New fund Ökovation Ventures launched

Among others, SalsUp founder Bernhard Schindler and entrepreneur Gerold Wolfarth are behind the new fund.

Ökovation Ventures is a new SME fund for start-ups from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Up to 750,000 euros are to be invested initially per start-up, and the fund would like to invest a maximum of up to five million euros. The focus is primarily on software start-ups in the seed phase. The shareholders include SalsUp founder Bernhard Schindler, Scalup founder Josef Köppl, Bk Group founder Gerold Wolfarth as well as Robert Hornsteiner from FactorP and Burkhard Schneider from Beewell Business Events.

In addition to financial support, Ökovation Ventures also wants to help out the founders with expertise, network, marketing, service and sales. "We don't just want to be pure financial backers, we want to support our startups with a whole range of gigantic opportunities," says Managing Director Gerold Wolfarth in an interview in Venture Capital Magazine. For example, startups have access to The Grow network and the Invest2grow mentorship program, and can launch Kickstarter campaigns on ScalUp.

So far, the fund has invested in four startups. These include the car subscription model Nucarmo, the insurtech Fresh Insurance, the furniture start-up Flexirio and the mobility start-up Ottobahn.