The German startup ecosystem is off to a strong start in 2026: Between January and June, 3,053 new startups were founded. This represents a 52 percent increase compared to the second half of 2025 and means more startups were founded than in all of 2024.
This is NOT good news. It is actually bad news.
A lot of these startups are founded by people who have recently been fired or otherwise made redundant. The survivability of these companies is questionable.
Additionally there are on going issues that the relatively quick process of starting up a company is used by organised crime in money laundering (e.g. Chinese Prato based structures) - there are estimates that these use thousands of shell companies that vanish after months
Just looking at the number of startups is a very very bad metric. Much more interesting would be:
Gross revenue in the first year
Average employees per Startup (a lot of these are single employee companies)
Reported profit per company after one year
Lifetime of startup companies
I am afraid a lot of these metrics will be really really bad looking.
Despite what people think founding a company is easy in Germany. You can do found a limited liability company with basically only the notary costs+1€. I had mine started in a week at the beginning of Covid. Getting a notary appointment is the hardest and most expensive part and that is only necessary for a limited liability company. Otherwise? Generate a few documents and send them in. You can do that electronically these days if you can sign via eIDAS.
No issues.
Bureaucracy comes later.
The German mandatory old age insurance comes to check in. Oh…you are building a new company, are the only employee or have very little employees and only have two clients so far? Yeah fuck you that’s dependent employment and you are not a actual company. They can even decide in one year it’s not and then come back next year and decide differently.
The workers comp deciding seemingly randomly when they come to check you actually do things the way they want.
The tax office is a different matter as well. (Mine is actually somewhat cooperative and nice. Other’s aren’t)
And don’t get me started on the sheer lack of competence in the German banking system. I operate outside Germany as well and the difference is staggering.I happily let someone pull a teeth out of my jaw without anaesthesia or deal with the tax office every day if I could avoid those. With my Italian and Swiss banks? No issues.
Source: Founder - 6 years ago. Still hating it. Worst and best decision of my life.
Worker rights are important too though!