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We are real fans of our founders. Great personalities who have innovative ideas and pursue them with enthusiasm and consistency. Our portfolio is still young and looking forward to growth. We make our decisions quickly, but carefully. On this page we give a small insight into our existing investments.
As consumers in highly developed countries, we take the highest level of food safety for granted. And yet this is not the case: time and again we hear about food recalls due to potential health risks. According to a WHO study, one in ten people fall ill from food-borne diseases every year. There are more than 400,000 deaths worldwide every year, a third of which are children under the age of 5. And this despite an estimated 1.4 billion tests carried out annually by food manufacturers worldwide.
The test methods currently available for pathogens in the food chain are either not fast enough (many foods are delivered before the test result is available) or not precise enough. imd BIOTECH, a spin-off of the University of Vienna, is developing a biosensor-based test platform that enables tests for pathogenic bacteria to be carried out more quickly and with a significantly simplified test workflow. In this way, imd BIOTECH is making a contribution to UN Sustainable Development Goal 3 "Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages".
Sensopro is a Swiss company based in Münsingen. An idea that emerged during sports studies in Bern later became an internationally renowned product. In addition to Switzerland, Germany and Austria, the device has also been sold in Sweden since 2022 and in the Netherlands since 2023 through the two subsidiaries. Sensopro aims to revolutionize the relationship with movement. And it is doing so with a coordination device called Luna.
The Luna challenges everyone because it is a versatile training device. It can be used for gentle but also really challenging training. In physiotherapy, it offers great support by allowing patients to complete customized training sessions independently. In fitness, it can be really strenuous and sweat-inducing. So it offers the right workout for everyone.
For us, this is the first startup investment in a fitness company and the first time that our own entrepreneurial activities have been combined with those of the startups. As a gym operator, we have been working with Sensopro for several years and are very enthusiastic about the product.
When we got to know the founding team around Kaspar Schmocker, we were literally smitten. The likeable Swiss immediately captured our business angel hearts.
Sensopro is now a permanent partner within our fitness companies and we have already been able to utilize many synergies.
The number of people in need of care in Germany has doubled in the last 25 years and is likely to double again in the next 25 years, meaning that up to 8 million people are expected to be affected by 2050.
At the same time, traditional care homes have lost trust, and not just since the coronavirus pandemic. Many senior citizens and their relatives doubt that these facilities are able to ensure a high quality of life in old age.
However, LQ-Home - our latest investment - offers a dignified alternative: senior living communities that focus on real quality of life, even in old age. This concept combines the advantages of communal, self-determined living in a family environment with individual, flexible care that is specifically tailored to the needs of senior citizens.
In concrete terms, this means that the professional teams on site actively involve the senior citizens in need of care in their daily routines and provide them with loving support exactly where they can no longer manage on their own. This principle of "support and challenge" instead of the often criticized "full and clean" approach in traditional elderly care creates an environment in which seniors feel needed and their self-esteem is strengthened.
With over 70 dedicated employees, the LQ-Home team is already delivering on its promise to more than 160 customers: Quality of Life is ageless!
Complori is a Berlin EdTech start-up that turns important future skills into a new hobby for children.
More than 60,000 children have already learned skills for the digital world of tomorrow in a fun way with Complori. In age-appropriate online live courses with certified coaches, children discover exciting topics such as programming or financial knowledge - and develop problem-solving skills, creativity and critical thinking in the process.
Complori gives children meaningful screen time to understand and actively shape the basics of modern technologies and the rules of the digital world through play.
Katja's daughter is also an enthusiastic participant in the Complori courses!
Complori has received several awards for its innovative approach to digital education, including the special prize of the Berlin Innovation Award (2021), the Tech Award (2022) and the KfW Award Gründen for the state of Berlin (2023).
We joined in the second round of financing with 94 investors and an investment of around 1.2 million euros, and together with 180 investors we now form a great network to lead the team into the Bundesliga. By the way: over 70% of the investors are women.
Especially as a working mum, it is often difficult to reconcile work and childcare. We know the problem and were therefore immediately enthusiastic about heynanny.
Simply put, heynanny has made it its mission to fill a gap in coverage. School or daycare already over, but you're still stuck at work... This is not only a problem for parents, but also for companies.
heynanny makes it possible to easily chat with registered nannies, check their availability and then book them. But this is not only for children, but also for adult care!
Whether it's a child, parent, or other family member in need of care- everyone will find it on HeyNanny, with a wide selection of available professionals who are a perfect fit for individual care needs .
Companies can use the offer to provide childcare professionals for employees' children. With a double effect: happy employees and a market positioning as a family-friendly company.
We have some exciting stories with the founders Julia Kahle and Anna Schneider and so it was a quick decision when we were able to grab one of the last Business Angel tickets. And of course we celebrate so much Female Power!
There is increasingly innovative equipment for treating patients, but unfortunately the surgeons' workplace today looks exactly the same as it did 100 years ago. Surgeons stand for hours in pain in oblique forced postures. Due to the current workplace conditions, they sacrifice their health for that of the patients! Facts that shock: 75% suffer from musculoskeletal disorders, 40% take painkillers permanently, every fifth uses performance-enhancing substances. There are real people at the operating table - their muscle fatigue correlates with declining surgical precision. A new solution is needed for surgeons and patient safety.
Hellstern medical GmbH is developing noac - the first intuitive surgical assistant for surgeons - around the dual leadership of Sabrina Hellstern and Claudia Sodha in an interdisciplinary team of surgeons, engineers, electronics developers and ergonomics experts. It has been scientifically proven that noac significantly reduces pain and muscle fatigue. noac takes over the holding work of the body for the surgeons during the operation. Many operations have already been successfully performed on patients with noac.
Hellstern Medical is the second investment we have made together with the Gateway Ventures platform.
Carbonwave, our first investment in the U.S., is completely dedicated to algae, solving several problems in one fell swoop.
Due to climate change and rising ocean temperatures, there has been an explosion of brown algae in recent years. The Caribbean and Mexican coasts are particularly affected. There, the algae carpet is washed ashore and endangers tourism as an important economic factor.
Brown algae are not only extremely rich in nutrients, but can also be processed into a wide range of sustainable products.
Carbonwave takes advantage of this fact, collects brown algae that have washed ashore, and incorporates them into a wide variety of production processes. In this way, fertilizers, various textiles, packaging materials, sports shoe soles, cosmetic products and nutritional supplements, among other things, can be sustainably produced from algae.
The team around founder Geoff Chapin is characterized by an exceptionally high diversity.
SKYSEED combines technological innovation with in-depth knowledge of forest ecosystems to ensure healthy, bio-diverse forests.
According to current studies, approximately 277,000 hectares of forest need to be reforested in Germany. Due to the consequences of climate change (droughts, pest infestation, etc.), the conventional reforestation method of planting seedlings by hand is proving more difficult than ever. This is because the young seedlings are not able to cope with the new requirements.
SKYSEED is taking a new approach. By using drones and artificial intelligence, forests are analyzed and the optimal seed determined. The goal is to build a mixed forest that can adapt to changing conditions in the best possible way and at the same time is economically viable in the long term. The sowing of specially developed pellets is done by drone with a self-developed dropping mechanism. An automated monitoring system ensures that the sowing process is checked.
Skyseed was founded by Ole Seidenberg and Dominik and Simon Wind.
98% of early-stage companies in Africa do not have access to finance. This limits the enormous potential of these young companies to contribute to economic development, to realize their growth and innovation potential, and to create important jobs.
Uncap 's mission is to provide access to funding for every good founder in Africa, regardless of origin, educational background or gender. Through an automated, data-driven and scalable investment process, Uncap is able to invest in thousands of entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa. The due diligence process focuses primarily on measuring the entrepreneurial potential of the founders using an algorithm, investment contracts are standardized and adapted to the local context, and portfolio management consists of a mix of behavioral economics and data analytics.
Uncap was founded in 2019 by Franziska Reh and Isabelle Mohr.
The future of each individual's personal data lies in its self-determined digital management. The w3-ff venture builder emerged from one of our first startup investments: myEGO2go - a digital, blockchain-based platform for self-sovereign identity management (SSI), i.e. the user can control the ownership of his personal data and determine to whom and what information should be shared with third parties. myEGO's understanding is based on the idea of open, secure and user-centered ecosystems.
myEGO itself did not work as a start-up for various reasons, but it is a good example of how assets can be reused once they have been created.
And so myEGO became the w3-ff venture builder, with which we support others in building a company that relies on SSI technology. It is also a good example of an excellent founder-investor relationship. Almost all of the original investors followed founder Tanja Ludwig to venture a new start with the technology already created and the experience gained.
For us, the Venture Builder is a new, exciting path for which we are still looking for fellow campaigners.
The myEGO brand and app still exist and we are convinced that it will become a real success story again. Sometimes it just takes a few detours to get there.
mediaire offers radiologists and neurologists a viable, economical solution for quantitative brain volumetry and lesion characterization. The mdbrain software solution is fully integrated into a radiology center's local IT system, enabling both rapid report generation within minutes and the highest possible level of data protection. Patient data does not leave the practice or clinic in any form.
mediaire's mission is to sustainably improve the quality of diagnosis and treatment for patients through more efficient image data analysis and improved workflows in radiology.
mediairewas founded in Berlin in 2018 by Dr. Andreas Lemke and Dr. Jörg Döpfert.
For the investment in mediare, we used pooling with the investor network Gateway Ventures.
Our father always advised us to look for business "that no one wants to do." And pest control is truly not the first thing two ladies think of. Until we met Tim Kirchhof and his team.
The young founder offers a digital-systemic solution to a very real problem: getting rid of pests as quickly as possible. What is a nuisance in private life can threaten the existence of some companies.
Traplinked is not about the indiscriminate use of control agents, but about a clever monitoring system that ultimately leads to uncompromised food hygiene, a toxic-free environment and a new standard of quality of life.
With StoryBox, companies can create and organize smartphone-based videos for any application scenario. With the help of the StoryBox app, videos can be created and shared step-by-step by any employee using intuitive templates (so-called "storyboards"). Image settings and scene lengths are suggested independently by the app, as is automated creation including corporate design. Content can be stored via the DSGVO-compliant StoryBox cloud and accessed, filtered and analyzed from anywhere. Well-known customers such as Iveco, Erste Group, Evonik, Alten, KTM already rely on StoryBox.
StoryBox makes it possible to communicate more effectively with video. Companies can use video to explain processes, document procedures, train employees, record events, generate social media content or present products.
Blackwave GmbH specializes in the hot extrusion of carbon fiber reinforced plastics (Carbon-SMC).
With the Carbon-SMC process, Blackwave realizes complex components that cannot be produced with conventional carbon manufacturing processes. The low cycle time and the high degree of automation guarantee a very economical production of lightweight components.The two founders, Bastian Behrens and Raphael Setz, got to know each other during their studies at the Technical University of Munich and gained early experience in the field of manufacturing carbon fiber reinforced plastics. In April 2016, Blackwave GmbH was founded, thus laying the foundation for today's company. With 16 employees by now, Blackwave GmbH serves its customers from the automotive, aerospace, sports equipment and mechanical engineering sectors.
Only just under 6% of the global turnover with chocolate arrives where the cocoa has grown, namely in West Africa! Most of the added value is generated outside Africa, especially in Europe.
Fairafric and the committed Munich-based founder Hendrik Reimers want to counteract this imbalance. To this end, fairafric is building a modern, solar-powered chocolate factory in Ghana and achieving 10 times more sales in the country of origin of the cocoa bean than before.
This can create 50 jobs and a sustainable annual income of over $1 million in a rural region in Ghana.
The motivation for this - rather conservative & social - investment were immediately clear. We love chocolate and are big Africa fans. Helping this wonderful continent to help itself is a great concern for us. If this happens with the commitment of a young Munich entrepreneur and a great product, all the better.
Come and work with us in our new CK Workspace in Unterschleissheim!
We offer offices, desks, meeting and workshop rooms in a cool, modern and personal atmosphere.
Our special: a 200sqm roof terrace to work, eat or chill!