Top 50 Community Startup Investors in Germany in May 2025

We support exceptional founders in building market leading digital companies.

redalpine is a thesis-driven vc with deep expertise in software and science. since 2006. we believe in the power of big ideas and in empowering game changers. we don't just invest, we co-create a better tomorrow. together with you.

IBB Ventures is for all those who make a difference and create a sustainable future. We invest public funds as venture capital and, together with Berlin startups, help to promote our capital as a business location.

B2venture is a venture capital firm focused on early-stage investments in digital and industrial technology companies. B2venture invests EUR 100m+ per year in high-growth companies with ticket sizes from EUR 0.25m to 3.5m.

APX is Europe’s leading very-early-stage VC. Based in Berlin and backed by Axel Springer and Porsche, we support and partner with the most ambitious founding teams from Europe and beyond - often as their first investor.We invest up to EUR 500K in startups until a series A starting with a quick EUR 50K investment, and within a few months,depending on traction and speed, we can invest further. Each month we invest in new teams who become part of the APX community, counting hundreds of other founders. Since 2018, we have invested in 100+ startups across 20+ industries with founders from 20+ countries together with 100+ co-investors.

DN Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests primarily in Europe and North America. The firm focuses on companies that plan to establish operations on both sides of the Atlantic, and strives to help its companies build international businesses. Founded in 2000, the company has operations in London and Silicon Valley. DN Capital’sprevious funds are top performers and the firm is one of the lead investors in companies such as Endeca (sold to Oracle), Shazam (one of the world’s leading mobile app), Auto1 (world's largest used car marketplace), Purplebricks (IPO London) and Quandoo (sold to Recruit).

Atlantic Labs supports and invests in mission-driven founders working on transformative technology ventures.&nbsp;<br><br>We partner with founders early, providing the capital, tools and network necessary to growing their companies and accompanying them on their entrepreneurial journey. We are currently active in areas including Digital Health, Future of Work, Machine Learning, Decentralized Networks, Mobility and Industrial Applications.

Venture Stars is a Munich based venture capital firm focused on early-stage investments in innovative, digital B2C and B2B business models.

Point Nine Capital is a Berlin-based venture capital firm focused exclusively on early-stage Internet investments in areas like Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), online marketplaces, and mobile.The fund and its managers, Pawel Chudzinski and Christoph Janz have backed a number of highly successful Internet companies such as Delivery Hero, Clio,Shiftplanning, Vend, Typeform, and Zendesk from their earliest stages.

The seed investor High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) finances tech start-ups with growth potential and has supported more than 700 start-ups since 2005. With the launch of its fourth fund, HTGF now has about 1.4 billion euros under management. Its team of experienced investment managers and start-up experts support young companies with expertise,entrepreneurial spirit and passion. HTGF’s focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digital tech, industrial tech, life sciences, chemistry and related business areas. To date, external investors have injected about 5 billion euros of capital into the HTGF portfolio via more than 2,000 follow-on financing rounds. In addition, HTGF has already successfully sold shares in more than 170 companies. Fund investors in this public-private partnership include the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, KfW Capital and 45 companies from a wide range of industries. Fund investors in this public-private partnership include the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, KfW Capital and 45 companies from a wide range of industries.

468 Capital is an investment firm that focuses on identifying and managing opportunities in various markets. The firm employs a systematic approach to investment analysis and portfolio management. It collaborates with a range of partners to support its investment strategies. The company serves industries including technology, healthcare, andrenewable energy.

Capnamic is a Venture Capital firm supporting ambitious founders in the German-speaking regions. Our focus is on the early stages, from (Pre-)Seed to Series A.

Burda Principal Investments (BPI) is a division of Hubert Burda Media which provides long term growth equity for fast growing digital technology and media companies.

Emerge is a $70m pre-seed fund backed by 100+ of the world’s best edtech and future of work founders and executives. Our vision is to democratise access to opportunity by being a catalytic partner for early-stage founders re-designing the future of learning and work.

Monkfish Equity is the investment vehicle of the trivago founders. As Co-investors, with a focus on later stage phases, they invest in companies which can benefit from their entrepreneurial experience. Running the world´s biggest travel meta portal with over 500 M$ revenue (2015), the people behind Monkfish Equity understand entrepreneurs needs andfocus on value adding activities. As “low maintenance” investors, they offer the leeway that entrepreneurs need to build their businesses.

NFQ accelerates the success of entrepreneurs with a current team of 250 specialists delivering company-building services.

Investing early in Europe's most passionate founders.

They are a group of friends and internet/tech entrepreneurs who first met ten years ago in Saarbruecker Strasse 21 in Berlin Prenzlauer Berg. All of them started successful businesses, they are founders and share a passion for building great companies. As active business angels, they also invest in young startups, either individually orcollectively as a group. They provide seed funding for killer-founders and great ideas. But way more important: they help to avoid mistakes that they have already made . They introduce to the right people. They provide with all the experience that they have. Not just talking about it but helping hands-on.

ECONA is an independent investment boutique based in Berlin, Germany. As pioneers of the German Internet business, ECONA has been successfully founding and funding high-growth companies since 1999. ECONA has been invested in several successful internet growth companies, such as MyToys, Aperto, XING, and Facebook as well as GIGA.de andSparwelt.de.Currently, ECONA is invested in foodspring (Onlineshop for high-quality sports nutrition and fitness food), Ampere (Germany's first independent energy broker), smava (Germany's first marketplace for private loans), finanzcheck (one of Germany's largest comparison sites for personal financial products), and several other companies like Sarah Wiener, amapur, Getsafe, Wunderflats, Comatch, Data Artisans, MediDate, Armedangels, iMoney and Dahmakan.

Jens Begemann

Ralf Dummel, born on 02.12.1966 in Bad Segeberg in Germany, started his career on 01.04.1988 at DS Produkte as a sales assistant to the then founder. Over the years he learned the business from the ground and took full responsibility for purchases and sales after only a year. He vastly participated in the establishment of the company and has been apartner since 1996. Today, the group has an annual turnover of ca. € 250 000 000, 400 employees, and more than 4 000 products in its portfolio. He often travels the world to visit suppliers and customers, and to find inspiration in new innovative products. Dümmel knows Asia inside out, but Northern Germany is the place he calls home. Since 2016 he takes part in the TV program “Die Höhle der Löwen” (literally: The Lions’ Cave, German version of Dragons’ Den on German TV channel VOX ) where he plays one of the “lions”, looking for young entrepreneurs with brilliant products.Ralf Dummel is very convincing with his genuine and appreciative style. From day one, Ralf Dümmel brightened up the surroundings, thanks to his enthusiasm for business and for new products. He has a unique sense for trends and products; he can market them with more success than hardly anyone else. He proudly claims that there hardly is any household without a “DS product” in Germany. Dümmel is often on the road for professional reasons, and when he sees that a customer adds a DS product in their shopping cart, he feels the same tingle of joy after 28 years that he felt in the early days. The 400 employees are Dümmels’s most important asset. They actively take part in the company, invest themselves in it, and help it develop further. Dummel is very proud that the DS products are the result of such a varied cast of people and skill sets. These are people with different personalities and talents that complement each other in a cooperation shaping always innovative business and product ideas.

Cherry Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm led by a team of entrepreneurs with experience building fast-scaling companies such as Zalando and Spotify. The firm backs Europe's boldest founders, usually as their first institutional investor, and supports them in everything from their go-to-market strategy and the scaling of theirbusinesses. Cherry Ventures has previously invested in the seed stage of over 50 companies across Europe, including FlixBus, Auto1 Group, Infarm, Rows, Forto, and TourRadar. Cherry Ventures is based in Berlin and invests across Europe with operations in London, Paris, and Stockholm.

Calm/Storm is an exclusive founder network and venture capital firm. We invest in purpose driven founders changing our life & health for the better. Headquartered in Vienna, Austria we invest in early-stage companies all over Europe and the US. We focus on the pre-seed and seed stages but also invest up to Series A.

NRW.BANK is the development bank for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It supports its owner – the state of North Rhine-Westphalia – in fulfilling its tasks, notably in the fields of structural, economic, social and housing policy. NRW.BANK pools the promotion and development programmes of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the FederalRepublic of Germany and the European Union and combines them with its own equity and debt products and advisory services. It offers the full range of financial products in three areas “Economy”, “Housing”, and “Infrastructure/Municipalities”. NRW.BANK operates in a competitively neutral manner as a partner of banks and savings banks.

Thomas Madsen-Mygdal is a Danish designer, entrepreneur and activist behind companies like Mondo, 23, Podio and the reboot festival.

HR Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm, which is part of the HahnAir Group. HR Ventures is based near Frankfurt am Main in Germany. HR Ventures is also an EVCA member, the European private equity & venture capital association.HR Ventures was founded to support exceptional entrepreneurs in achieving their goals together aspartners. We define ourselves as an equal partner for all entrepreneurial challenges with in-depth expertise and a large network. The company builds a strong relationship with each founder to create outstanding companies. We are here to

Manta Ray Ventures is an early-stage venture capital fund backing mission-driven founders that provides flexible and patient capital, leveraging time, resources, and networks resources and networks as far as possible to support its portfolio companies.

Fly is a first check VC for technical founders solving hard problems. We invest from day-zero to seed, backing founders from all over Europe.

Speedinvest is one of Europe’s most active early-stage investors, with more than €1bn AUM, 40 investors, and offices in Berlin, London, Munich, Paris, Vienna and San Francisco. Your success is our priority, so we don’t just send some money and "check in" at board meetings. Our mission is to empower you with game-changing support throughevery stage of your journey. Our focused investment teams know your industry inside and out. Their Deep Tech, Fintech, Industrial Tech, Network Effects, Digital Health and Subscriptions experience, know-how and deep networks are yours from day one. You also have full access to our in-house Platform+ team of operational experts who can provide tailored growth marketing, people (HR), US business development, and networking support throughout every stage of your journey.

In the two decades since our founding, we have worked with hundreds of extraordinary European founders, and have raised eight funds totalling more than $3bn.

Axel Springer Digital Ventures is the Venture Capital unit of Axel Springer SE, investing in digital companies globally.

Tim Schumacher is a Managing General Partner at World Fund. Tim previously worked at Sedo.com as a Member Board Of Directors. He attended University of Cologne and Stockholm School of Economics.Tim Schumacher Co-Founded and was the longtime CEO of the publicly traded company Sedo AG, which currently has revenues of 130m euros per year andmaintains approximately 350 employees. Since 2012 he has dedicated his professional career to the German startup scene, acting both as a business angel and mentor for young companies with economic potential. His current startups, among many others, are Eyeo/Adblock Plus, Aklamio, Hitfox and Ecosia.

Over the past two decades, GFC have backed over five hundred entrepreneurs worldwide, e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, Slack, and Away Travel.

Felix is an active entrepreneur and business angel. A WHU graduate, Felix was one of the first MDs of Rocket Internet, responsible for many of the initial companies incubated in 2007-2009. He went on to start Home24 in 2009 and run it as Co-CEO until 2014. In 2015 he started german hybrid real estate agent McMakler as founding investor and has beenrunning the company as executive Chairman and CEO since then. His current and past private business angel investments include Zalando, Auto1 Group, HomeToGo, among others.

Picus Capital is an early-stage technology investment firm with a long-term investment philosophy. We work together with daring technology companies to build successful, global companies challenging the status quo and shaping tomorrow.

Geek, Founder, Builder, Angel Investor

From its active funds TAC currently invests in Europe and the USA. They invest in all stages (seed, early and growth) of start-ups with capable teams and scalable business models. Their investment sizes go from as low as $200,000 to as much as $15 milion per transaction. They like opportunities in e-commerce, Internet, digital life and softwaredomains. They like to create and shape new markets. They are unconventional, caring and driven, and very fast. They are honest and fair in their daily dealings and in their transactions. They honor their commitments and deliver on their promises, on time. They see it their mission to provide entrepreneurs with the resources required to grow their companies and they exclusively partner with teams who share their values.

Rouven Dresselhaus is Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Cavalry Ventures. His most notable investments at Cavalry include McMakler, Forto and Planetly (acq. by OneTrust). He also serves on numerous boards, e.g. at BRYTER and Sofía.Rouven started his career at Morten Sondergaard and then moved to Capnamic Ventures. In parallel, as a member of theadvisory board, he spearheaded the digitization initiative of his family business Joseph Dresselhaus GmbH & Co. KG (acq. by Nimbus) comprising core processes such as finance, HR, logistics and procurement.Rouven has invested in more than five dozen startups and participated in over two hundred funding rounds. He is a member of YPO, a global community of chief executives, and has been mentoring young entrepreneurs in formats such as Techstars, Techstars SAP.io, next logistics accelerator and the Axel Springer Plug and Play Accelerator. In addition, Rouven is a supporter of the entrepreneurial charity Founders Pledge.

We are an early-stage venture capital fund backing the best tech entrepreneurs across Europe and the US

Backing early-stage startups that drive positive impact for people and planet

Lukasz Gadowski is the Founder and CEO of Team Global. He previously worked at Circ as a Co-Founder. Lukasz Gadowski attended HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management.

Heliad's mission is to empower both entrepreneurs and investors. We find, fund, and support market-leading companies across various verticals and regions to power their next phase of growth. As a listed company and through our strong team and strategic partners, we support companies pre, at, and post IPO and act as a gateway to public equitycapital markets. Our evergreen structure allows us to act independently of usual fund lifecycles. It provides our shareholders with unique access to pre-IPO market returns without any restrictions or limitations regarding investment size and term commitment.

Rheingau Founders is a Berlin&Munich based Venture Capital firm active since 2011. Focusing on pre-seed to Series A investments in Europe, predominantly B2B in the fields of Marketplaces, Software as a Service, InsurTech, and eHealth. Rheingau targets start-ups that have the potential to sustainably disrupt existing processes and value chains.Besides the financial investment, we offer strategic support through the mentorship of our partners.

Nils Glagau

Target Global is a prominent European technology investment firm with a significant presence in the venture capital landscape, boasting over €3 billion in assets under management. The firm operates out of key tech hubs including London, Berlin, Tel Aviv, and Abu Dhabi, and has a rich portfolio featuring some of Europe's most successful techcompanies such as Revolut, Auto1, Copper, Delivery Hero, Docplanner, and Rapyd.Founding and GrowthTarget Global was established in 2015 by Shmuel Chafets and Yaron Valler, who brought a wealth of experience from their tenure at Hasso Plattner Ventures. Their professional partnership dates back 15 years to their time at Giza Venture Capital, a trailblazer in Israel's investment ecosystem, where they honed their investment acumen and industry foresight.Investment Philosophy and ImpactTarget Global stands out in the European tech industry for its diverse team and its ability to identify and capitalize on unique opportunities. The firm's knack for recognizing potential in the early stages of Germany's tech economy led to the emergence of several unicorns in the 2010s. As the European tech industry evolves, Target Global remains at the forefront, seeking out innovative companies like Robovision, Saleor, and Finom. These recent investments reflect the firm's commitment to supporting cutting-edge technology and business models.Fundraising SuccessesTarget Global's fundraising prowess is evident in its six investment funds, which have collectively raised significant capital. The funds range from Early Stage Funds, focusing on nascent startups, to Growth Funds that support more mature companies scaling their operations. The firm's co-investment strategy has led to over €1 billion in capital deployment across a diverse array of partnerships.Backing and AchievementsWith the backing of investors such as FERI, UBS, Allianz X, Mubadala, and Hermes GPE, Target Global has cemented its reputation as a trusted and successful investment firm. Its portfolio spans over 140 companies at various development stages, with a focus on those targeting trillion-dollar markets.Just a few of the many notable companies in the firm’s portfolio include:- Tarabut, MENA’s leading open banking platform, which was recently featured in Forbes Middle East’s list of Top 50 Fintech Companies.- Flo Health, an AI-driven women’s health product, which is the world’s top health and fitness app by downloads.- Robovision, an easy-to-use AI-driven computer vision platform for users to develop their own deep-learning-based solutions.- Enter, a German company that helps homeowners and businesses reduce their carbon footprint.Target Global's track record includes support for 15 unicorn companies, over 20 exits, and 7 IPOs, showcasing its ability to drive growth and success in the European tech ecosystem. The team, comprised of individuals with founder and operator backgrounds, continues to pursue exceptional opportunities to expand the firm's portfolio and influence.Target Global's journey from its inception to its current status as a key player in European venture capital is marked by strategic investments, a commitment to diversity, and a deep understanding of the tech industry's dynamics. With a clear vision for the future, Target Global is poised to continue its role in shaping the next wave of European tech giants.

WestTech Ventures is a Berlin-based VC firm focused on pre-seed & seed investments primarily in Germany in the fields of B2B SaaS in different verticals, and Enterprise Software as well as Mobility and New Work.

Christophe F. Maire is the Founding Partner and CEO of Atlantic Labs, a Berlin-based seed investor dedicated to identifying and investing in innovative digital startup companies. In the last 20+ years, Christophe has built an international track record both as a founder; including gate5 (sold first to Nokia and later developed into HERE and sold tothe German automotive industry) and Plazes.com (also sold to Nokia); and as a farsighted investor named best “European Seed Investor” by Techcrunch two years running. Exited investments include Brands4Friends (eBay), Readmill (Dropbox); StudiVZ, Fyber and Plista. Recent investments led by Atlantic Labs include Medigo, Clue, Jodel, and Campanda, amongst others. Christophe remains actively involved in all his investments, including as a board member of Soundcloud, EyeEm, and Monoqi, and an active promoter of the Berlin startup ecosystem.

Project A is an early-stage venture capital firm, combining financial and operational support for technology companies. In addition to $1bn in assets under management, Project A provides its portfolio companies with a wide range of operational support services. This includes more than 100 experts from key areas such as software engineering,business intelligence, marketing, and recruiting. The portfolio includes companies such as Trade Republic, sennder, KRY, Catawiki, WorldRemit, Spryker, and Voi.

With a track record of over 20 years in venture capital and experience from more than 200 investments in numerous companies BFB Brandenburg Kapital GmbH (BFB) is the most active equity investor in Brandenburg. BFB invests in fast-growing technology-orientated companies throughout the whole life-cycle. Target sectors are ICT/Digital Economy,Life Science, MedTech, Proptech, Industrial Applications. BFB invests in companies based in or with facilities in Brandenburg. The current VC fund is financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) an Investitionsbank des Landes Brandenburg (ILB).

MAHLE is an international development partner and supplier to the automotive industry. With its products for combustion engines and their peripherals as well as solutions for electric vehicles, the group addresses all the crucial issues related to the powertrain and air conditioning technology—from engine systems and components to filtration tothermal management. In 2015, the group generated sales of approximately EUR 11.5 billion with around 76,000 employees and is represented in 34 countries with over 170 production locations.