The new Hamburg Startup Monitor 2026 by the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce and the Startup Association shows: Hamburg is an important startup location and must now utilize the existing potential to specifically transform its grown startup strength into a powerful ecosystem for scaleups.
The key results of the survey
- 1,540 active startups – Hamburg remains the third-largest urban startup ecosystem in Germany.
- 203 new start-ups in 2025 – an increase of 26% and a clear signal of growing activity.
- GreenTech as a profile – 22% of start-ups are assigned to this future field. Across Germany, the figure is 16%.
- Strong internationality – 21% of founders come from abroad, compared to 13% across Germany.
- Investment since 2015: €3.3 billion – still room for improvement compared to other major cities
Hamburg with a strong foundation – but growth capital remains key
Hamburg’s start-up landscape is diverse, international and technologically broad-based. In terms of funding and business angels, Hamburg is clearly above the national average. However, there is still a need for action when it comes to growth capital. In terms of venture capital in particular, Hamburg is behind Berlin with 23%, 43% and Munich 37%.
Internationality: major strengths, but not yet fully utilized
Hamburg has a high international appeal. The proportion of international startups is above the national trend and 49% of founders rate the city as attractive for international talent, compared to 40% nationwide.
At the same time, the figure of only 40% of startups working in English shows that there is still potential in everyday life to live the international profile more consistently in order to further increase the attractiveness for global teams.
GreenTech as a growth driver – with further scaling prospects
At 22%, Hamburg’s ecosystem has an above-average share of GreenTechs (16% nationwide) – including the unicorn 1KOMMA5°. This underlines Hamburg’s position in the ecological transformation and opens up the opportunity to focus approvals and innovation spaces even more strongly on GreenTech and to strategically strengthen this advantage.
Growth capital and scaling: targeted impetus makes sense
With 62% of funding and business angels, Hamburg is clearly above the national average. External, private-sector capital was raised by 44% of startups in the Hanseatic city (39% nationwide). In euros, however, only €3 billion has gone to startups in Hamburg since 2015, which puts the location far behind Munich with €12 billion and Berlin with €38 billion. Hamburg can and must grow here so that ambitious startups can make the leap to later stages much more easily. Targeted growth financing can become a real location lever and combine the strong foundation with more scaling power.
Transfer and collaboration: leveraging potential
As a strong university and research location, Hamburg has a lot of potential in the transfer from research to business. Hamburg founders from the university environment are still less satisfied with the environment than entrepreneurs nationwide, 74% vs. 82%. The Startup Port is an important and successful player in advising spin-offs from universities and research institutions. In addition, Impossible Founders is a new, strong partner in the ecosystem that can make a powerful contribution to an even closer exchange between universities, research and startups – especially in the area of deep tech.
