In 2016, a German who had built five companies in Shanghai, but never one in Germany, walked off the AsiaBerlin Summit stage. People queued to ask him the same thing, “Hey, I’m interested in China, where are my first steps?”

Marten Rauschenberg now runs Asia Berlin Forum e.V., the association behind AsiaBerlin, Europe’s Asia-focused startup summit & community. Ahead of AsiaBerlin Summit 2026 (23 to 27 November, Berlin), he tells me how a cultural fortnight started by Berlin’s mayor in 1997 became a startup summit where ~70% of the faces are Asian & ~70% of the room says it represents Berlin. Every year, about seventy startups come over from Asia, & AsiaBerlin pays none of them to come.

We get into the Senate & the NGO working out of the same office, why a new founder’s first contact usually knows 10 or 15 others in the room, techno in the town hall at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday, the delegation bus that had an accident on the highway with a Berlin senator on board, and the line Marten draws between the Chinese people & the Chinese government. If you’re a founder eyeing Berlin (or Asia) this winter, start here.

• 00:00 Opening & introduction

• 00:55 Thirteen years in Shanghai, then dragged onto the AsiaBerlin stage

• 03:17 A 1997 cultural fortnight, a Senate handover & the NGO in the same office

• 06:09 Rice hats, McDonald’s & how Berlin turned AsiaBerlin into a startup summit

• 10:38 His first keynote & a community that runs in both directions

• 14:53 Seventy startups, no one paid to come & a room that already knows you

• 17:58 Techno in the town hall at 10 a.m. & cooking on stage

• 19:16 Why the people on your delegation bus matter more than the ministry meetings

• 23:33 Inside & outside the startup bubble, and the Chinese people versus the Chinese government

• 28:23 Recap & what comes next

Marten Rauschenberg is Managing Director of Asia Berlin Forum e.V., which runs AsiaBerlin together with the Berlin Senate Department for Economics. He moved to Shanghai in 2003, built five businesses there over thirteen years (mainly in media), sold the last one at the end of 2014 & came back to Berlin in 2015. He gave his first AsiaBerlin keynote at the 2016 summit, the first of its startup era.

• 23 to 27 November 2026, at Berlin’s Rotes Rathaus & partner venues, among them CIC & betahaus Berlin

• This year’s motto is “Connecting Startup Ecosystems for Cross-Border Growth”

• Registration is free at asia.berlin/summit/2026

Narratives Uncensored is a podcast from NarraTricks, a communications consulting boutique for startup founders, with a focus on founders from underrepresented backgrounds. Host Vijay Shankar Balakrishnan is a science journalist of 13+ years & the founder of NarraTricks, where he works as a fractional chief communications officer on visibility & reputation, upstream of sales, marketing & PR.

• Website narratricks.com

• LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/vijaysbj

• Full edited transcript on the Narratives Uncensored Substack

AsiaBerlin Summit 2026, AsiaBerlin, Marten Rauschenberg, Asian startups in Berlin, Berlin startup ecosystem, Asia Europe startups, cross-border growth, European market entry, delegation trips, startup community, founders from underrepresented backgrounds, Narratives Uncensored, NarraTricks