Berlin startups to follow in 2026
A read across the roughly 400 companies whose ATS feeds I poll on Pegel. Not ranked by funding. Ranked by what the careers pages actually post, how often, and how the city's job market looks through them.
This is the list of Berlin startups I would keep open if someone gave me an hour and asked me where the city is heading. The cut is not by funding or by valuation. Both are noisy signals. Capital arrives in lumps. Headcount moves on a different clock.
The cut is by what I read every morning when I open Pegel's poll log: which companies are running active careers feeds, what their job postings look like in volume and shape, and how the categories distribute across the roughly 400 companies on my allowlist.
Some of these names you have seen elsewhere. Others you have not, because they are quieter brands whose ATS feeds happen to be among the most-watched on Pegel. Both kinds are in here.
One caveat. The short profiles below are my own paraphrases of how each company shows up in the data I track. Founding years are confirmed from each company's public history. Funding figures are out of scope for this post; the funded-startups view lives at /blog/berlin-funded-startups-2025-2026.
Ten to open first
The shortlist. Roughly four AI companies, two fintech, one climate, one consumer, one SaaS, one defense and orchestration. Not a perfect cross-section, but close to what the underlying job-posting weight looks like across the allowlist.
1. Parloa. Berlin unicorn building agentic AI for enterprise contact centers. Founded 2018. The careers feed is one of the most active on Pegel and the role family has visibly shifted from classic backend hiring toward AI engineering and orchestration since mid-2025.
2. Helsing. European defense AI, the most-funded local company in this set. Founded 2021. The hiring page covers software, hardware, autonomy and policy roles. Their growth track since the European defense spending shift in 2024 has been the steepest I have seen in any single sector on Pegel.
3. n8n. Source-available, node-based workflow automation. Founded 2019. The feed has moved toward AI-orchestration roles as the product positions itself around AI agents rather than classical integrations.
4. Aleph Alpha. Germany's bet on sovereign large language models for European enterprise and public-sector use. Founded 2019. The careers feed is leaner than in 2024 after the strategic pivot, but the senior-engineer and applied-research postings are still on.
5. DeepL. Neural machine translation and writing assistance. Founded 2017. Cologne HQ with a substantial Berlin-Mitte office. The job descriptions read more like a research org than a SaaS company, which is rare in this list.
6. Upvest. Investment infrastructure API for fintechs. Founded 2017. The product is the plumbing that lets neobanks offer stocks and ETFs without becoming brokers themselves. Two large rounds back-to-back tell you the next 18 months of hiring are funded.
7. Enpal. Residential solar, heat pumps and EV charging on a subscription model. Founded 2017. The most consistently-hiring company in the climate sector on Pegel. Berlin HQ roles in software and operations are constant. The field-installer pipeline is its own large category.
8. Flink. Quick commerce, still standing. Founded 2021. The category was supposed to be dead by 2024 and is not. The 2026 round bought operational runway, and the careers feed reflects it: warehouse operations and supply-chain leadership roles, not the headline tech ones.
9. Solaris. Banking-as-a-service infrastructure. Founded 2015. The careers feed has been more stable than the funding rumors imply. Compliance, KYC and platform engineering are the dominant role families.
10. Camunda. Process orchestration for the enterprise. Founded 2008. The oldest company on this list by a wide margin, which is itself a signal. The job postings cover both classic process-engine work and newer AI-orchestration roles.
The next ninety, by sector
I split the rest of the list by Pegel's primary-sector tags. Within each sector the order is rough scale ordering, not a ranking. The one-liners are mine; they describe each company by what it does, not by who funded it.
AI and ML
| Startup | Founded | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Perplexity | 2022 | Conversational answer engine combining search with LLMs; SF HQ, Berlin engineering team. |
| ElevenLabs | 2022 | Generative voice AI for speech synthesis, dubbing and voice cloning; remote-first with a Berlin hub. |
| Synthesia | 2017 | Generative AI video for enterprise communications, with presenter-style avatars. |
| Cohere | 2019 | Foundation models for enterprise; Toronto HQ with a Berlin engineering presence. |
| Langfuse | 2022 | Open-source LLM engineering platform for tracing, evaluation and prompt management. |
| Qdrant | 2021 | Open-source vector search engine written in Rust, for production semantic search and RAG. |
| Wandelbots | 2017 | Robotics OS that unifies programming across robot brands; Dresden HQ, Berlin hires. |
| deepset | 2018 | The company behind Haystack, the open-source NLP framework for production search and RAG. |
| Quantum Systems | 2015 | Electric VTOL reconnaissance drones for defense and surveying; Bavaria HQ, Berlin team. |
| Hawk AI | 2018 | Anti-money-laundering and fraud-detection AI for banks; Munich HQ with Berlin engineers. |
| Telli | 2024 | AI voice agents for outbound sales (YC F24). |
| Voize | 2020 | Voice AI for medical and care documentation. |
| Brighter AI | 2017 | Privacy-preserving anonymization for faces and license plates in video. |
| SynthFlow AI | 2023 | No-code voice AI platform for production-grade voice agents. |
| Peec AI | 2024 | Brand visibility analytics across LLMs. |
| Rasa | 2016 | Open-source framework for building enterprise conversational AI. |
| Apheris | 2019 | Federated computational governance platform for pharma and life sciences. |
| Mirelo | 2024 | Foundation-model audio startup (Series A late 2025). |
| Almedia | 2020 | Ad-tech and mobile reward platform. |
| SPREAD | 2019 | Engineering intelligence platform unifying product data into AI-powered digital twins. |
Climate and energy
| Startup | Founded | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Tibber | 2016 | Digital energy company using data and AI to optimize household electricity usage. |
| 1KOMMA5 | 2021 | One-stop shop for solar, heat pumps and charging, connected via a smart-home platform. |
| Terra One | 2022 | Large-scale battery storage operator balancing the grid and trading capacity. |
| Thermondo | 2013 | Residential heat-pump and heating-system installer; the OG of the German energy-transition wave. |
| Octopus Energy Germany | 2015 | Retail green-electricity supplier serving German households; UK parent. |
| Ecosia | 2009 | Search engine that funds tree-planting from ad revenue; steward-owned. |
| Plan A | 2017 | Carbon accounting and ESG reporting platform for enterprise. |
| trawa | 2022 | B2B renewable-energy procurement helping SMEs source green electricity directly. |
| carbmee | 2021 | AI-enabled carbon management for enterprises with complex supply chains. |
| Klim | 2020 | Digital platform helping farmers transition to regenerative agriculture. |
| Ostrom | 2020 | Digital green-energy supplier serving German households on a flat-rate tariff. |
| Lumenaza | 2013 | Software platform letting utilities run virtual power plants. |
| alcemy | 2018 | ML startup decarbonising the cement and concrete supply chain. |
| LiveEO | 2017 | Satellite-based geospatial intelligence for infrastructure monitoring. |
| Marvel Fusion | 2019 | Inertial-confinement fusion energy pursuing laser-driven fusion at industrial scale. |
Fintech
| Startup | Founded | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| N26 | 2013 | Mobile-first European neobank. |
| Trade Republic | 2015 | Mobile broker for stocks, ETFs and crypto; multi-EU expansion from Berlin. |
| Taxfix | 2016 | Mobile tax-filing for German employees. |
| Pliant | 2020 | Embedded corporate cards and payment infrastructure for European businesses. |
| Mondu | 2021 | B2B buy-now-pay-later for European merchants. |
| Payrails | 2021 | Payments orchestration for enterprise merchants. |
| finmid | 2021 | Embedded financing infrastructure for platforms and marketplaces. |
| lemon.markets | 2020 | Brokerage-as-a-service API for European investing apps. |
| Finoa | 2018 | Institutional-grade digital-asset custody. |
| Bitbond | 2013 | Tokenization platform for asset-backed bonds and securities. |
SaaS
| Startup | Founded | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Contentful | 2013 | Headless content platform for enterprise marketing and product teams. |
| Spryker | 2014 | Composable commerce platform for B2B and marketplace operators. |
| Talon.One | 2015 | Promotion and loyalty engine for retail and ecommerce. |
| Adjust | 2012 | Mobile measurement and analytics for app marketers. |
| Productsup | 2010 | Product-data orchestration for ecommerce and marketplaces. |
| WorkMotion | 2020 | Employer-of-record platform for compliant global hiring. |
| super.AI | 2017 | Document AI extracting structured data with quality guarantees. |
| Sennder | 2015 | Digital freight forwarder for European full-truckload logistics. |
| Mercanis | 2021 | AI procurement platform automating supplier discovery and contract management. |
Consumer
| Startup | Founded | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| SoundCloud | 2007 | Audio platform for artists, creators and listeners; Berlin and New York. |
| Babbel | 2007 | Language-learning subscription with structured lessons across many languages. |
| Spotify | 2006 | Music and audio platform; Stockholm HQ, Berlin engineering office. |
| Urban Sports Club | 2012 | Flat-rate sports membership across Europe. |
| Wooga | 2009 | Mobile-games studio behind story-driven titles. |
| ResearchGate | 2008 | Professional network for scientists and researchers. |
| KoRo | 2014 | D2C food brand selling bulk-format pantry essentials. |
| JustWatch | 2014 | Streaming-search and advertising platform. |
| Anton | 2017 | K-12 learning app used in German schools. |
| Blinkist | 2012 | Book-summary app for non-fiction; part of Go1. |
Marketplace and platforms
| Startup | Founded | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| GetYourGuide | 2009 | Online travel marketplace for tours and activities. |
| Omio | 2013 | Multi-modal travel booking across trains, buses and flights. |
| Forto | 2016 | Digital freight forwarder focused on supply-chain visibility. |
| Tourlane | 2016 | Personalized multi-day trip planning with human consultants. |
| Blacklane | 2011 | Premium chauffeur platform for business and airport transfers. |
| Knowunity | 2020 | Peer-to-peer learning platform for high-school students. |
| eyeo | 2011 | Maker of Adblock Plus and the ad-filtering tech behind Acceptable Ads. |
| Choco | 2018 | Restaurant-supplier ordering platform digitising food procurement. |
Healthtech
| Startup | Founded | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Amboss | 2012 | Medical reference and learning platform for clinicians and students. |
| Aignostics | 2018 | Computational pathology AI for cancer diagnostics. |
B2B infrastructure and hardware
| Startup | Founded | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Emnify | 2014 | Cloud-native cellular connectivity platform for IoT and enterprise devices. |
| Everphone | 2016 | Device-as-a-service platform for enterprise smartphones and tablets. |
| Reflex Aerospace | 2021 | New-space startup building custom dual-use LEO satellites. |
| Sicoya | 2014 | Silicon-photonics for optical interconnect in data centers. |
| Moss | 2020 | Spend management with corporate cards, invoice management and accounting integrations. |
Devtools and developer infrastructure
| Startup | Founded | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Personio | 2015 | HR and payroll suite for European SMBs; Munich HQ with a Berlin office. |
| NetBird | 2022 | Open-source WireGuard mesh VPN and zero-trust access. |
| Workist | 2019 | AI document automation for purchase orders, invoices and B2B order intake. |
| Acto | 2021 | AI decision intelligence turning CRM and ERP data into prioritized actions. |
How I picked
The list above is not data-driven in the sense of "ranked by some metric." It is data-informed. Every name on it is on Pegel's allowlist, which means I poll their ATS feed daily, and the company has either Berlin HQ or a confirmed Berlin office with at least one Berlin-tagged role in the last twelve months. The roughly 400 companies that meet that bar are at /companies. The order within each sector is a rough scale-ordering, not a quality judgment.
What does not appear here:
- Companies whose only Berlin presence is a sales office. Their careers feeds rarely surface Berlin roles, and when they do, the roles are usually account-executive postings, not what most readers of this list are after.
- Companies with no public ATS feed. A few well-known Berlin names run custom in-house boards that I cannot poll. They are excluded from the allowlist by design, with the reasons logged in
data/companies.yml. - Companies that funded but never built. The funded-startups post linked at the top covers that gap. Capital and hiring move on different clocks.
If you want the live filtered view, the place to start is /jobs. The view at /sectors/ai-ml is the largest single cluster. The smaller sectors are at /sectors. The daily digest at /subscribe is the lowest-touch way to keep a watch list current without doing this kind of survey work yourself.
If you find a Berlin company that belongs on this list and is not, /companies/submit is the form. The bar is one Berlin role in the last twelve months and a public ATS feed I can poll. If both are true, the company gets added on the next allowlist refresh.