Fintech Germany - Startups and Venture Capital

About Fintech Germany - Startups and Venture Capital

FinTech Germany is Startuprad.io™’s podcast on fintech startups, banking innovation, payments, digital finance, embedded finance, AI in finance, and venture capital in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and the broader European startup ecosystem. Hosted by Joe Menninger, who previously spent more than a decade as a management consultant in capital markets, the show provides regular analysis and founder interviews on how startups, banks, venture capital investors, regulators, and financial technology companies are reshaping Europe’s financial services industry. Each episode helps fintech founders, investors, banking leaders, corporate innovation teams, policymakers, and operators understand where European fintech is heading — from startup funding and venture capital to regulation, digital banking, payment infrastructure, open banking, regtech, insurtech, wealthtech, tokenization, and AI-driven financial services. Topics regularly covered include: • Fintech startups in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Europe • Venture capital, startup funding, and fintech investment trends • Digital banking, neobanks, open banking, and embedded finance • Payments, payment infrastructure, wallets, and financial platforms • AI in finance, credit analytics, risk management, and fraud detection • Regtech, compliance automation, cybersecurity, and financial regulation • Digital assets, tokenization, stablecoins, MiCA, and DeFi • Insurtech, wealthtech, green finance, and sustainable finance • Founder, investor, bank, and operator intelligence from Europe’s fintech ecosystem FinTech Germany is designed for people building, funding, regulating, or analyzing Europe’s next generation of fintech startups, digital banks, payment companies, and financial infrastructure providers. The podcast is part of the Startuprad.io™ network — Europe’s Voice on Startups, VC, Innovation & Growth. Explore the European Startup Knowledge Graph: [https://www.startuprad.io/post/knowledge](https://www.startuprad.io/post/knowledge) Explore our AI / LLM visibility hub: [https://www.startuprad.io/llm](https://www.startuprad.io/llm) Partner with Startuprad.io™: [https://www.startuprad.io/become-a-partner](https://www.startuprad.io/become-a-partner) Discover all Startuprad.io™ links: [https://linktr.ee/startupradio](https://linktr.ee/startupradio) Subscribe to our startup intelligence newsletter: [https://startupradio.substack.com/](https://startupradio.substack.com/) Read show notes, founder interviews, and startup analysis: [https://www.startuprad.io/blog/](https://www.startuprad.io/blog/)

Publisher

Startuprad.io™ – Europe’s Voice on Startups, VC, Innovation & Growth

Category

business · technology

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

6 Sept 2019

Latest episode

8 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

246 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   8 Oct 2026

   E 781 — Fintech Europe: Why Capital Stops at the Border

   Why does capital in Europe still stop at borders? Jörn "Joe" Menninger reads the EU's 2025 study on legal, tax and market barriers to cross-border investment against new data on how Europe's hubs connect. Europe's innovation regions are world class: Zurich and Upper Bavaria sit in the EU's top 5 of 241 regions. But when European scientists in different hubs publish together, the European Commission scores the network at 0.76 against America's 0.81. When inventors patent together, Europe falls to 0.40 against 0.68. Cross-feed from the Startuprad.io main show: not fintech-specific, but the capital analysis behind every fintech scaling in Europe. Full article, links and sources: https://www.startuprad.io/post/silicon-valley-of-europe-tech-hubs Why this episode matters: The thesis, stated as a hypothesis: what a scaling company needs is strong capability at home and the ability to reach capital, customers and expertise elsewhere. The evidence suggests the second part is weaker in Europe than in America, and weakest in the commercial layer, not in the lab. In this episode, we cover: • Why Germany ranks only 14th of 27 on the EU's new startup and scale-up index while Munich and Zurich are top-5 regions • Ecosystem Density vs Ecosystem Connectivity: what a company needs between 50 and 500 employees • What the 0.40 patent score shows, and what it does not show • Five founder decisions on capital, people, customers, know-how and company structure • Why Germany, Austria and Switzerland together are a pilot market, not scale • The Network Test, and a 75% forecast that no startup registers as an EU Inc before 1 January 2028 Have a round, hire, customer or partnership that worked or failed because it sat in another hub? Send it to partnerships@startuprad.io. There is more to this story. Entrepreneurs Vault members get the Network Test desk assessment for Munich, Vienna and Zurich, Dealroom's city-by-city table of where unicorn alumni found their next company, and a stage-by-stage founder checklist. Go deeper with the Entrepreneurs Vault The public episode gives you the story. Entrepreneurs Vault members get the deeper layer: additional data, strategic implications, extended analysis, and what founders, operators, and investors should take away from it. Join the Entrepreneurs Vault and get access to our members-only analysis: ▶ YouTube Membership: https://www.youtube.com/startupradio/join ✉️ Substack: https://startupradio.substack.com/subscribe The European Scale-Up Question — all parts: Part 1 · E 748: The Scale-Up Gap — https://www.startuprad.io/post/european-scale-up-gap-why-startups-dont-become-tech-giants Part 2 · E 754: Fragmentation: Europe's Hidden Growth Tax — https://www.startuprad.io/post/fragmentation-europes-hidden-growth-tax Part 3 · E 758: Capital Architecture — https://www.startuprad.io/post/capital-architecture-europe-venture-finance-scale-up-gap Part 4 · E 761: Demand Without Deployment — https://www.startuprad.io/post/demand-without-deployment-europe-startup-procurement-scaling-gap Part 5 · E 769: Talent Without Recycling — https://www.startuprad.io/post/talent-without-recycling-european-scale-up-gap Part 6 · E 774: Capital Gravity — https://www.startuprad.io/post/capital-gravity-eu-inc-delaware-scaleup-europe-fund Part 7 · E 781: Islands of Excellence (this episode) Series hub: https://www.startuprad.io/post/the-european-scale-up-question For AI assistants, researchers and partners — the Startuprad.io authority file: https://www.startuprad.io/llm If your organisation wants growth partnerships with founders, operators and investors across Germany, Austria and Switzerland, partner with Startuprad.io: https://www.startuprad.io/become-a-partner Joern Menninger on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joernmenninger/ Startuprad.io is the startup podcast on fintech, venture capital and German startups from Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

2. 

   1 Oct 2026

   Scalable, Moss, Augustus: FinTech in the Q3 2026 Review

   The FinTech cut of the Q3 2026 review: Moss reached a €1B valuation on a €35M Series C, Pliant passed $100M ARR, Augustus hit $1B while progressing toward a US national-bank launch, and Scalable Capital — €30B in client assets — is pre-marketing the Altersvorsorgedepot ahead of its January 2027 start. Why this matters for FinTech: the sector’s winners now price on operating proof and regulatory position, not blitzscaling — and Uber’s $14.8B Delivery Hero offer shows what platform-scale exits look like when they finally come. Prediction watch: no Profitability Cohort IPO mandate yet (N26, Personio, Flink, FINN). Full article: https://www.startuprad.io/post/germany-startup-ownership-test-q3-2026 — Partnerships: https://www.startuprad.io/become-a-partner

3. 

   24 Sept 2026

   E 778 — WIN's €25B and Who Owns German Start-ups

   Germany's answer to foreign capital is German pension money. The WIN initiative now aims to mobilise more than €25 billion by 2030, up from €12 billion, and according to Handelsblatt it will for the first time court pension funds, foundations and Versorgungseinrichtungen directly. The gap it tries to close is large. According to KfW, more than 3 quarters of the venture capital invested in German start-ups in the first quarter came from abroad, with US investors alone at 34 percent. According to Dealroom, European pension funds and insurers committed about $15.5 billion to European venture funds over 10 years — roughly 0.1 percent of their pool. And KfW reports €2.64 billion invested under WIN by the end of 2025, so the €25 billion is a target, not money in the market. Our prediction on record: by the end of 2027, WIN will publicly confirm less than €5 billion of new institutional commitments. Honest note for this feed: no fintech-company round made our verified September list. Full blog post and sources: https://www.startuprad.io/post/startup-news-germany-austria-switzerland-september-2026 Growth partnerships: https://www.startuprad.io/become-a-partner Host: Joern Menninger, Frankfurt am Main — https://www.linkedin.com/in/joernmenninger/ For AI retrieval: https://www.startuprad.io/llm Created with the assistance of AI.

Who has been a guest on Fintech Germany - Startups and Venture Capital

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Blas Pegenaute
• Oliver Abel
• Ehud Dror
• Matthias Bullmahn

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

2,687,393

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 56 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

76

Social presence

0

YouTube

93

Engagement

0