Welcome to the Deep Tech Arena. Welcome to Munich.

And listen to the insights of Hendrik Brandis, the Munich based co-founder and partner of VC firm Earlybird, who's investing in startups for 23 years and recently made a more than half a billion dollar exit when game developer Peak Games sold to Zynga for $1.8 billion.

In conversation with Bits & Pretzels' Britta Weddeling the experienced investor explains why the next big wave of startup innovation is going to happen in the deep tech space, meaning companies funded based on a scientific breakthrough likely to change the world, such as AI, space, biotech or quantum computing.

The investor also shares what entrepreneurial skillset Earlybird is looking for right now and what advice he has for startups pushing through the current coronavirus crisis, having worked through 2 different crisis already with the Dotcom crash and the financial crisis. Long story short: Hendrik thinks that Corona is going to have by far the most severe impact.

On a positive side, the aerospace engineer turned VC explains why space is becoming the next mega platform for services & new technologies, e.g. with satellites providing  5G internet connection or Voice-over-IP broadband – and why entrepreneurs have to turn to Munich if they want to benefit:

I see a positive flywheel here which creates more expertise, attracting more people, building on top of that. So I think the attractiveness of Munich is its competence in very diverse disciplines of deep tech.

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