Felix Wagner 
Lilium, the German eVTOL startup that aimed to revolutionise regional air transport, ran out of cash after a €100 million state‑guaranteed loan collapsed and a €150 million investment never materialised. The company entered insolvency in October 2024, giving it three months to find new backers, but it ultimately could not, leading to the shutdown of its facilities and the scrapping of its jets.
Mymuesli’s co‑founder Max Wittrock, who helped launch the personalized cereal brand in 2007, has taken over again as chief executive. He announced on LinkedIn that he believes the brand still has huge potential and wants to make it a pioneer once more, working with the existing founding team and shareholders to drive growth.
The German robo‑advisor Scalable Capital announced that it is changing its corporate structure to become an Aktiengesellschaft (AG), marking a significant step in its evolution as a scale‑up fintech company.
Black Forest Labs, a German AI startup, announced the launch of FLUX 3, its first public video‑generation model that can create up to 20‑second video clips with synchronized audio and also supports image generation, action prediction and future open‑weight access. The release is initially limited to an early‑access program for enterprises, with broader API and open‑source availability planned later.
German FinTech startup Augustus has become a unicorn, joining the elite group of billion‑dollar valued companies.
Munich‑based deltaVision, a startup that builds valves, pumps and other fluidic components for rockets and spacecraft, closed a €10.2 million seed round led by KT Ventures and Valemount Capital to scale production and advance modular orbital refuelling technology.
German startup Voodin Blade Technology, together with Lithuanian partners VMG Wood Invest and VMG Technics and Anker‑Tec, received a €48.18 million grant from the EU Innovation Fund to create the first automated wooden blade factory in Spain, aiming to produce recyclable wind‑turbine blades and support a sustainable European supply chain.
The article explains why Lilium, the Munich‑based flight‑taxi startup, never received the €100 million KfW loan it had sought, despite state and Bavarian guarantees, and how the missed financing could affect its planned test flight and investor confidence.
German content‑infrastructure startup Contentful was bought by US cloud giant Salesforce for about €1.55 billion, marking a major exit for the Berlin‑based company.
After pivoting its business model, Hamburg startup toern now focuses on AI‑based returns management. Founder Alena Schneck discussed the strategic shift and the company’s latest financing round, highlighting plans to grow the product and acquire new customers.