention to the open positions published on their websites, or you can go a little bolder and sign up for a profile on our tech recruiting platform, WeAreDevelopers. Once you are part of our community, your profile gets sent to nearby companies looking for applicants. As a developer, you can also actively show interest in job postings, so employers can contact you with opportunities based on your experience. Good luck!