# Bernhard Niesner

> Bernhard Niesner is a seed investor at busuu (London) backing Software and E-Learning. See 9 investments, check sizes, portfolio. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: Angel Investor
- Fund: [busuu](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/busuu)
- Location: London, United Kingdom
- Total investments: 9
- Last investment: Sep 2025
- Lead investor: 0%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/bernhardniesner
- X (Twitter): http://twitter.com/bernardooo
- Website: https://x.com/bernardooo

Bernhard Niesner is a seed investor at busuu in London focused on Software and E-Learning. Bernhard Niesner is the CEO and Co-Founder of busuu – the world´s largest social network for language learning with more than 35m users. busuu provides language courses in 12 different languages combined with direct interaction with native speakers from the community. The London-based start-up received several awards and was named “Best EducationStart-Up in 2011” by TechCrunch. busuu is backed by renown business angels like Martin Varsavsky and received investment from PRO-Founders Capital.Before founding busuu, Bernhard worked at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants. In addition to busuu, he is Associated Professor at IE Business School in the area of online marketing.Bernhard graduated summa cum laude in International Business from the University of Vienna and holds an MBA (with honors) from IE Business School. In 2009 he was awarded “Entrepreneur of the year” in Austria.

## Round sizes

| Stage | Round size |
| --- | --- |
| Seed | $650k–$7.4M |

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Software | 3 | 33% |
| E-Learning | 2 | 22% |
| Apps | 1 | 11% |
| SaaS | 1 | 11% |
| Legal | 1 | 11% |

26 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Seed | 8 | 89% |
| Angel | 1 | 11% |

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Austria | 6 | 67% |
| Germany | 2 | 22% |
| United Kingdom | 1 | 11% |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| encentive | We provide an energy demand management platform that connects energy providers with energy demanding appliances. We solve the problem of wasting valuable renewable energy by rewarding appliance owners for shifting their electricity demand to times when renewable energy is abundant. We put renewable energy to work. Efficient, scalable and fullyautomated! | $7.4M | Seed | Sep 15, 2025 |  |
| Heizma | Heizma make climate-neutral heating possible and easy for every family. It offers complete solutions that include not only heating systems, but also photovoltaic systems, power storage, e-charging stations, and intelligent energy management systems. | $2.8M | Seed | Apr 29, 2025 |  |
| Shadowmap | Shadowmap aims to help with this procedure. Our contribution is the democratization of insolation data availability. We are creating the tools and inspiring humanity to re-establish a harmonious relationship with the Sun. | $1.1M | Seed | Jun 27, 2023 |  |
| notarity | notarity is the most user-friendly platform for fully digital collaboration with notaries. Notarize documents online from anywhere at anytime. |  | Seed | Apr 28, 2023 |  |
| Glacier | Glacier expertise in providing step-by-step innovative solutions that help in carbon reduction from every company globally. |  | Seed | Jan 18, 2023 |  |
| Ahead App | Master your emotions in 5 minutes a day.Ahead is a personalized pocket coach that provides bite-sized, science-driven tools to boost emotional intelligence.Think of it as a pocket cheerleader towards a better, more fulfilling, clearer-minded way of life.Most of us continuously set goals for our life - for our career, our relationships, ourhealth. Yet, it’s damn hard to turn those goals into reality! We know - we’ve been there ourselves. That’s why we know there’s a way to make it work. And that’s what aHead is all about!Get early access: ahead-app.com |  | Seed | Nov 04, 2022 |  |
| Paired | Paired is to make couple relationships happier and healthier. We do this by helping people to make fun, small, positive steps to improve their relationship each day. | $1M | Angel | Oct 02, 2020 |  |
| Mimo | Mimo is an app that teaches the computer science in a fun and interactive way. Mimo’s lessons are fun and interactive, fit into people’s everyday lives, and lead them to make a habit of self-improvement. Getting through to more than 1.5 million people and achieving completion numbers far above the industry average, Mimo is well on its way tobecoming the one-stop shop for education and entertainment on the go. | $650K | Seed | Mar 09, 2017 |  |
| Anyline | Anyline offers a hassle-free scanning solution that will save time and money. It is a Software Development Kit (SDK), that allows building real-time mobile OCR apps with the highest recognition rates, not requiring any server infrastructure. Anyline has supported customers with the digitization process in the following industries: UtilityIndustry, Government, MRO Industry, Transport Industry, Automotive Industry, Tourist Industry, and Product Industry. | $1.6M | Seed | Feb 18, 2016 |  |

9 of 9 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [First Climate](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/first-climate) — VC Fund, 2 deals together
- [Angel Invest](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/angel-invest-ventures) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Big Cheese Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/big-cheese-ventures) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Calm/Storm VC](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/calm-storm-ventures) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Flyer One Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/flyer-one-ventures) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Future Fund](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/future-fund-6cf4) — VC Fund, 1 deal together

## About busuu

VC Fund · London, United Kingdom

With more than 90 million users globally, busuu is the world's largest social network for language learning. Through a website and mobile apps, the business offers free and premium paid-for access to interactive courses for 12 languages.Uniquely, the platform encourages collaborative learning by offering users the unique opportunity tolearn the language and practice their listening, writing, reading and speaking with assistance from a rapidly growing community of native speakers. In this way, every busuu user is both student of a foreign language and tutor of their own ‘mother tongue’.busuu was founded by Bernhard Niesner and Adrian Hilti in early 2008, with a vision to enable everyone in the world to learn a second language. Based in London, busuu offers an integrated, cross-channel platform which is constantly evolving to meet the demands of an increasingly mobile world population. Winner of 'Best Education Start‐up' at The Europas TechCrunch Awards in 2011 and CeBIT Innovation Award in 2010. The company now also offers corporate language training solutions for large international companies around the world.The company is named after the busuu language of Cameroon. According to an ethnological study from the 1980s, Busuu is spoken by only 8 people.

5 contacts available at busuu.

| Name | Title | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Adrian Hilti | Co-Founder | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/adrian-hilti |
| Antoine Sakho | Head of Product | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/antoine-sakho |
| Bernhard Niesner | Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/bernhard-niesner |
| Gustav Rydstedt | Vice President of Engineering | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/gustav-rydstedt |
| Kirsten Howes | Chief Learning Officer | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/kirsten-howes |

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## FAQ

### What does Bernhard Niesner invest in?

Bernhard Niesner invests primarily in Software, E-Learning and Apps startups, most often at Seed and Angel stage. Most of the 9 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in Austria. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### What is Bernhard Niesner's check size?

Bernhard Niesner typically joins rounds of $650k–$7.4M at Seed. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds Bernhard Niesner participates in.

### When did Bernhard Niesner last invest?

The most recent investment recorded for Bernhard Niesner closed in Sep 2025. Shizune tracks 9 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.

### Is Shizune's investor data accurate?

Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

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