Activant opens office in Berlin

The US fund wants to focus on growth financing. The head will be former GFC investor Maximilian Mayer.

Steve Sarracino is the founder of the Connecticut-based fund Activant. Last year, he met Maximilian Mayer in Berlin to talk about financing in the European start-up scene. They noted that growth capital in particular is hard to find. Now the fund has decided to open an office in Berlin and made Mayer its head. "There are countless promising tech companies from Berlin and Germany, many of which I have followed in my previous role since the seed phase. Now we want to support them financially and operationally in the growth phase," he says of his new role.

Mayer is no stranger to the company: He was an investor in the Samwer brothers' fund Global Founders Capital (GFC) and founded the food startup Redi. At Activant, he is counting on the German talent that can be found in this country, especially in the MINT subjects. The fund chose Berlin as its location for strategic reasons, it says.

Activant's focus is on start-ups in e-commerce, logistics, healthcare and fintech. It also wants to maintain ties to its home country: "Activant is looking for partnerships with companies that are expanding across the Atlantic, in both directions," says Sarracino.