Blog

When you start looking for product-market fit, the rule of "n = 1" prescribes that you should initially focus on exactly one single customer.

Why pivoting is a radically good move and fundamentally important After more than 600 seed investments, High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) has conducted a study to see how founders can perform a successful pivot. Managing Director Alex von Frankenberg presents the results together with his colleague and Senior Investment Manager Gregor Haidl. In addition, the two experts explain why pivoting is also …

Challenges and highlights of 2020 and an outlook for 2021 Overall, 2020 was a successful year for High-Tech Gründerfonds despite the difficult circumstances. And the seed investor just recently signed off on the best exit in its history. Managing Director Alex von Frankenberg takes a look back at the challenges and highlights of this past year and provides an outlook …

How passion and expertise led to a billion-euro exit As a High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) partner, Dr. Bernd Goergen has just signed the most successful exit in HTGF history. US pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences is set to acquire German biotech start-up MYR for roughly EUR 1.15 billion. In this interview, he speaks about the fight against Hepatitis D, drug development and his own personal …

Successful Internationalisation Markus Kurch joined Crealytics as Chief Operating Officer in 2013. He was given the important task of internationalising the online marketing specialist’s business. Today, Crealytics has offices in New York, London and Berlin. In this interview, Kurch and HTGF Partner Romy Schnelle talk about their successes and setbacks and explain how the analytical approach adopted by the search …

Pivoting to become the market leader In this interview, Ralf Rottmann, Managing Director and founder of grandcentrix, and HTGF Partner Markus Kreßmann talk about how grandcentrix made a radical departure from its original business idea to become a leading IoT solutions provider – and why HTGF was the only conceivable investor for the team of founders. Markus, HTGF was the …

“HTGF plays a valuable role that goes beyond seed financing” High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) is celebrating its 15-year anniversary. Professor Dieter Jahn, who spent many years heading up BASF Group’s Science Relations and Innovation Management competence centre, was one of the initiators and driving forces behind the seed-stage investor back in 2005. Since day one, Jahn has been at HTGF’s side …

15 years HTGF: 15 facts & figures Our operational business started on September 1st, 15 years ago. To celebrate this, over the past 15 days we have shared facts, figures and little insights about the last few years via social media. To kick off, we celebrated our 591 closings to date and close the 15 days today with 114 exits …

“HTGF plays a valuable role that goes beyond seed financing” Professor Dieter Jahn, who spent many years heading up BASF Group’s Science Relations and Innovation Management competence centre, was one of the initiators and driving forces behind High-Tech Gründerfonds back in 2005. Since day one, Jahn has been at HTGF’s side as a member of its advisory board. In an …

The key to a successful network is empathy HTGF Partner Claudia Raber, who is responsible for relationship management at the company, explains the art of successful networking, the amount of time that should be invested in building relationships, and why empathy is so important. Claudia, you’ve been in charge of relationship management at HGTF for over a decade now. What …