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Market

DACH is the largest mid-market in Europe — and its densest special-situations market.

Over 3.5 million mid-market companies across Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Roughly 25,000 ownership transitions per year without orderly succession. More than 16,000 corporate insolvencies annually in Germany alone. Corporates and private equity continually divest non-core units. Viewed sector-agnostically, DACH is the most transaction-rich special-situations field on the European mainland.

DACH Region

Volume, distribution, focus.

Germany
~2.6m mid-market companies · ~16,000 insolvencies p.a.
Industrial, mechanical engineering, automotive suppliers, healthcare, construction and services dominate the special-situations field.
Switzerland
~600,000 SMEs · discreet secondary market
Family firms with succession gaps, international group subsidiaries, MedTech/Pharma carve-outs.
Austria · Liechtenstein
~330,000 SMEs · focus Vienna · industrial mid-market
Strong in industrial production, mechanical engineering, food processing, energy and infrastructure.

About 25,000 owner transitions annually in the German mid-market without orderly succession. Corporates and private equity continuously dispose of non-core units. Insolvency administrators execute thousands of asset deals each year. The DACH special-situations field is sector-agnostic — industrial, services, brands, healthcare, infrastructure, technology — and transaction-dense.

The Shift

Early-stage financing is under pressure. Late-stage rounds concentrate among a few recipients.

The bar for Series-A rounds has risen. What today qualifies as a Series A would have counted as a Series-C profile a few years ago.

Market observers speak of a barbell market: on one side a few fully-financed platforms, on the other a growing number of companies that cannot find follow-on financing after successful product development. The middle thins out.

The Insolvency Wave 2023–2025

Around 336 German start-ups filed for insolvency in 2024. eighty-five percent above 2022.

In Q1 2025 corporate insolvencies overall grew 13.1 percent year over year.

The wave has produced a class of companies whose special situation is no longer the exception but the rule. Since 2021, Germany's StaRUG provides a pre-insolvency restructuring regime that allows orderly handovers outside formal insolvency.

What the Data Means

A meaningful number of operationally substantial companies are acquirable — at valuations that mirror their short-term special situation, not their continuation or configuration value.

Anyone who fails to buy in this environment because they cannot recognise substance is leaving an asset class behind whose return is uncertain.

Methodology →