Why I’m Not Surprised That a German Founder Built the Most Popular Venture in YC’s S25 Batch

Note: The following contributions are personal impulses from Max Eckel. They represent individual reflections and are intended to stimulate discussion and further thought.

Most German founders build close to home. From Berlin to Düsseldorf, WHU alumni have shaped some of the country’s most recognizable companies: Zalando in fashion e-commerce, Flaschenpost in last-mile delivery, SumUp in payments, and Holy Energy in consumer brands. These are companies that grew by mastering the European market, where the size of the opportunity was more than enough to build global-scale businesses.

Some ventures went further. HelloFresh and Tonies not only dominated Europe, but expanded into the United States and became category leaders in the most competitive consumer market in the world. Their story shows that European founders can start at home and still win abroad.

But it is still rare to see German entrepreneurs begin building directly from Silicon Valley. That is what makes the story of Peter Tribelhorn (BSc 2020, Core34) so remarkable. His company Hera (YC S25) was not only accepted into Y Combinator—it became the most visited startup of the entire cohort, attracting nearly 200,000 monthly web visits shortly after launch, according to CrustData.

From Vallendar to San Francisco

Peter’s journey traces back to Vallendar, where he co-organized IdeaLab! – WHU Founders’ Conference, one of Europe’s leading student-run startup events. At one edition, Oliver Samwer shared an idea that stayed with him: growing up in a small village can give you the hunger to build something truly big.

That idea quietly guided him. After WHU and a stint in investment banking, Peter joined fellow alumnus Lucas B. Kollmann at Lunar X, where they were acquiring and scaling YouTube channels. Again and again, the same bottleneck appeared: creating animations was slow, expensive, and out of sync with the pace of digital content.

He reached out to Chia-Lun Wu, a friend he had met at a Berlin party. Chia had already built a successful animation platform used by thousands of businesses. The two teamed up to rethink motion design for an AI-native world. That project became Hera.

Hera: Animations in Seconds, Not Days

Hera allows anyone to generate professional animations from text prompts in seconds. What once took hours in Adobe After Effects can now be done instantly. It is not just a faster version of existing tools—it reimagines the entire workflow for a world where content creation never stops.

The road to Y Combinator was anything but easy. The team applied once and was rejected. Then a second time. Then a third. Each time, the YC partners repeated the same feedback: you need users, you need paying users, you need retention. Only on the fourth application did Hera finally get accepted.

By then, the product had found its momentum. Within weeks of launch, over 200,000 animations had been created, more than 20,000 new users were joining every week, and the tool was being used by everyone from YouTubers to a plastic surgeon on Instagram. Most impressively, Hera became the highest-traffic startup in Y Combinator’s S25 batch.

What Hera Represents for German Entrepreneurship

The story of Hera reflects the different ways WHU founders think about growth. Some focus on becoming European champions, where the market is large enough to build a billion-euro business. Others scale outward and prove themselves globally, like HelloFresh and Tonies did in the United States. And then there are founders like Peter, who take their European DNA straight into Silicon Valley, building on the world’s biggest stage from day one.

Hera demonstrates that European talent does not just belong in global markets—it can thrive at the very center of the startup world.

Lessons from Peter’s Journey

There are two lessons to take away from Peter’s path. The first is resilience. Hera only entered YC after three rejections, and each “no” forced the founders to sharpen their product and prove real traction. The second is serendipity. A Berlin party, a campus conference, a line from a talk in Vallendar—small moments that, stitched together, shaped the trajectory of an international company.

From Small Villages to Global Stages

Peter’s story is proof that starting small does not hold you back. Sometimes, it gives you the perspective and ambition to build something much larger. For WHU students considering entrepreneurship, and for European founders wondering whether they can compete in Silicon Valley, Hera is a reminder: they can. All it takes is persistence, the right partner, and the courage to apply one more time.