Last week we talked about what’s happening in the Berlin’s digital scene: dozens of young entrepreneurs capable of showing (very clearly) the real value of their ideas.

To the  point that in 2011 the city saw €136 million coming in for start ups funding. We went through a few of them: from the giant music platform Sound Cloud to the booming Gidsy project; from the science-related social network Research Gate to smart services like Wimdu. But, as you can imagine, today we want to continue. There’s just too many of them.

Amongst the ones we can’t absolutely forget we have Twago, the European online marketplace where to find freelance workers. Founded in 2009 by three former Siemens employees, Twago is a platform that can be used to find a huge amount of services, from translations to web design.

We had a talk with Silvia Foglia, Italian Country Manager: “The people that started Twago decided to move to Berlin for several reasons. First of all because the cost of living is clearly lower than other major cities; then because they were looking for international people to work with (especially native speakers in Italian and Spanish) and Berlin was (and still is) really multicultural. and time just proved them right: today Berlin is the best place to meet other tech start ups, venture capitalists, investors. To network and share out thoughts with many other companies in the same field.”

There’s another start up everyone’s talking about: 6wunderkinder. These guys (today they’re more than 6!) are using a 4,2 million dollars investment from Atomico, the venture capital of Niklas Zennstrom (Skype co-founder). Their first app Wunderlist has been downloaded more than 1,6 million times.

But that’s not it: they’re about to launch the next app, called Wunderkit, which will be an easy-to-use social organizer (a “blend of a social network and online working space for the individual”) and it feels like in Berlin all the start ups follower can’t wait to download it. Before it will be released, you can read this post, or check out the tutorial:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlzMjoD8sgg

Jessica Erikson, Head of 6Wunderkinder, explains us why the company – that developed the world fastest-growing task manager app – picked Berlin as the city to start up: “We really believe that in the the past few years, Berlin has quietly and quickly emerged as the software development hot-bed of Europe. Hundreds of startups have opened in the capital last year according to Berlin city officials. The question is, what is propelling this growth? I think its the combination of many things, for instance, concentrated numbers of:

1. academics & students,
2. creative professionals,
3. cheap rents,
4. entrepreneurs binding in a strong community
5. software developers moving here.

Today, a new generation of German companies are gaining recognition for their creativity, smart design, and elegant simplicity. This city means everything to 6Wunderkinder and we will d everything in our power to attract more entrepreneurs here.”

Pretty cool, right?

There’s another interesting tech project worth to mention: Upcload, an Augmented Reality app that won the 2011 awards as “The Best Germany’s start up”.

Upcloud can make you virtually try on the clothes you want to buy online. Basically, using a webcam and a CD (to set up parameters) everyone will be able to wear all the clothes present in the online stores using the app. They started last year, and the app will be officially released next month.

But what’s the hottest start up in Berlin right now? According to an online survey by Tech Berlin, there’s no doubt: Smeet.

This 3D social chat game combines gaming with social interactions. It can be used both inside and outside Facebook, and counts more than 15 million users (and 450K fans). The platform is free of charge, and players can interact in both synchronous and asynchronous way while playing online and Flash Game, and Smeet help them to create new social connections.

Smeet is one of the first start ups that choose Berlin as headquarter. The CEO Sebastian Funke, CEO told us: “We have chosen the German capital to found the company mostly because of the regional conditions, the reasonable cost-of-living whereas the quality of life is high. In comparison to other capitals in the world the wage costs in Berlin are very low. This is very important especially for startups, because their financial funds are limited.”

And he added: “Berlin has a highly developed web ecosystem, which offers a wide range of developers, marketing professionals, designers, innovative founders and investors. Lots of cool things are happening here in Berlin around the tech scene. There are hundreds of events related to start ups which offer the ideal platform to meet new people in the industry as well as to exchange ideas and thoughts. Furthermore, there are lots of cultural activities and a wide range of achievable international cuisine. The city has got a national and international attractiveness and flair. For me Berlin has the perfect requirements to found a startup”.

And if the CEO of the hottest start up in town tells us so… We better believe it!

It’s also interesting to notice all the services that was created around this booming digital start up scene. Like Silicon Alle – to be always updated on what’s new in the town’s tech scene – and Berlin Startup Jobs (I’m sure you can guess what it’s about, right?).

Before this post is over, we want to give you the list of the top 10 Berlin start ups according to Tech Berlin users:

1.  Smeet (658 votes)
2.  6Wunderkinder (326 votes)
3.  Twago (281 votes)
4.  Soundcloud (270 votes)
5.  Ezeep (169 votes)
6.  Tape.TV (138 votes)
7.  Wooga (120 votes)
8.  ResearchGate (120 votes)
9.  Gidsy (109 votes)
10. Orderbird (94 votes)

Oh, I almost forgot: if you have an idea and you’re around here, we suggest you to give a try to the Pitch in Berlin (organized by HackFWD). It ends on February 10th; if interested, show up in Berlin on March 10th.

Daniele Montemale