Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel of Pay Pal in funding rounds in Berlin start-ups!

Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel, the first venture capitalist to back Facebook, in the past has rarely invested outside US,  is leading funding rounds in two Berlin start-ups,  including an £12m ($18m) funding in EyeEm, a network for photographers,  which has 13m users, a network for photographers  and  helps people to sort through photographs taken on their mobile phones, and a £7.2m (€10m) investment in banking app called Number 26, launched in Germany and Austria this year has about 8,500 customers, as their app provides users with a MasterCard credit card and an account offered by German partner bank Wirecard. He has also recently funded two  London start-ups: Transferwise, a money transfer business, and Deepmind, an artificial intelligence group bought by Google for £400m.

 EyeEM co-founder Florian Meissner said  “ there is a new breed of photographers exclusively equipped with modern smartphones, who are able capture  incredible images. The company will use the funding  to extend its photography licensing platform from the US, where the business was launched, to Europe, Asia and South America, and to hire more staff.

Thiel also  funded in a Berlin-based social network for scientists, ResearchGate, in 2012.