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With over 600 seed investments in almost 16 years, High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) is Germany’s most active seed investor. Its investment teams have strong ties with business and science. HTGF has long seen itself as a platform that offers start-ups outstanding benefits alongside financing. In this interview, HTGF Partner Claudia Raber sheds further light on the subject. Claudia, as a HTGF Partner, you’re responsible for relationship management at the company. If you had to

You could say that Alexander Katzung and Hartmut Hahn met by chance – and you’d be right, but it was in an organised setting. And it’s this idea that underpins the networking activities of High-Tech Gründerfonds when it brings together fund investors and portfolio companies. The portfolio company in this instance is Userlane, which offers software that explains other software to users as part of a step-by-step process that is easy to understand. HTGF invested in the company in 2016, a

By Andreas Olmes (Principal / Proxy) Co-authored by Ulrike Kalapis (Investment Manager), Yann Fiebig (Senior Investment Manager) , Gregor Haidl (Investment Manager) and Fabian Hogrebe (Investment Manager) In a nutshell When you start looking for product-market fit, the rule of “n = 1” prescribes that you should initially focus on exactly one single customer. By contrast, introducing personas or generic customer segments is often found misleading. Quick wins Con

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 important for experienced companies – and why they believe “we all make mistakes”. Alex, your credo is: “We all make mistakes.” What do you mean b

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 for 2021. Alex, congratulations are in order! In summer, your portfolio company MYR received conditional market approval in Europe for the first-ever drug to treat hepatitis&n

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 successes. Bernd, congratulations are in order! In 2011, HTGF took up a stake in MYR. And now you’re about to close a billion-eur

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 engine advertising (SEA) specialist might serve as a blueprint for other founders seeking to internationa

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 sole investor in grandcentrix. The exit took place just under a year ago, in November 2019, when Vodafone completed a takeover of the company, which

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 as a member of its advisory board. In an interview, he talks about how it all began, underlines HTGF’s importance as a driver of innovation, and explains

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 in 15 years! The exciting postings of the last 15 days are summarized here in this graphic. Have fun discovering fun facts! The facts and figures presented are based on the reporting date. R

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 interview, he talks about how it all began, underlines HTGF’s importance as a driver of innovation, and explains how HTGF can provide important stimulus both now and in the future.

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 does that involve exactly? Claudia Raber: It’s been a core element of HTGF from day one. Alongside the various other benefits we provide, one of the th

By Fabian Hogrebe With contributions from Gregor Haidl (Investment Manager), Ulrike Kalapis (Investment Manager), Yann Fiebig (Senior Investment Manager) and Dr. Andreas Olmes (Principal). “How can we achieve Product-Market Fit?” is a question that we are regularly confronted with here at High-Tech Gründerfonds. The bad news is that there is no straightforward path to success. However, each and every start-up has the chance of getting there. The question should therefore

HTGF Partner Marco Winzer has been with High-Tech Gründerfonds since its foundation. In an interview, he talks about why real entrepreneurship is not something you can learn in the classroom. However, he also advises anyone with an innovative idea to make sure they found a company themselves and outlines what they need to do to make this happen. Marco, do successful founders usually have business degrees? Or do they tend to be inventors, programmers and scientists? Marco Winzer: P

In an interview, High-Tech Gründerfonds’ (HTGF) new Managing Director Guido Schlitzer talks about the first-ever Family Day held exclusively online, what the future holds for HTGF, and why sometimes you just have to give things a go. How was the first-ever Family Day held exclusively online? Guido Schlitzer: It was fantastic! The special thing about Family Day is that we’re able to bring together people who would have otherwise never met. We had wondered whether this i