Most German startups that use artificial intelligence (AI) on a significant scale deliver solutions for the marketing and customer service sectors. AI startups are particularly common in manufacturing, transportation and mobility, or healthcare. This is the conclusion of the AI Initiative. appliedAI the UnternehmerTUM in their 2020 AI startup map.
This year, 247 startups made it onto appliedAI's map of the most important German AI startups. That is 33 companies (15 percent) more than in 2019. The number of newcomers was even higher at 54, but 21 young companies had to be removed from the map. They had either Technology focus changed so that they no longer met the criteria for inclusion, or ceased their activities altogether. Andreas Liebl, Managing Director of appliedAI, comments on the development:
"The survival rate of the included startups is 90 percent. This is a fantastic figure and shows that AI-focused startups are also developing positively in Germany. Since startups reflect the innovative capacity of countries, it is important to closely monitor their development in Germany."
Existing industries are becoming stronger
Most AI startups come from the transportation and mobility sector (21), in which appliedAI groups together young companies that offer solutions for the automotive industry. Manufacturing startups rank second (20), followed by healthcare (16). However, the majority of the companies examined (97) serve multiple industries, meaning they were not assigned to a single sector. The pharmaceutical (3) and logistics (2) sectors are at the bottom of the list, while retail (10) and finance (9) stagnate in the middle.
Two out of three AI startups are based in Berlin or Munich
With a total of 95 AI startups, Berlin remains the leader among German cities, followed by Munich with 61 companies. Hamburg lags significantly behind in third and fourth place with 14 and Karlsruhe with nine startups. All other cities remain in the single digits. In terms of financing, Munich's economic strength continues to offer an ideal ecosystem for startups: startups there received an average of €27 million in this year's study. In Berlin, the figure was just €9 million.
About the AI Startup Map
In the AI startup map Only private companies founded after 2010 and headquartered or with significant business activities in Germany are included. Furthermore, machine learning (ML) must be the core of their business model or constitute a significant part of it. A total of over 1,000 startups were examined, recorded, and clustered based on the following criteria: access and availability of data, qualifications of founders and employees, methodology, scalability of the business model, and overall evaluation of the company. The young companies are also rated ("valid," "upcoming," "longlist," and "discarded") to subsequently create a shortlist. At the end of the process, the 247 startups that made it onto the AI Startup Map were selected.
