# Thomas Grota

> Thomas Grota is a Series A investor at Deutsche Telekom Strategic Investments backing Mobile. See 5 investments, check sizes, portfolio. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: Angel Investor
- Fund: [Deutsche Telekom Strategic Investments](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/t-venture)
- Location: Cologne, Germany
- Total investments: 5
- Last investment: Dec 2014
- Lead investor: 20%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasgrota
- X (Twitter): http://twitter.com/thomasgr

Thomas Grota is a Series A investor at Deutsche Telekom Strategic Investments in Cologne focused on Mobile and Apps. Thomas Grota - Senior Expert in Innovation, Strategy & Technology Investments @ Deutsche Telekom Strategic Investments

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Mobile | 2 | 40% |
| Apps | 1 | 20% |
| SaaS | 1 | 20% |
| Gaming | 1 | 20% |
| Travel | 1 | 20% |

9 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Series A | 2 | 40% |
| Series B | 1 | 20% |
| Series C | 1 | 20% |
| Funding Round | 1 | 20% |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Gini | Gini provides SaaS solution for extracting content from documents such as invoices, receipts, letters, contracts & offers. Gini was founded in 2011 as "smarchive", now employs over 20 employees and is financed in part by T-Venture, as well as the independent comparison website CHECK24 and experienced business angels. |  | Series A | Dec 18, 2014 |  |
| Faregames | Flaregames is a fast-growing mobile game publisher and developer that is focused on creating and bringing fun, high-quality, free-to-play games to smartphones and tablets. The company has a pipeline of games in development internally, and is working with some of the most talented mobile game developers from around the world to bring their games tomobile gamer. Flaregames publishes and builds games across a number of top genres including Tower Defense (and Offense), Real-Time Strategy, RPG, and world building games. The company has also recently signed publishing partnerships with Subatomic Studios, Superweapon, and FuzzyCube Software as part of its portfolio publishing initiative to bring AAA titles from world-class studios to market. Based in sunny Karlsruhe, Germany, flaregames is located just an hour from Frankfurt, and two hours from Paris by train. The company was founded in 2011 by a group of industry veterans, including Klaas Kersting, the former CEO and founder of online games leader Gameforge. Flaregames is committed to an environment free of office politics under the belief that in the games industry, it should be fun to come to work and rewarding to be a part of a great team. The company is venture-backed, having raised $23 Million to employ the best people in mobile games and ensure the company fulfills its destiny of becoming a major publisher reaching and entertaining the massive global audience of mobile gamers. | $12.2M |  | Jun 05, 2014 |  |
| Intelligent Apps | In 2009 founders Niclaus Mewes and Sven Kuelper launched "mytaxi" - the first taxi app with a direct connection between passenger and driver. mytaxi has grown to the fastest growing taxi-app with more than 7 million downloads and 35.000 connected taxis. mytaxi is available in over 40 German cities as well as Washington, Madrid, Barcelona,Warsaw, Vienna, Graz, Salzburg and Zurich. Investors include T-Venture Holding GmbH (Deutsche Telekom AG), Daimler Mobility Services GmbH (Daimler AG), KfW, e42 GmbH and Lars Hinrichs (Cinco Capital GmbH).mytaxi brings a demand for quality to the taxi service for the first time. Every driver using mytaxi has the ability to become a contractor and build their own client base by consistently providing passengers with good service and earning high customer ratings. Through the given peer-to-peer connection between passenger and driver the whole ordering process becomes very transparent for both. The passenger can not only track the taxi’s arrival in the app but also see which driver is coming. For the driver the cost modell is very attractive as they only pay for a successfully completed trip.The aim of mytaxi is to drive the concept of urban mobility and to further strengthen its position as an international leader in this field. Accordingly to that mytaxi took over the app development services for Daimler Mobility Services GmbH (Daimler AG). |  | Series C | Aug 01, 2013 |  |
| Faregames | Flaregames is a fast-growing mobile game publisher and developer that is focused on creating and bringing fun, high-quality, free-to-play games to smartphones and tablets. The company has a pipeline of games in development internally, and is working with some of the most talented mobile game developers from around the world to bring their games tomobile gamer. Flaregames publishes and builds games across a number of top genres including Tower Defense (and Offense), Real-Time Strategy, RPG, and world building games. The company has also recently signed publishing partnerships with Subatomic Studios, Superweapon, and FuzzyCube Software as part of its portfolio publishing initiative to bring AAA titles from world-class studios to market. Based in sunny Karlsruhe, Germany, flaregames is located just an hour from Frankfurt, and two hours from Paris by train. The company was founded in 2011 by a group of industry veterans, including Klaas Kersting, the former CEO and founder of online games leader Gameforge. Flaregames is committed to an environment free of office politics under the belief that in the games industry, it should be fun to come to work and rewarding to be a part of a great team. The company is venture-backed, having raised $23 Million to employ the best people in mobile games and ensure the company fulfills its destiny of becoming a major publisher reaching and entertaining the massive global audience of mobile gamers. | $2.2M | Series A | Apr 04, 2012 |  |
| Intelligent Apps | In 2009 founders Niclaus Mewes and Sven Kuelper launched "mytaxi" - the first taxi app with a direct connection between passenger and driver. mytaxi has grown to the fastest growing taxi-app with more than 7 million downloads and 35.000 connected taxis. mytaxi is available in over 40 German cities as well as Washington, Madrid, Barcelona,Warsaw, Vienna, Graz, Salzburg and Zurich. Investors include T-Venture Holding GmbH (Deutsche Telekom AG), Daimler Mobility Services GmbH (Daimler AG), KfW, e42 GmbH and Lars Hinrichs (Cinco Capital GmbH).mytaxi brings a demand for quality to the taxi service for the first time. Every driver using mytaxi has the ability to become a contractor and build their own client base by consistently providing passengers with good service and earning high customer ratings. Through the given peer-to-peer connection between passenger and driver the whole ordering process becomes very transparent for both. The passenger can not only track the taxi’s arrival in the app but also see which driver is coming. For the driver the cost modell is very attractive as they only pay for a successfully completed trip.The aim of mytaxi is to drive the concept of urban mobility and to further strengthen its position as an international leader in this field. Accordingly to that mytaxi took over the app development services for Daimler Mobility Services GmbH (Daimler AG). | $11M | Series B | Jan 23, 2012 |  |

5 of 5 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [CHECK24](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/check24) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Mercedes-Benz Group AG](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/daimler) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [DTCP](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/dtcp) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [KfW](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/kfw) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Neosfer](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/main-incubator-2) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Neosfer](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/neosfer) — VC Fund, 1 deal together

## About Deutsche Telekom Strategic Investments

VC Fund · Bonn-lengsdorf, Germany

Deutsche Telekom Strategic Investments and its portfolio is managed by Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners, the investment management group of Deutsche Telekom: www.telekom-capital.com

3 contacts available at Deutsche Telekom Strategic Investments.

| Name | Title | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Christoph Hartmann | Senior Manager Controlling & Finance | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/christoph-hartmann |
| Thomas Abraham | Investment Director | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/thomas-abraham-4 |
| Thomas Grota | Senior Expert in Innovation, Strategy & Technology Investments | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/thomas-grota |

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## FAQ

### What does Thomas Grota invest in?

Thomas Grota invests primarily in Mobile, Apps and SaaS startups, most often at Series A and Series B stage. Most of the 5 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in Germany. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### When did Thomas Grota last invest?

The most recent investment recorded for Thomas Grota closed in Dec 2014. Shizune tracks 5 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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