#Berlin: The #Startup City That's Still Starting Up

BERLIN -- My flight landed here in Germany’s capital city at about 8 a.m. on Saturday after a long, overnight journey from New York City. Despite my burning, blurry eyes, and having been here only about a day or so, one thing is immediately clear: the startup scene is alive and well in Berlin.

I’m here for a few days this week attending the sixth annual Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network Summit. It’s an appropriate city for the event. Visit neighborhoods like Mitte and Kreuzberg and at once you are submerged in a vibrant, maturing world of startups, with founders coming here from all around the world.

But, as with any startup hub, Berlin has its flaws, too.

Related: 5 Emerging Tech Hubs From Around the World

Nestled in northwestern Germany on the banks of Rivers Spree and Havel, Berlin -- as we all should be well aware -- is a city with a complicated history. In 1945, after After World War II, the Western part of the city was controlled by the United States, the United Kingdom and France while the Eastern part was controlled by the then Soviet Union. With the rise of communism came a more permanent division -- the Berlin Wall -- which separated West Berlin from the rest of the country from 1961 until the end of the Cold War in 1989.

Today, Berlin’s 3.5 million residents are creating a bright, new history for their city -- and business is often at the heart of it. “Because Berlin was cut off during the decades of the Cold War, it is a capital again, but not with the usual infrastructure around it,” explains Nicole Simon, a startup mentor and head of publisher sales and blogger relations at Berlin-based blogfoster.com. “The city itself is a startup.”

What attracts entrepreneurs to Berlin

The creative industry is vibrant here -- music, fashion, film, art and design -- and it attracts tourists and entrepreneurs from all over the world. Two other important details that attract businesses: a still relatively low cost of living and a relaxed visa-application process. You can start a tech company in Berlin and attract top software engineers from around the world without jumping through the typical visa process in the U.S.

“The startup scene for me is a very heterogeneous group of people who are intrinsically motivated to change the status quo,” says Markus Schranner, who moved to Berlin in 2011 and serves as chairman of entrepreneur advocacy organization Startup Germany. In addition to the arts, Berlin seems to attract numerous tech companies (green tech, financial tech, insurance, online privacy, etc.) as well as social entrepreneurs, he says.

Berlin’s notable startups include Soundcloud, 6Wunderkinder, ResearchGate, Number26 and Delivery Hero, to name just a few. Larger tech companies also have outposts in Berlin, including Microsoft, Google, Lufthansa and Volkswagen.

The city also boasts numerous co-working spaces (Betahaus, Ahoy Berlin, Cluboffice, etc.) and accelerators (Axel Springer, Berlin Startup Academy, M Cube Incubator, Seedcamp, etc.). Last year, Google Launchpad Berlin, a pre-incubation program, created a nice promotional video. Check it out:

Related: 8 Reasons to Launch Your Startup Outside of Silicon Valley

“The mix is what makes Berlin a startup metropolis,” says Tim Brandt, the startup coordinator at IHK Berlin, the city’s c

via www.entrepreneur.com