Carsten Berrar, Managing Partner of Sullivan & Cromwell’s Frankfurt office, and Senior Associate Florian Späth have contributed to the Germany chapter of the 2025 edition of Chambers Global Practice Guide: Venture Capital. Carsten Berrar, who also serves as the Guide’s Global Editor, authored the introduction that provides a global overview of the venture capital industry in 2024 and its outlook for 2025.
In their chapter, Berrar and Späth, along with Associate Heiko Blaut, explore significant trends and challenges within Germany’s venture capital market. They note that in 2024 there was a broader trend of increased cost of capital and challenged valuations, which impacted financing round valuations and liquidity events. “The number of financing rounds declined for the third year in a row, falling by 12% to 755 transactions vs 2023,” they write. The authors highlight regional divergence with Berlin leading in the number of financing rounds while Bavaria led in terms of volume.
Reflecting global trends, key equity-funded industries in Germany included software and analytics, AI, healthcare, and health as broader themes. However, at the other end of the lifecycle, “VC-backed exits have overall not concentrated on certain industries and remained subdued in 2024,” according to the authors.