• In the second quarter of 2026, start-ups received a total of EUR 3.4 billion
• AI billion-euro deal in Germany
• Large deals dominate – healthcare sector in high demand

In the second quarter of 2026, start-ups in Germany raised EUR 3.4 billion, around EUR 1.8 billion more than in the three previous months. It was the strongest quarter since the second quarter of 2022. The volume was driven by seven mega transactions exceeding EUR 100 million each, including one AI billion-euro deal.

“With a volume of 3.4 billion euros, April, May and June were a strong quarter for the German venture capital market,”

said Dr Dirk Schumacher, Chief Economist at KfW.

“Large deals dominate. Nevertheless, we must not lose sight of the fact that, with only 86 transactions of EUR 1 million or more, there is still room for improvement.”

There have been 184 transactions for EUR 1 million or more in the first half of the year. In all of 2025, it was 380 transactions. The record high of 626 deals was achieved in 2022. The annual volume has been just over seven billion euros from 2023 to 2025, but the number of transactions has fallen since. Thus, investments are divided among increasingly fewer start-ups, even though more start-ups have been founded during this period.

In the second quarter, businesses from the scale-up segment received 72 per cent of the capital invested in Germany. These are businesses that have left the start-up phase behind and are in a strong growth phase. Here, too, the few very large funding rounds played a decisive role. Businesses from the health sector were again in very high demand among investors. Start-ups from this sector accounted for one in four deals.

The current KfW Venture Capital Dashboard by KfW Research can be found at Venture capital market in Germany | KfW.