I think that does not only apply to Startups, but lots of german companies. Software is seen as some small thing which is a necessary evil, but which can be done by anyone. It is not seen as something that can be complicated, hard to get right and requires a lot of experience and passion. As a consequence software development is often outsourced - either to cheap contracting engineering companies inside the country or directly in supposed cheaper countries (India, Eastern Europe, etc.). You can also see that in the big automotive industry, where there is also less appreciation for SW engineering roles than for other things (e.g. project managment).
Volkswagen Wolfburg has a very big IT devision, VW financials Braunschweig too... Audi and Porsche also do a lot of IT stuff... they work together with the local univeristies on self driving cars etc.
I was doing self driving car stuff 10 years back at tu braunschweig with VW.... I never been in a big german company where they outsourced IT work to india and co.
I worked at one of these OEMs for nearly 10 years - and have contact to the others. Believe me, I know something about the industry. All these companies have big engineering departments - even for mostly software related topics like Infotainment). However most engineers there will be mainly responsible for writing specifications and project management. Implementation is done by suppliers. E.g. Audi Infotainment -> Mainly implemented by E-Solutions. It's similar for VW, Porsche, BMW and Mercedes - I'm aware of their external partners, but as that is partly confidential I won't go into detail. Of course there are also some research projects and departments and cooperations with universities, but they are only a tiny fraction compared to series development efforts. In resarch and predevelopment projects you might find more inhouse engineers, mass production software is however mostly contracted.
And regarding outsourcing to India: If you read through the software related job postings of Bosch you will quite often find the phrase: "You are the Software Architect and are responsible for coordinating our Indian implementation team". When I looked last time there were a lot more of these postings than "we are looking for an excellent software engineer with skills in X/Y/Z".
