15 Famous Young Entrepreneurs in Germany
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The 15 Famous Young Entrepreneurs in Germany on our list are taking the country and the rest of the world by storm through their passion and grit.
You’ll find essential information about the individual entrepreneurs and a brief introduction to their life, education, and work they have been recognised for.
These Young German Entrepreneurs are a part of our list of Young Entrepreneurs from across the globe that have included:
- 20 Young Indian Entrepreneurs
- 20 Young Australian Entrepreneurs
- 10 Young Canadian Entrepreneurs
- 10 Young UK-based Entrepreneurs
- 18 Young Singaporean Entrepreneurs
- 10 Young Kiwi Entrepreneurs
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These young guns are primarily in their twenties. They have launched startups, contributed to the tech and research on health and human fitness, and devised individual and collective financial management solutions.
Before presenting this honour roll of famous young German entrepreneurs, let me give you a brief overview of the startup ecosystem in Germany.
Germany’s Startup Eco-System:
Germany is among the world leaders in the startup ecosystem. It ranks 3rd in Western Europe and 6th in the world regarding the size and growth of startups in the country.
One of the most significant innovation hubs globally, Germany’s startups are oriented towards Marketing & Sales, Software and Data, and Transportation industries.
Research Gate, Ecosia.org and JustWatch are well-known German startups serving globally.
Within Germany, Berlin has risen to become the house of choice for entrepreneurs from all across Europe. Globally, Berlin is ranked 12th for its startup ecosystem.
It is interesting to note that Berlin occupied this leadership position in Europe after dethroning London post-Brexit and Covid-19.
(Sources: CrossBorderMagazine, Forbes)
Let us now introduce you to the 20 famous young entrepreneurs in Germany.
Melisa Basol
Company Name: Go Viral
Company Position: Co-founder
Year of Birth: 1995
Year founded: 2021
Company Estimated Wealth: Not-for-profit
Sector: Healthcare
Let’s start our list with quite a unique entrepreneur. Twenty-eight years old Melisa Basol is one of a kind entrepreneur who founded a social intervention game, not in the spirit of earning funding and revenues, but to help save the people from the threat of misinformation.
While misinformation may sound farfetched, such a threat manifested itself during the Covid-19 pandemic when rumours and misinformation spread faster than facts.
To fight this misinformation, Basol, in collaboration with UK Cabinet Office, developed a social intervention game called “Go Viral!”.
‘Go Viral’, uses inoculation theory to help prevent the spread of misinformation about Covid-19.
FYI: Innoculation theory is a social psychological/communication theory that explains how attitudes or beliefs can be protected against persuasion or influence in much the same way a body can be protected against disease–for example, through pre-exposure to weak versions of a stronger, future threat. (Source: Wikipedia)
So, Basol’s social intervention game, Go Viral, has not only been sponsored by the UK Cabinet Office but has the backing of global organisations like UNESCO, UN and WHO.
Since its launch in 2021, the app has been downloaded over 1.4 million times and is available in 13 different languages.
Professionally, Dr Melisa Basol is a Social Psychologist and was featured in Forbes 30 under 30 in Europe in 2022. She is considered an expert advisor on evidence-based policy-making and regularly appears on international media platforms like BBC World, TedX, etc.
“Throughout her studies, she initiated ways to contribute to societally contested issues, such as immigration and vaccinations, through her work.”
Gülsah Wilke
Company Name: 2hearts
Company Position: Co-founder/Managing Director
Year of Birth: Exact DOB unknown
Year founded: 2013
Company Estimated Wealth: Unknown
Sector: Tech
The next famous young German entrepreneur on the list is a Turkish immigrant called the ‘queen of roses’.
Well, it is the meaning of her beautiful Turkish origin name.
As you would see, her immigrant background had everything to do with her startup, 2hearts, which she founded in 2013 to help future immigrants have a better chance at succeeding in Germany.
Her unique name, the queen of roses, became a source for many unkind people around her to mock her.
Even the praise for her active participation in the class was met with responses such as, “look, even she with an immigrant background knows the answer to this!”
So, despite being more privileged than her parents to be born and raised in Germany, she had to undergo a lot of unfair friction before achieving her destiny.
It is from this constant feeling of being torn between 2 hearts, 2 cultures, and 2 identities that the idea for the 2hearts startup sprouted.
A lot of what she achieved was due to her unmatched talents, constant struggle, and, above all, unwavering support and motivation from her parents.
She secured full scholarships to leave her parents’ small town to study and excel at 17 and travelled the world to accumulate a wealth of knowledge and grit.
Unsurprisingly, 2hearts is not her first or only achievement for such a talent. Earlier, she held various leadership positions at Axel Springer, the German media group.
She has also been a member of the leadership team at Ada Health – a startup that has developed a digital health assistant
2hearts is a community initiative that aims to empower great talent with an immigration background to enrich Europe’s tech economy.
2hearts has three main mission pillars:
- Mentor and guide underprivileged, young talent
- Break silos to be a beachhead between cultures
- Connect with and help each other in business and private life
(Sources: 2hearts, LinkedIn, Oxford, Deutschland, )
“We want to enable young talent with (at least) two hearts to get into and build careers in tech, overcome obstacles, thrive as professionals, founders, or investors, and increase the share of culturally diverse people in Europe’s tech industry.”
Piran Asci
Company Name: KoRo Handles
Company Position: CEO
Year of Birth: 1995
Year founded: 2011
Company Estimated Wealth: €22 million (Source: Forbes)
Sector: Food
Piran Asci is a passionate young German who was featured in Forbes 30 in 30 in Europe in 2022.
Piran Asci started venturing into startups when he was as young as 14. In 2014, he sold his Yu-Gi-Oh! Cards to buy out one of the owners of KoRo.
FYI: Yu-Gi-Oh! is a card game in which two players attempt to defeat each other by decreasing their opponent’s Life Points (down to 0) using a collection of monster, spell, and trap cards. (Source: DaCardWorld)
Soon enough, he became the Managing Director and the CEO of the company. But due to his passionate energy, Asci is not just a sat-behind-the-desk CEO.
He is a whole skin-and-body-in-the-game kind of CEO, who you might find pulling an all-nighter optimising his company’s website.
In short, he is all-in-all of the company’s internal matters, and nothing skips his sharp focus.
Asci has a bachelor’s degree in Arts/Science from Free University, Berlin.
His entry into the startup is as unique as the startup itself. KoRo is a revolutionary take on the food supply chain and aims to cut the middlemen.
KoRo’s ideas about food and retails are one of the most modern business models. The company’s ethos revolves around sustainability and affordability.
KoRo abhors food packaged in small bottles and sold as precious metals. And for this, they have embarked on a two-fold revolutionary ambition:
- Make food cheap and accessible
- Make food sustainable and long-lasting
For sustainability and long shelf life, the company has introduced an efficient package and considers sensory properties for each product separately.
And to keep food cheap and accessible, they follow the transparency principle and regularly adjust prices based on real-time supply chain and production costs.
In contrast to what customers are accustomed to, their fluctuating price philosophy reflects the true cost of making the product accessible.
“Everything internal falls within its domain. After extensive testing, he either decides which new product to include, collects Pokémon for marketing campaigns, or stays up all night because he once again noticed something to optimize our website and coded it himself. You see, he has everything under control.”
Marco Cancellieri
Company Name: Trade Republic
Company Position: Co-founder & CEO Mobile
Year of Birth: 1994
Year founded: 2015
Company Estimated Wealth: $5 billion (Source: Bloomberg)
Sector: Fintech
Ever since the rise of Apple and Facebook and the force of their creative founders behind them, being a university dropout has become a badge of honour for young entrepreneurs.
Well, at least it has been proven by many since then that a university dropout does not equate to being a failure.
Our next famous young German entrepreneur is another living proof of that. Macro Cancellieri is a dropout from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich but is a co-founder of a multi-billion dollar startup, Trade Republic.
He had met the other co-founders of the company, Christian Hecker and Thomas Pischke, at a hackathon a few months earlier.
Before founding the Trade Republic, Marco had been involved in numerous app projects in the media, automotive, and logistics industries.
His prowess in programming skills won him many major programming competitions not just in his home country, Germany, but abroad too.
No wonder – he also featured in the Forbes 30 under 30 in Europe in 2022.
You’d be amazed to know that he has been passionate about reverse engineering and the development of both software and hardware solution based on that interest.
Trade Republic is a commission-free investing app valued at $5.3 billion and serves more than 1 million customers.
(Sources: TradeRepublic, Forbes, TheOrg)
“Cancellieri’s software development expertise was instrumental in building the company’s app from scratch.”
Damian Heimel
Company Name: Deevio
Company Position: Co-founder
Year of Birth: 1993
Year founded: 2018
Company Estimated Wealth: Unknown
Sector: Artificial Intelligence
Damian Heimel, the next young entrepreneur on the list, graduated from Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich. Yes, it is the same university our previous entrepreneur Marco Cancellieri dropped out of.
But just as being a dropout doesn’t mean failure in life, being a university graduate doesn’t mean you can never take the entrepreneurship route due to your “conformity” to the system, as some younger tech enthusiasts might misbelieve.
Damian Heimel’s expertise lies in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) domain. He cofounded Deevio, which is a quality control solution powered by AI.
Deevio’s robust AI can detect faults and avoid misidentifications that human eyes might miss more often.
Since its launch in 2018, Deevio has been installed in more than ten European factories. In addition to minimising errors and inefficiency in the process, Deevio’s AI vision system also prevents a lot of financial loss caused by these problems.
Deevio was well on its way to doubling the number of installed systems within the last year.
Damian also has a bachelor’s degree in Arts/Science from Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
In 2022, Damien was featured in Forbes 30 under 30 in Europe list for his achievement in AI development.
“Founded in 2018, we started as an AI team and have now assembled an international team of experts in their respective fields that has already brought a double-digit number of AI systems into production.”
Lea Mishra (Hermanns)
Company Name: POHA House
Company Position: Co-founder
Year of Birth: 1995
Year founded: 2019
Company Estimated Wealth: Unknown
Sector: Real Estate
Lea Mishra (formerly known as Lea Hermanns) is another female entrepreneur who made it to our list of Germany’s top young entrepreneurs.
Mishra is the co-founder of POHA House.
She has had a unique life experience living in more than six countries.
Her multi-country living experience inspired her to find a solution to offer shelter and support to those who are new to big cities and alone.
POHA House is a unique housing solution that provides furnished, flexible housing or coworking space in buildings.
POHA’s mission is inspired by Mishra’s experience of feeling and living alone in the big cities of Europe. It aims to provide housing that has
- Flexible, high-quality furnished flats and offices
- Eco-conscious design
- Fun events that boost well-being
- Inspiring communities
These co-spaces are planned to be developed in Germany and the UK.
POHA is currently building its Housing tower, which will have 313 flats.
While the project is still underway, it has already opened half of them.
The finished flats were rented by the year 2022.
But this is only the first among the many projects that POHA House is developing in parallel. Seven such housing projects are under development across the country.
In total, these projects are estimated to accommodate 1,100 people for living or work requirements.
Mishra is a proud star of the Forbes 30 under 30 Europe list for 2022. She has a bachelor’s in Arts/Science from the University Commerciale Luigi Bocconi and a master’s in Arts/Science from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
“Since a young age, exploring the world has always been a passion of mine. To this day I’ve been lucky to live in six countries across four continents.”
Jasper Koch
Company Name: BIT Capital
Company Position: Marketing/Growth Lead
Year of Birth: 1993
Year founded: 2017
Company Estimated Wealth: €900 million (Source: Bitcap)
Sector: Fintech
Jasper Koch is a young Marketing and Growth Lead at Berlin-based BIT Capital.
After securing a bachelor’s in Arts/Science from Bocconi University, Koch joined the company in 2020 – three years after its launch.
But as young and fresh graduate as he may have been when he joined the company, Koch soon grabbed the coveted position of team leader for growth and marketing efforts, fund inflows from retail clients, and investor-facing tools.
Previously, this young entrepreneur had already gained some experience in marketing by working for digital life insurance provider Getsurance.
BIT Capital is an asset management company built for the demands of the digital age. It aims to be a leading active asset manager that can identify future tech winners worldwide to help their investors participate in their growth.
Jasper also featured in the Forbes 30 under 30 lists for Europe in 2022.
(Sources: Forbes, BITCapital)
“As a team, we have already been able to initiate or build more than 100 companies – including Delivery Hero, Clark or Solarisbank.”
Aylin Kockler
Company Name: RTL (Germany’s Free-to-Air TV Channel)/ Netflix
Company Position: Screenwriter, Filmmaker, Standup comedian, and Copywriter at Netflix
Year of Birth: 1994
Company Estimated Wealth: Unknown
Sector: Entertainment
The next entry on the list is from the entertainment industry.
It may sound surprising, but the successes of Aylin Kockler as a screenwriter and media personality aren’t any less than a tech guru or an AI coder.
Aylin is a Turkish-German screenwriter who has written for multiple well-known media platforms, including Netflix and RTL, Germany’s free-to-air TV channel, and has been awarded the first storytellers Award from Germany’s streaming service RTL(+) in 2021.
Recognising her potential, she received a straight-to-series order for her miniseries on body acceptance called “Hubsches Gesicht” (“Pretty Face”).
The series was created and co-written by her. It was produced with a 700,000-Euro budget.
She has also written copy for Netflix. Earlier, she had worked as the only German production force on the EPN Lance Armstrong documentary ‘LANCE’ by two-time Emmy-winning director Marina Zenovich.
And to top it all off, she does stand-up comedy gigs in her free time. She has a master’s in Arts/Science from the University of Television and Film Munich (HFF Munich).
Some of her media productions and contributions include:
- Producer of the feature God is A Beetle by Felix Herrmann
- Participant in Next Generation Short Tiger Program by German Films at Cannes
- Nominee for the Short Film Award with The Ink Doesn’t Dry 2019
(Sources: Forbes, FilmFreeway, Imdb, PersonalWebsite)
Johannes Landgraf
Company Name: Gitpod
Company Position: Co-CEO
Year of Birth: 1994
Year founded: 2020
Company Estimated Wealth: $35 million (Source: Gitpod)
Sector: Cloud Computing
Advancement in cloud computing has opened multiple new avenues for the tech world by offering third-party services which were early too costly for startups and entrepreneurs to bear on their own.
Our next young German entrepreneur is Johannes Landgraf, who co-founded a developer-led open-source startup called Gitpod.
Gotpod is a cloud platform built for developer teams’ coordination.
With Gitpod, software teams can work together on a secure and efficient platform without dealing with complicated administration.
Johannes has been featured in Forbes 30 under 30 in the year 2022 for his achievements in the technology sector.
“Johannes Landgraf is a member of the Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society as the highest recognition a business student anywhere in the world can receive in a business program accredited by AACSB International.”
Christoph Biering
Company Name: Wandelbots GmbH
Company Position: Co-founder
Year of Birth: 1995
Year founded: 2017
Company Estimated Wealth: $123 million (Source: CrunchBase)
Sector: Robotics
Just like AI and cloud computing mentioned earlier, robotics is also among the future technologies that will rebuild human interaction with the world.
Christoph Biering is a young German entrepreneur who is a champion in anthropomorphizing robotics.
Well, I beg your pardon for throwing in such a heavy world that may as well have been from the German language. 😉
It is a fancy way of saying that he has made interaction with robotics as easy as if you are interacting with humans. But don’t get me wrong. By human, I do not mean that he has turned robotics human-like.
But he has made our interaction with humans quite intuitive and code-free.
Christoph Biering co-founded Wandelbots, which hopes to enable anyone, regardless of prior knowledge, to train their robots with its app and intelligent teaching devices.
The technology produced by the company is quite futuristic and, may I add, quite cool! It uses a sensor-laden suit that a person can wear, demonstrate actions and have a robot mimic them.
His startup is valued at $123 million.
Christoph Biering had done his bachelor’s and master’s in Arts/Science from Technische Universität Dresden. He has been featured in the 2022 list of the Forbes 30 under 30 in Europe.
(Sources: Forbes, Wandelbots, LinkedIn)
“I write about making robots intelligent, crypto, my way to financial freedom and other things I’m interested in.”
Johannes Mueller
Company Name: Workpath
Company Position: Co-founder
Year of Birth: 1993
Year founded: 2017
Company Estimated Wealth: $14 million (Source: Forbes)
Sector: IT, HR-Tech, Health-Tech
Johannes Mueller is the co-founder of the Munich-based Workpath.
Workpath is a new strategic operating system aimed at revolutionising organisational workflow.
As with most organisations, maintaining a sharp focus on goals and priorities can be challenging. Most companies, especially startups, lose focus over time as their business operations grow, and they can’t figure out a system to maintain focus on their core operations.
Johannes solved that problem for the companies through his startup Workpath.
The idea of launching such a startup sounded quite promising to the investors, and the company was able to secure more than $14 million in funding.
It boasts of high-ticket customers on its roll of honour, including Bosch, SAP Germany, and IKEA.
Their startup started with only 35 employees and later had to accommodate a team of 100 to meet the demand of its rapid growth.
(Sources: Forbes, LinkedIn, DupMagazine, Workpath)
“We share a common idea of the working world of tomorrow with our customers and therefore see ourselves as a partner instead of just service providers. With Workpath, our customers receive an established and flexible platform for agile corporate management and result-oriented cooperation.”
Aaron Naisar
Company Name: LeAD Sports & Health Tech Partners, Germany/ Rooter, India
Company Position: Chief Of Staff leAD, Director Rooter
Year of Birth: 1992
Year founded: 2016 (Both companies)
Company Estimated Wealth: $100 million (Rooter) (Sources: Forbes)
Sector: e-Games, Healthcare
If there were a category of entrepreneurs who were champions in multitasking, our next young German entrepreneur would be among the first of those.
Aaron Naisar has had the unique honour of executing more than 20 investments in sports technology. Not just that, as you would have noticed in the section summarising his key details, he is juggling two companies at a time in executive positions.
On the one hand, he is the chief of staff at LeAD, that has to be the busiest person who has to coordinate and keep tabs on everything going around in the organisation.
If the chief of staff loses pace with the daily happenings and cannot keep an eye on future possibilities, he may end up hurting the company.
He coordinates with multiple sports and health tech companies to ensure customer satisfaction and the highest level of service delivery from his company.
On the other hand, being one of the key board members and director of Rooter – India’s biggest e-sports platform, his plate remains more than full.
Aaron was featured in Forbes’ 30 under 30 lists for Europe in 2022.
“As a board member of Indian gaming startup Rooter, he helped the company grow from a $1 million business to $100 million in just under three years”
Stavros Papadopoulos
Company Name: Lendis
Company Position: Co-founder
Year of Birth: 1993
Year founded: 2018
Company Estimated Wealth: $90.4 million (Source: Getlaka)
Sector: IT (Saas)
Our next young German entrepreneur has created a business concept that provides businesses and office managers with invaluable convenience.
Stavros was born to Greek immigrants in Germany and has received his bachelor’s and master’s in Arts/Science degrees from WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management.
Lendis, the company co-founded by Stavros, is a Saas company that enables its customers to set up and manage all the office supplies and furniture from the convenience of their office (or home!).
Isn’t it an excellent service?
You can get practically everything for your office through the convenience of their online platform.
And by everything, they mean laptops, iPhones, software, and even office furniture.
The company has accumulated total funding of over $90 million based on this brilliant idea.
“With our innovative software solution, we simplify the way companies select, procure & manage their work equipment and focus on what matters – the success of the business”
Leonie Riviere
Company Name: Fina
Company Position: CEO
Year of Birth: 1993
Year founded: 2020
Company Estimated Wealth: $900 million (Source: TechCrunch)
Sector: Fintech
The innovation prowess showcased by the young entrepreneur of the world is simply awe-inspiring.
It is as if today’s youth is hell-bent on creating easy solutions for every problem faced by the human species.
Well, at least as far as making businesses and individual purchasing choices go, this can be claimed with a certain degree of authority, if not for everything else under the sun.
Leonie Rivière, our next young entrepreneur, is a promising young female entrepreneur in Germany who co-founded Fina and is currently the company’s CEO.
So, what does Fina do?
Fina is a Berlin-based neo-broker with the singular aim of making investing:
- Cheap
- Accessible
- Inclusive
Now, that’s some ambition, won’t you say?
If you didn’t notice, all the startups mentioned on the list aim to help humanity by providing solutions that have previously been associated with or restricted to the rich and privileged.
Their app offers education to its users through bite-sized masterclasses and would allow them to connect with a larger community.
In the process, it will enable them to invest in stocks and cryptocurrencies. Even before its launch, the app had 7,000 users on its waitlist.
And among those who have registered for the app’s waitlist, 62% are women.
“Léonie Rivière has diverse work experience, beginning in 2017 as a Graduate Analyst at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. In 2018, they were a Cohort Member at Entrepreneur First and also Co-Founded Quma, where they served as CEO. In 2019, they took on the role of Entrepreneur In Residence at the Visionaries Club, a Berlin-based VC fund. Most recently, in 2020, they Co-Founded fina and serve as its CEO.”
Mirko Schmiedl
Company Name: Staking Rewards
Company Position: Co-founder
Year of Birth: 1995
Year founded: 2017
Company Estimated Wealth: $3 million (Source: Coinspeaker)
Sector: Crypto Currency
Featured on the Forbes 30 under 30 list of 2022 for Europe, we have another university dropout on our list, achieving outstanding success.
Mirko Schmiedl proudly labels himself as a “visionary”. As bold as it may sound, the gentleman has achieved more than most could ever dream of at the age of 28.
He is also a self-taught and fast learner who can teach himself anything required to achieve his goals.
Mirko co-founded Staking Rewards in 2017.
Staking Rewards is the leading data provider for staking and crypto-growth tools.
In simple English, the company uses modern investment means to help customers get higher returns without actively participating in the open market.
It is a passive-income solution powered by investment in crypto stakes.
For the geeks among you, it focuses on Proof-of-Stake Protocols to enable passive returns through staking. (It means the same as I explained in the earlier sentence ;))
If Proof-of-Stake isn’t your cup of tea, hear this: the company has a proven record of generating more than $1 million in revenue in 2022.
Schmiedl has been researching yield-bearing digital assets since 2013 and has led a bitcoin mining operation in Southeast Asia.
(Sources: Forbes, LinkedIn, CitizenCosmos, StakingRewards)
“Making decisions based on my gut feeling. Creating products based on big data.”
With this successful crypto investor and founder, we have reached the end of the list of young entrepreneurs from Germany. Subscribe to our blog to start your journey of becoming one like them. 😉
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