Twelve female investors, no male

The Business Angels Network Germany has been selecting a Business Angel of the Year since 2001, and it was only in 2019 that a woman was awarded this title for the first time. The money in the start-up scene is in the hands of men. But if you take a closer look, many women can now be found in key roles at venture capitalists. They manage them, they decide on investments, they act as business angels. Here are twelve of them.

I

Kiana Mardi, Investment Director at Alstin Capital

Kiana Mardi has been managing investments at Alstin Capital since 2017, having previously held the same position at early-stage investor Seed + Speed. Both venture capitalists belong to the Maschmeyer Group.

Alstin's focus is on the tech sector. Mardi's current projects include the food logistics start-up Fliit and the proptech Reinvent, which is the first start-up from the real estate sector to be supported by Alstin. As a business angel, she participated in the seed financing of Deinestudienfinazierung in 2018.

Previously, Mardi worked for Rocket Internet, Edarling and helped build Zalando and Zalando Lounge. In 2013, she co-founded the fashion company Glamloop with Alexandra Podeanu, which they successfully sold to a competitor in 2014. From 2015, she helped Holidu to success and was responsible for the start-up's Series A financing round, in which the founder of Booking.com, Kees Koolen, participated via his EQT Ventures fund.

II

Daria Saharova, head of Vito One

Saharova has been the head of venture capitalist Vito One since it was founded in 2015. The Viessmann Group's early-stage investor focuses on prop-techs and has financed over 20 start-ups to date. These include the energy manager start-up Gridx and Home, a provider of a platform for renting out apartments.

Saharova moved to Munich after school to study, became an investment manager and actively supports the start-up scene in the Bavarian capital. She founded the Munich Founders Association and initiated the Venture Wiesn event format.

In 2020, she was awarded the first "Best Investor" prize by the German Start-ups Association.

III

Romy Schnelle, partner at High-Tech Gründerfonds

In 2008, Schnelle started her career at High-Tech Gründerfonds, Germany's largest early-stage investor with a fund volume of almost 900 million euros. Since then, she has helped seven start-ups to exit and currently has nine companies in her portfolio that she manages. As a member of the supervisory board of the tech start-ups Stocard and Quobyte, Schnelle is closely involved in the companies' processes.

Schnelle herself once started out as a founder: in 2003, she helped set up the Fraunhofer spin-off Iosono, which was sold to the Dutch company Barco Audio Technologies in 2014.

Since February 2021, Schnelle has also been Chairwoman of the Investment Committee of the Swiss media group TX Group. There, she primarily supports start-ups in the development and growth phase.

IV

Tanja Emmerling, Partner at High-Tech Gründerfonds

Emmerling is primarily interested in artificial intelligence in the areas of mobility, logistics, IT security, blockchain solutions and SaaS. Since 2018, she has headed the Berlin office of High-Tech Gründerfonds, where she has been supporting start-ups since 2014. She has recorded four exits to date. She is currently mentoring the online marketplace for second-hand fashion Rebelle, for example, and has been supporting the SaaS start-up Virtualq since it was founded.

Before joining High-Tech Gründerfonds, Emmerling worked at the business publisher VNR for six years.

V

Marie-Helene Amtsreiter, Partner at Speedinvest

Amtsreiter is a managing partner at venture capitalist Speedinvest. Based in Munich, she heads up the firm's industrial tech team, which focuses primarily on start-ups in manufacturing, construction, energy, logistics and mobility. According to her own information, the rounds involve up to two million euros.

Speedinvest primarily invests in early-stage European start-ups, and Amtsreiter has been with the company since 2014. Her portfolio of German start-ups includes the recently awarded Cleantech Twaice, for example.

She began her career as CEO of a Croatian mobile communications company, later joining an Austrian competitor. She then moved to the gas and oil industry with the OMV Group. During this time, she met the co-founder of Speedinvest, Oliver Holle, who brought her into the company.

VI

Alexandra Bause, Partner at Apollo Health Ventures

Alexandra Bause founded Apollo Health Ventures in 2016 together with Jens Eckstein and Nils Regge. The focus is on biotech start-ups worldwide. She also heads the VentureLabs program, which initiates and supports the founding of new start-ups aimed at stopping the ageing process. Apollo Health Ventures raised 37 million euros in an initial fund, and a second fund with a target volume of up to 100 million euros was set up at the end of 2020. Half of it invests in early-stage start-ups in which Apollo intends to hold a majority stake. The other half goes to companies where early entry is no longer possible.

VII

Angie Gifford, Vice President at Facebook and multi-supervisory board member

Gifford started her career at Deutsche Bank after graduating in 1987. For the next twenty years, she worked in various management positions at Microsoft, becoming a member of the Executive Board. For the past year, Gifford has been Vice President at Facebook, based in Berlin.

Gifford is also a member of several supervisory boards, including TUI and Thyssen Krupp.

At the beginning of 2020, she was part of one of the financing rounds of the HR start-up Tandemploy, to which only female investors were invited.

VIII

Dagmar Bottenbruch, General Partner at Segenia Capital Partners (formerly DC&F Capital Partners)

Bottenbruch has made a total of 17 angel investments in her career, including the robo-advisor Vamoo, which was sold to Moneyfarm, and the travel platform GoEuro, which is now called Omio.

She started out as a student at Harvard Business School and Berkley, was an equity analyst in New York and worked in management positions at Credit Suisse and Rabobank.

She gained her first experience of the start-up world at the end of the 1990s when she set up the online broker Self Trade Italy. Today she invests and advises start-ups as a business angel, currently for example the FinTech CrossLend. Bottenbruch sits on supervisory boards such as that of the Berentzen Group and is a managing director at the investment firm Segenia Capital Partners.

IX

Mariana Bozesan, co-founder and President of Aqal AG

When investing, Munich-based Aqal AG adheres to the sustainability criteria adopted by the United Nations. Bozesan is not only co-founder, but also President of the investment company, which supports start-ups in the seed and growth phase - the sustainability aspect is crucial here.

Bozesan is a Club of Rome member, developer of the "Theta Model" for minimizing risk in investments and advises the European Union, NGOs and funds on sustainable financing. In 2019, she was named the best female business angel in Europe. The prize is awarded jointly by the associations Business Angels Germany and Business Angels Europe.

X

Malin Holmberg, Partner at Target Global

According to Target Global, the venture capital provider, the gender ratio is balanced; Holmberg has been working for the Berlin-based company from London since 2018. Investments are made in start-ups up to the growth phase, with a volume of 800 million euros.

Holmberg has 15 years of experience in the telecommunications sector: Starting at Vodafone in London, she worked her way up to become CEO of the Dutch company Tele2. She sits on various supervisory boards, including that of the listed audiobook platform Storytel, and advises the Singapore-based venture capitalist Antler.

"We raise our children to believe that boys need to take risks, ask girls out on dates and learn to deal with setbacks. In contrast, girls are rewarded for kind behavior and doing well in school. Founding a startup is a very risky business and that gives men an advantage."

- Holmberg in an interview for the Female Founders Monitor 2020

XI

Andrea Röhm, Vice President at EQT

EQT Equity Partners has been expanding its German business for several years, and in 2017 the Munich-based private equity company also brought Röhm on board. A graduate in business administration, she previously worked at the Boston Consulting Group for five years.

Today, she is Vice President at EQT and is part of the Level20 initiative, which aims to achieve a 20% share of women in management positions in the private equity sector.

XII

Andrea Kranzer, investor and Managing Director at D.A.D. Investment

In 2019, she was the first woman to be named Business Angel of the Year by the Business Angels Network Germany. As CEO of the investment firm D.A.D. Investment, she focuses primarily on start-ups from pre-seed to Series A financing rounds and is particularly interested in digital solutions for the healthcare sector. Her portfolio primarily includes health start-ups such as Heartbeat, Medipee and Oncgnotics.

In 2015, she herself founded the start-up Balloonas, which offers ideas for children's birthday parties. She is also active in several business angel networks, and in 2018 she founded her own network called Angels4Health with a focus on the healthcare sector.

Female Founders Week 2021

This article is part of our special on female entrepreneurship in Germany.

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