🥨 FOMO Munich: Munich Builds Decacorns and Cautionary Tales | 18.08 - 24.08

Weekly newsletter keeping you up to date on the coolest events for tech & culture in Munich

Author

Cephas from FOMO
August 18, 2026

Hey FOMO Munich 👋

NavVis, the TU Munich spinout turning buildings and factories into digital twins, closed a €73.7M Series D this week. American private equity, led by The Jordan Company, with Cipio Partners and Yttrium riding along. Over a billion square meters mapped last year alone. The AI roadmap speeds up, the US office grows.

Zoom out and the pattern holds. In Finland, EQT's brand new Scaleup Europe Fund wrote its first check ever: €450M into ICEYE, the satellite company two Erasmus students turned into a €10B decacorn. In New York, Harvey, the legal AI platform running inside half the Am Law 100, is closing in on $500M at $15.5B. Revenue doubled in six months.

Same story everywhere. Capital stopped betting on promise. It wants proof.

Not everyone got the memo. Sono Motors, the solar car startup that once traded on Nasdaq, filed for insolvency this week. Second time. The Sion never left the lot, the money did. Munich builds decacorns and cautionary tales in the same news cycle.

Have a great week, and enjoy this week's picks below.

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FOMO Sponsor 🤝 : Startups for Tomorrow

Tue. Sep. 15: SFT Festival 2026 🌱 | 9:00 AM – 6:30 PM: Three stages, one day, zero buzzword bingo. Fynn Kliemann, dm CPO Kerstin Erbe, Wildling founder Anna Yona, Viva con Agua founder Micha Fritz, where revenue and impact are forced to get along. Tickets from €199, use code FOMO15 for 15% off. smartvillage, Munich.

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What did you FOMO last week 📸 

500+ people. 50% founders. One rooftop pool party. Built in 6 days. Why? Because IRL community matters. Next up: FOMO on a boat. ☀️🚤

FOMO Opportunity Spotlight & Carve Out 🔦 :

  • Everything I Learned Scaling to 7 Figures Without Venture Capital 🪄 | I rarely recommend outside reads. Andrew Yeung bootstrapped to seven figures, no VC. Distribution beats product, sell to people who can pay, stay lean.

  • Why Unitree Should Worry the Rest of the World 🦾 | Andreas Klinger (Prototype) breaks down Unitree's Shanghai IPO: 86% vertical integration, 60% margins, and why the US just banned Chinese humanoids outright.

  • SUPERPUBLIC Batch 001 🎬 | Public launch, 6 weeks: Four founders move into a Berlin office, cameras never off, everything published live through Demo Day. Applications close September 6, 23:59 Berlin. SUPERPUBLIC, Schiffbauerdamm 5, Berlin.

Upload your event and reach 1500+ weekly Munich readers. Or simply link your event to our Lu.ma - FOMO Berlin Calendar. 

The FOMO Munich week 💙 (18.8 - 24.8):
FOMO top picks of the week 🔥

These are the events I would attend if I were in town:

Tuesday 18th
Wednesday 19th

  • OpenClaw Meetup München 🦞 | 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM: Casual meetup for OpenClaw and AI Harness enthusiasts to share setups, discuss AI agents, build demos, and explore automation.

  • Tech Dinner – AI-Coded Software Delivery Processes 🤖 | 6:30 PM – 9:30 PM: Tech dinner exploring how AI is transforming software delivery, coding workflows, code reviews, CI/CD pipelines, and engineering team practices.

  • Munich Climate Week: Afterwork Drinks 🍻 | 6:30 PM – 10:00 PM: Florian Schleiter and the Munich Climate Week crew trade laptops for drinks near Marienplatz. Early scene building the city's first Climate Week. No agenda, no pitch. Sommerquartier, Munich.

Thursday 20th
FOMO Upcoming Top Events & Opportunities 💯

  • Tue. Aug. 25: Munich🥨NLP × SAP: Knowledge Graphs & Agents 🧠| 5:30 PM – 9:00 PM: AI and NLP meetup exploring long-context LLMs, knowledge graphs, retrieval, RAG, autonomous agents, production deployment, and research.

  • Tue. Sep. 15: SFT Festival 2026 🌱 | 9:00 AM – 6:30 PM: Three stages, one day, zero buzzword bingo. Fynn Kliemann, dm CPO Kerstin Erbe, Wildling founder Anna Yona, Viva con Agua founder Micha Fritz, where revenue and impact are forced to get along. Tickets from €199, use code FOMO15 for 15% off. smartvillage, Munich.

  • Tue. Sep. 29: OpenAI Builder Lounge Munich 🤖 | 8:30 AM – 11:30 AM:
    OpenAI EMEA opens the room to Munich builders. Live Codex demo, technical office hours, then straight into building with their own engineers. Approval required. Munich, address on approval.

Friday 21st

  • Thrifty Friday Nachtflohmarkt Summer Edition 🧥 | 5:00 PM – 11:55 PM: Racks of secondhand and vintage under one roof at Pineapple Park. No entry fee, no reason to skip it. Free admission. Paketposthalle München, Arnulfstr. 195.

Saturday 22nd

  • YE Ready for Take Off Festival Munich ✈️ | All Day: Massive open-air festival featuring CRO’s rare DJ set, multiple stages, food, VIP experiences, immersive installations, and Ibiza-inspired atmosphere.

  • Run & Shake - Beatletics Club🏃 | 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM: Easy five-kilometre community run starting at Bar Fredo and finishing at the SHAKEROOM, with free shakes available.

  • THE VIEW | Friends & Friends 🎶 | 2:00 PM – 2:00 AM: Open-air and indoor experience combining yoga, running, tattoos, community merch, pool vibes, coffee, and house music.

  • Gasteig Open Air: Last Dance 🎧 | 3:00 PM – 10:00 PM: commonfriends.muc and live.evil.fatcat take over Gasteig's entire courtyard for one last open air before it closes this September. Full sound system, free entry, no tickets. Gasteig, Munich.

Sunday 23rd
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Cephas & the FOMO team 💙

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