At Balderton, we have long been strong believers in the potential of Berlin’s young companies.
In early July, the Balderton investment team flew into Tegel Aiport and opened up our normally closed Partner meeting to the Berlin ecosystem. We want to say thank you to the city for having us, and a special thank you to our portfolio for all their help. Our Berlin portfolio is very special. It’s small but high quality, and certainly punches above its weight.
Balderton made its first investment in Berlin in Wooga in November 2009. We are still very active board members and are very proud to be part of the Wooga story. Since then we have invested in five more companies in Berlin, deploying more than $50M in capital in the city. Today, our Berlin portfolio includes:
As we wrote in VentureBeat in the article 'How German policymakers are hurting Berlin’s startups', there is an iconoclastic streak that runs through Berlin, and the city attracts young makers with creative ambitions from all over the world.
While there are still some practical challenges ahead, we are surprised every day at the quality and originality of the companies getting started in Berlin year after year.
Our Berlin portfolio has grown and matured rapidly and they now collectively employ more than 1,200 people globally, earn more than $100M in annual revenue, and raised more than $160M in funding since Jan 2017.
We expect those numbers to double in 2018.
