User:Bportis/Berlin

I'm editing the Economy section of Berlin, to talk in depth about the impact that tech companies and startups have in Berlin.

Berlin's Tech Economy
Berlin is working its way towards becoming Europe's next tech hub. Berlin has seen a large growth of 2.5 percent in its economy during 2017, which is above the national average of 1.6 percent. Berlin saw more growth in its startup sector than anywhere else in Germany by a large amount and about 2.163 billion Euro went into investment in startups. One of the largest contributors to Berlin's prospering economy is clearly its IT industry and one out of eight jobs is within the technology industry. In the past three years, about 1,000 IT related companies have been started in Berlin. There are around 9,700 IT companies within Berlin that generate more than 13.2 billion Euro annually.

Startups in Berlin
Many startups in Berlin have been extremely successful and the most successful seem to be companies based around social networking like SoundCloud and Wooga. SoundCloud, which is currently valued at around 569 million Euro, with an average revenue of about 22.7 million Euro, and in 2017 its revenue is now estimated to be around 81.2 Million Euro. Wooga has an estimated annual revenue of about 5.7 million Euro and has received an estimated 26 million Euro in funding. ResearchGate is another well known tech company started in Berlin. ResearchGate gives scientists a platform to help give each other feedback on projects and allows them to work together more easily than ever before. In its nine years since starting, ResearchGate has raised over 70 million Euro in investment and has received funding from Bill Gates, Goldman Sachs, and many others. Another Berlin based startup that has been extremely successful is Delivery Hero. Delivery Hero is valued at around 4.4 billion Euro and sees an annual revenue of about 347 million Euro. Delivery Hero received a large investment from Rocket Internet Capital Partners, and successfully went public in 2017.

Berlin sees new startups frequently, and many smaller startups in Berlin are extremely innovative, but are young as companies and looking to be the next big thing. One such startup is Daheim which is on a mission to help refugees from countries like Iraq and Afghanistan learn German. Rocket Internet is helping to boost the startup economy in Berlin and throughout Europe by incubating and investing in companies and helping them scale up with its hedge fund Rocket Internet Capital Partners, which is valued at around $1 billion.

Comparisons to the UK
The UK still has the largest growth and capital raised in Europe in the number of technology based companies, but post Brexit, Berlin is seeing a large rise in companies moving to Berlin. One of the largest benefits of starting a company in Berlin is the low cost of living, as it is 34% cheaper than London. The average one bedroom apartment in Berlin is 741 Euro, compared to around 1,878 Euro in London. Berlin has started an ad campaign to help convince London startups to move to Berlin, and has white trucks driving around London with a sign that says "Dear start-ups, keep calm and move to Berlin".