Christoph Raethke has been part of the European startup and angel ecosystem since the late 1990s. As the host of the Angels of Deutschland podcast, he has spent years demystifying angel investing and startup funding for a broader audience. In its third season, the podcast turns its focus to: Defence Tech Investments for Angels. We spoke with Christoph about why he launched the podcast, and what we can expect from the third season – available both in German and English.

• Christoph, what originally motivated you to start the Angels of Deutschland podcast?

When I joined the startup and investment world in the late 90s, there was very little shared, practical knowledge about what it actually means to fund and mentor startups. Over time, I accumulated experience — not just personally, but through a whole ecosystem of founders, investors, and experts around me.

The idea behind Angels of Deutschland was to make that collective knowledge accessible. Not as a book or a white paper, but in a format that’s easy to consume: conversations. A podcast allows people to listen in, learn gradually, and hear different perspectives without having to “opt in” to something academic or intimidating.

There was also a very practical motivation. I kept getting the same questions over and over again — about becoming an angel, structuring investments, and mentoring founders. Instead of answering everything from scratch each time, I wanted to create a point of reference: listen to this first, then come back to me if you want to go deeper. In that sense, the podcast is both educational and a filter.

• You’re now launching the third season of the podcast. What’s different this time?
  

The second season, in 2023–24, explored several topics that were emerging at the time — AI, longevity, and other new technological frontiers. This third season is different because it focuses deeply on one single theme: Defence, or MilTech.

And quite frankly, it’s hard to think of a more dynamic or urgent topic right now. Like in the 1930s, we are facing a dictator who is destroying lives at an unimaginable scale for goals that sit outside the rational world. In response, enormous amounts of public and private capital are suddenly being mobilized.

What’s unique this time is how innovation is happening. For most of modern history, defence and arms manufacturing have been dominated by massive conglomerates producing at scale. Today, we’re seeing something entirely new: garage-based — or perhaps “trench-born” — innovation. Small teams iterating at extreme speed, often close to the battlefield, creating solutions that didn’t exist months ago.

That opens the door to startup methodologies entering a domain that has traditionally been bureaucratic, closed, and controversial. For angels, that raises a fundamental question: when a burning problem, entrepreneurial talent, and available capital collide, that’s usually where angels want to be. But does that logic also apply to defence? That’s what this season is trying to explore.

• This season includes voices from Germany, Ukraine, and across Europe. Why was it important to go beyond a purely German perspective?

Because you simply can’t understand this ecosystem if you only look at Germany.

The primary source of startup-style defence innovation today is Ukraine. There’s no serious way to analyze this industry without involving Ukrainian inventors, investors, and ecosystem builders. And while many people focus on visible technologies like drones, what’s equally important is the structural shift behind them — the processes that allow for extremely fast innovation cycles.

Nowhere else can the “fail fast and cheap” paradigm be implemented so brutally and effectively. That matters enormously for investors: you don’t want to back technology that has already been rendered obsolete by frontline reality a week later.

At the same time, the ecosystem is pan-European. Germany may be Western Europe’s largest market, but hackathons, defence accelerators, and innovation hubs are popping up everywhere. Some of the most promising solutions may come from Portugal, Bulgaria, or the Baltics. For angels, limiting yourself to one country would be strategically disastrous.

• Are the episodes available in both English and German?

Yes — and that’s very intentional.

One of the core missions of Angels of Deutschland is to reach people who are not yet part of the startup or angel ecosystem. To do that, you have to speak a language they’re comfortable with. When I talk to German founders or experts, the episodes are in German. With international guests, they’re in English.

Technically, language barriers matter less and less — AI translation is becoming incredibly good. But culturally, language still matters a lot. The English startup vocabulary we use so fluently inside the bubble is simply inaccessible to many people in Germany, France, Italy, or Spain. If we want to grow the angel ecosystem, we need to be understood by people who are not yet our peers.

• Finally, how do you see Leapfunder’s role in the German and broader European ecosystem — especially in defence tech?

Whether in defence or any other sector, angels need access to deal flow, to co-investors, and to opportunities beyond their immediate networks. They also need ways to collaborate, learn from each other, and place smarter bets together.

With Leapfunder expanding across Europe, I don’t see another platform that offers this kind of breadth. That’s true for investors — and equally true for founders. For defence founders from Ukraine, for example, Leapfunder could be a powerful way to gain exposure to angels from multiple countries at once.

I attended two investor conferences in Ukraine this year, and most of the emerging defence tech teams I met were raising between €200K and €800K. That range is exactly Leapfunder’s sweet spot. If there’s a platform that can meaningfully connect these founders with the right angels at the right moment, it’s Leapfunder.

Thanks a bunch for telling us about the third season of the podcast, Christoph. We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavours.

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