Sketchfab and the democratization of 3D content

We’re about to see a lot more 3D content in our digital lives.  Various trends, some years in the making, are now intersecting to make this a near-term reality.

On the production side, 3D has of course existed for many years – this has been, in particular, the world of Computer Aided Design (CAD), which originated in part from MIT’s Sketchpad project in the early sixties.  In one form or another, 3D has been used as a professional format across many industries, such as architecture, engineering, construction, and entertainment. Creation of 3D content (even for consumer-facing products like gaming) has remained largely the province of a comparatively small group of specialized professionals. Continue reading “Sketchfab and the democratization of 3D content”

Hardware Startups: The VC Perspective

Among all the excitement for the Internet of Things and the resurgence of hardware as an investable category, venture capitalists, many of whom new to the space, have been re-discovering the opportunities and challenges of working alongside entrepreneurs to build hardware companies.  Below are the slides that David Rogg and I prepared for the recent Connected Conference, a great global event held in Paris.  They’re a good snapshot of how someone like me thinks about the hardware space, mid-2015.

 

 

The “Straight to A” Round

The venture financing path has evolved incredibly fast over the last 18 months. In this very busy financing market, what used to be a reasonably well understood progression from a seed round to a Series A to a Series B, etc. has now morphed into a more complex nomenclature of pre-seeds ($500k or less), crowdfunding rounds (especially for hardware), seeds ($1M-$2M, 6-9 months after the pre-seed), seed primes (an extra $1M or so, 12-18 months after the seed), Series A (now routinely $10-$12M in size, occasionally up to $15M), Series A-1, Series B, C, D, E, F etc. (as companies remain private longer).

The latest entrant in this rapidly evolving nomenclature seems to be what I’d call the “Straight to A” round, where the founders skip the seed stage altogether and raise directly a $5M-$10M Series A, often before building anything, sometimes even before incorporating a company. I had seen it here and there in the past, but it now seems to have become an accelerating trend. Continue reading “The “Straight to A” Round”

The Astounding Resurrection of AI [Slides]

A few days ago, I was invited to speak at a Yale Entrepreneurship Breakfast about about one of my favorite areas of interest, Artificial Intelligence.  Here are the slides from the talk — a primer on how AI rose from of the ashes to become a fascinating category for startup founders and venture capitalists.  Very much a companion to my earliest post about our investment in x.ai.   Many thanks to my colleague Jim Hao, who worked with me on this presentation.

x.ai and the emergence of the AI-powered application

AI is experiencing an astounding resurrection.  After so many broken promises, the term “artificial intelligence” had become almost a dirty word in technology circles.  The field is now rising from the ashes.  Researchers who had been toiling away in semi-obscurity over the last few decades have suddenly become superstars and have been aggressively recruited by the largest Internet companies:  Yann LeCun (see his recent talk at our Data Driven NYC event here) by Facebook; Geoff Hinton by Google; Andrew Ng by Baidu.  Google spent over $400 million to acquire DeepMind, a 2 year old secretive UK AI startup. The press and social media are awash with thoughts on AI.  Elon Musk cautions us against its perils.
What’s different this time? As Irving Wladawsky-Berger pointed out in a Wall Street Journal article, “a different AI paradigm emerged. Instead of trying to program computers to act intelligently–an approach that hadn’t worked because we don’t really know what intelligence is– AI now embraced a statistical, brute force approach based on analyzing vast amounts of information with powerful computers and sophisticated algorithms.”  In other words, the resurgence of AI is partly a child of Big Data, as better algorithms (in particular, what’s known as “deep learning”, pioneered by LeCun and others) have been enabled by larger than ever datasets and the ability to process those datasets at scale at reasonable cost.

Continue reading “x.ai and the emergence of the AI-powered application”

Lending Club IPO: Nice Guys Don’t Finish Last, and Other Lessons

The superb Lending Club success story is what the startup world is all about: a software-based reinvention of massive and inefficient industry; a product that puts consumers first and delivers undeniable benefits ; and an entrepreneurial mega-hit that brings incredible riches and returns to its founder and investors.

In some ways, Lending Club is a classic Silicon Valley story; in some other ways, it is pretty atypical. As a friend of Renaud Laplanche’s for over 20 years, I have had a chance to witness from up close some parts of his journey with Lending Club. It is full of interesting lessons for entrepreneurs and the tech industry in general:

Continue reading “Lending Club IPO: Nice Guys Don’t Finish Last, and Other Lessons”

A Few Non-Obvious Things I Learned as a New VC

I joined FirstMark as a partner a little over 18 months ago now, and it’s been a thrilling ride.  It’s also felt like a steep learning curve: lots of nuances, and lots of institutional memory to absorb.  Below is a glimpse into what I’ve seen happening “behind the scenes” on the VC’s side to the table – stuff that was not obvious to me in my former roles as entrepreneur, angel investor or corporate incubator/strategic.

1.  A real commitment.  Like for many new VCs operating at the Series A level,  the biggest shock to the system was the realization that one gets to make very, very few investments – basically two or three a year.  You quickly find yourself having to choose between a number of opportunities you really like. Making a new investment is a big deal, and a decision that one has to live with for years to come. You also get to work with an entrepreneur very closely, and live up to their level of trust and expectations.  In a way, it feels like a marriage, except one where divorce is not really an option.  There’s an occasionally brutal asymmetry between the fundraising process (which can be quick and intense, especially if it is competitive) and what happens afterwards, which is a lot of hard work over a long period of time.  Both the entrepreneur and the VC would be well advised to get to know who they’re about to work with for the next few years of their lives.  You don’t need to be friends with your VC (although friendships develop over years of working together), but you do need a core of mutual respect and commitment to hard work and excellence, as well as a shared vision of the future.

Continue reading “A Few Non-Obvious Things I Learned as a New VC”

The French Startup Ecosystem: At a Tipping Point

I know, when thinking about hotbeds of startup innovation, France doesn’t exactly jump to mind. Sure, there are interesting things happening in European tech – in London, or Berlin (which I covered here). Or Finland. But France? Ask U.S investors and entrepreneurs, and you’ll hear more or less the same thing: high taxes. Impossible to fire people. Government intervention. Language barrier. Fear of failure. Strikes. The country of the the 35 hour law, where people are prohibited by law to answer email past 6pm.

Yet things have started to accelerate meaningfully in French early stage tech, particularly in the last two or three years. I was fortunate to be recently invited as part of a delegation of US VCs and media guests to spend a few days in Paris to meet with local entrepreneurs and VCs, as well as President Hollande and other senior members of the French government. As a Frenchman who has spent his entire professional career in the US, I’m perhaps more cynical than most about those matters, but I came back from my trip genuinely intrigued by the potential of the French tech scene.

For anyone who cares to look, the fairly obvious conclusion is that there’s a huge gap between perception and reality, when it comes to the French startup ecosystem. Very significant progress has been made on all fronts – more interesting startups, more funding, lots more talent rushing into the sector, improved legistation, etc. – yet the word has not caught on.

Continue reading “The French Startup Ecosystem: At a Tipping Point”

Can the Bloomberg Terminal be “Toppled”?

In the eye of some entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, the Bloomberg terminal is a bit of an anomaly, perhaps even an anachronism.  In the era of free information on the Internet and open source Big Data tools, here’s a business that makes billions every year charging its users to access data that it generally obtains from third parties, as well as the tools to analyze it.  You’ll hear the occasional jab at its interface as reminiscent of the 1980s.  And at a time of accelerating “unbundling” across many industries, including financial services, the Bloomberg terminal is the ultimate “bundling” play: one product, one price, which means that that the average user uses only a small percentage of the terminal’s 30,000+ functions.  Yet, 320,000 people around the world pay about $20,000 a year to use it.

Continue reading “Can the Bloomberg Terminal be “Toppled”?”

Recombine

The field of bioinformatics is having its “big bang” moment.   Of course, bioinformatics is not a new discipline and it has seen various waves of innovations since the 1970s and 1980s, with its fair share of both exciting moments and disappointments (particularly in terms of linking DNA analysis to clinical outcomes).  But there is something special happening to the industry right now, accelerated by several factors:

Continue reading “Recombine”

Introduction to the Internet of Things (Slides)

I’m doing a talk on the Internet of Things tomorrow at the SIIA’s “IIS: Breakthrough” conference tomorrow, and here are the slides I’ll use.  It’s meant to be a high level introduction to the topic, for a broad audience of “information industry” professionals.  Also used an earlier version of those slides at the WIN Global Innovator last week, which was fun. Feedback welcome.

10 Quick Takeaways from CES 2014

1.  Big brand curved TVs and mega booths are cool, but to me this year’s show was all about the rise of the crowdfunded hardware startup.

 

 2.  It’s official, there are now more wearable wristband vendors than there are human wrists on the planet.

 

3.  The wearables category is still waiting for its disruptive “iPhone moment”.  New releases show nice progress, but mostly incremental.  Smart watches have a long way to go.

 

4.  Accelerating trends on display, still early: family tech and senior tech.

 

5.  The lines between the tech and non-tech worlds keep blurring.  Pizza Hut and Ford both had a very noticeable presence and were pitching their tech innovation.

 

6.  Hardware innovation is truly global.  Some of the most interesting startups I met were from Manchester (UK), Ukraine and Lebanon.  France continues to be very active in the space (Parrot, Withings, Netatmo, Sen.se, etc.). [UPDATE: See below some great 3D visualizations of the latest Withings and Sen.se products, produced by SketchFab]

 

7.  China was left, front and center.  Not just as the “workshop of the world” but, more strikingly, as as a producer/innovator in their own right. The rise of the juggernaut only seems to be accelerating.

 

8.  In home automation, entrepreneurs were talking a lot about AllJoyn, Qualcomm’s open source platform and language, and the AllSeen alliance that is going to promote an open standard for the Internet of Things.

 

9.  In 3D printing, Makerbot is killing it, with its three gorgeous new printers.  Toys still seem to be the killer app for consumer 3D printing, although the new Chefjet chocolate 3D printer by 3D systems was pretty awesome. Consolidation in the consumer 3D printer space seems likely, in the not-too-distant future.

 

10.  Yves Behar and Bre Pettis are incredible creative and entrepreneurial minds, who deserve all the hype they get.  I got to witness this firsthand as a judge on the finals of the first TechCrunch Hardware Battlefield (with Jen McCabe, also very sharp), as they turned the judging into a real time mentoring session, providing  insights that were worth way more than the top $50,000 prize.  Exciting and inspiring.

 

The Rise of the Female Hardware Entrepreneur

As the fundamentally important debate over women in technology and entrepreneurship rages on (most recently sparked by what Paul Graham said, or perhaps didn’t say), I’ve been intrigued by the comparatively higher proportion of women who seem to be starting companies in one of my areas of predilection: hardware (broadly defined: open hardware, Internet of Things, wearable computing, 3D printing, etc.).

I don’t have much data here, other than my anecdotal personal experience, both as a VC and as the organizer of Hardwired NYC. But, without having to rack my brain for more than a minute or two, a bunch of names of great female founders and/or CEOs in the general hardware space comes up, including, in no particular order:

  • Limor Fried, founder, Adafruit
  • Ayah Bdeir, founder and CEO, littlebits (who spoke at Hardwired NYC last November)
  • Amanda Peyton, co-founder and CEO, Grand St (see her talk at Hardwired NYC here)
  • Jenny Lawton, President, Makerbot (see her talk at Hardwired NYC here)
  • Kegan Schowenburg, co-founder and CEO, Sols (speaking at Hardwired NYC next week)
  • Helen Zelman, co-founder, Lemnos Labs
  • Cheryl Kellond, co-founder and CEO, Bia
  • Monisha Perkash, co-founder and CEO, Lumo BodyTech
  • Daniela Perdomo, co-founder and CEO, GoTenna
  • Mary Huang, co-founder, Continuum Fashion
  • Meredith Perry, founder and CEO, uBeam
  • Julia Hu, founder and CEO, Lark
  • Debra Sterling, founder and CEO, GoldieBlox

And there are many more (both in the U.S and globally), which is exciting.

The question, of course, is why hardware would be an area of particular focus for female entrepreneurs. As a category, hardware is broad, lends itself to all sorts of products, and as a result feels pretty gender-neutral.

Could it be that there are more female role models in hardware, since it is often said that role models are particularly important to female entrepreneurs ? It doesn’t appear that way. Sure, women have run some of the biggest hardware companies in the world (Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman at HP; Ursual Burns at Xerox) but it’s unclear how much of an inspiration they would be to early stage tech entrepreneurs, and more importantly, a number of software or internet companies have been run by women as well. Perhaps more relevant are female entrepreneurs like Limor Fried, who under her “Lady Ada” moniker has become the closest equivalent to a celebrity in the hardware alpha geek world (and beyond, through her appearance on the cover of Wired in 2011).

What’s interesting is that hardware lends itself particularly well to new entrants – there’s been a big gap in innovation in hardware in the last 10 or 15 years (with some notable exceptions like Apple), and as a result there’s a “missing generation”, and plenty of opportunities for new entrepreneurs to become leaders in what, in some ways, feels like a brand new field.

Curious if anyone can think of an explanation?

Regardless, and to the extent this is indeed a trend, it is particularly exciting and promising, and we should collectively think about how to accelerate it and extend it to other areas of tech entrepreneurship.

*****

UPDATE:

Got some great feedback on Twitter, and while my initial goal was not to be comprehensive here, thought it could actually be helpful to start a running list of female hardware founders  – perhaps it can become a good resource.   Here are the people that were recommended to me, who else should I add? (please add in comments)

First Name Last Name Company Location
Jeri Ellsworth Technical Illusions Bellevue, WA
Kati Bicknell Kindara Boulder, CO
Mary Turner AlertMe Cambridge, UK
Liz Salcedo Everpurse Chicago, IL
Anastasia Leng Hatch New York, NY
Christina Mercando Ringly New York, NY
Ezster Ozsvald Notch New York, NY
Gauri Nanda Toymail New York, NY
Lisa Fetterman Nomiku San Francisco, CA
Laura Berman Melon Santa Monica, CA
Amanda Williams Fabule Fabrications Montreal, Canada
Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino Good Night Lamp London, UK
Alice Taylor MakieLab London, UK
Natasha Carolan MakieLab London, UK
Becky Pilditch Bare Conductive London, UK
Becky Stewart Codasign London, UK
Bethany Koby TechnologyWillSaveUs London, UK
Emily Brooke Blaze London, UK
Jane ni Dhulchaoinfi Sugru London, UK
Jessi Baker Provenance London, UK
Ana Burica Teddy The Guardian Zagreb, Croatia
Mila Burger Loccie Zagreb, Croatia
Alicia Asin Libelium Zaragoza, Spain

A Guide to the Berlin Tech Ecosystem

The rise of Berlin as an entrepreneurial center is not exactly news, and a number of U.S. VC funds or angel investors have been active there for a while. My overall impression, however, is that many U.S.-based entrepreneurs and investors have only a fuzzy idea about what is going on over there, and arguably in Europe in general – a missed opportunity in my opinion, and perhaps one of the several reasons why Europe is still a largely underserved opportunity in terms of venture capital investment.  The globalization of entrepreneurship has been one of the key trends in our industry.  At this stage, there’s enough evidence of global success stories coming out of Europe that smart U.S. investors should be routinely investing in the area, despite the traditional issues associated with early stage investing in Europe (multiple markets, multiple languages, tax and regulatory issues, different attitudes towards risk/failure, etc.).

From that perspective, I thought it might make sense to share notes (very much in note format) from recent travel to Berlin (among other reasons to speak at Data Days, a fun event) and a number of conversations with Berlin-based entrepreneurs and investors in other contexts.  This is meant to be a “beginner’s guide” for outsiders like me, not the ultimate reference on the topic.

Overall, there’s plenty of reasons to be excited about Berlin.  While some claim that the real action has already moved on to other locations (like Istanbul), the Berlin tech ecosystem is still early, and in many ways trailing other emerging global tech centers like London and NYC, probably by a few years.  The fundamentals, however, are encouraging, particularly considering that the government (very active both in London and NYC) has been largely absent from the development of the Berlin ecosystem, so pretty much everything that has been happening there so far has been driven by raw, grassroots entrepreneurial energy.

Many thanks to Christophe Maire (currently CEO of Txtr), Jess Erickson (General Assembly Berlin), Koen Lenssen (Tengelmann Ventures) and Saskia Ketz (SumAll) for reviewing this post.

Key characteristics

Unique

  • Just like New York or San Francisco are not like the rest of the U.S., Berlin is not like the rest of Germany
  • Artistic (buoyant contemporary art scene), rebellious culture (or “counterculture”), which seems to translate well into design talent
  • Innovative and fun (renowned nightlife)
  • Cheap, large apartments – particularly compared to tech centers like London, NYC or SF where finding affordable housing is an extraordinary challenge. Some say that this won’t last long if Berlin continues on its current trajectory; at the same time, the city is very large and housing supply may exceed demand for a while.
  • Socially open, no class system, left leaning with an openly gay mayor (Klaus Wowereit) from the SPD (social democratic party), in power since 2001.
  • Capital of one of the world’s largest economy, yet due to history, no local industry – local talent does not have many other options
  • Traditional economic centers in Germany such as Munich, Frankfurt and Hamburg lag behind in terms of tech startup activity – which doesn’t mean that those cities do not have interesting companies: for example, Hamburg seems to have a gaming cluster (Bigpoint, Innogames, GoodGames, etc.), and both Facebook and Google have offices there; Munich has West Wing (online shopping club for Home & Living, received $50M of investment in June 2012), Frankfurt/Wiesdaben is active in social entrepreneurship (Hans Reitz/Grameen).  But Berlin seems to have strong gravitational pull; for example, when airbnb arrived in Europe, it set up shop in Hamburg after acquiring German clone Accoleo , but subsequently moved moved all operations to Berlin. Twitter also chose Berlin over other German cities to base its operations.  MTV has been there since 2004 (after moving from Munich).

Immigrant-friendly

  • Part of the European Union (doesn’t solve all labor laws issues, but helps tremendously in terms of recruiting talent from other EU countries)
  • Just about everybody seems to speak English
  • International founders: perhaps ironically, a number of Berlin startups, including some of the most prominent ones, were founded or co-founded by non German nationals, including Souncloud (Swedish founders), Gidsy (Dutch founders), Amen (one American co-founder), Incrediblue (Greek founders), Readmill (Swedish founder), GoEuro (American), rules.io (American), GetYourGuide (Swiss), etc.

Solid supply of technical talent

  • For now at least, there’s much less of a talent war than in other tech hubs, particularly SF and NYC, but some say it is changing fast.
  • Strong German work ethic (one of the reasons for an overall low employee turnover, together with restrictive laws around employment termination and the German social structure in general).
  • Solid universities, although fairly theoretical: Humboldt, Technical University, Freie Universiat.  Berlin also has two of Germany’s top art and design universities: UdK and Weißensee
  • Geographically close to cheap talent: Leipzig, Warsaw, etc.
  • There’s some history of large tech companies like Siemens having a strong presence in Berlin, but by the sound of it, at this stage startups are the only game it town in terms of recruiting top technical talent

Increasingly solid community infrastructure

  • Lots of co-working spaces: Agora Collective, Ahoy, Betahaus, ClubOffice, Co.Up, LaunchCo, Mobilesuite, Raumstation, St Oberholz, Tante Renate, etc – some spaces are essentially cafes, others are actual office spaces with scheduled activities.
  • More on the way: The Factory
  • Several accelerator programs: StartupBootcamp Berlin, Mcube, Hubraum, Project A, YouIsNow, Berlin Startup Academy
  • Education: General Assembly now offers enterpreneurship courses in collaboration with BetaHaus
  • Press: Berlin has its own industry blogs, including Venture Village and Silicon Allee.  Techcrunch (largely Mike Butcher) covers extensively Berlin startups.

Still early:

  • While it’s been growing for a few years now, the tech ecosystem still generally feels early, compared to London or NYC
  • Berlin was always known for hacker culture (chaos computer club) leading to cutting edge outfits in 90’s (art+com, convergence, gate5).
  • Started with the Samwer brothers – was a mixed blessing for Berlin.  While starting successful businesses, they perfected the art of the startup copycat (with the resulting bad reputation).  Examples: StudiVZ (Facebook clone), Citydeal (Groupon clone, assets acquired by Groupon),  Zalando (originally a Zappos clone, has expanded beyond shoes since), Wimdu (airbnb clone)
  • Now produces original startups (readmill, researchgate, goEuro, etc.), with an increasing number with global relevance and aspirations (SoundCloud)
  • Berlin seems still mostly focused on consumer internet companies (with a good amount of mobile plays), with comparatively fewer B2B or enterprise startups; it is not a full ecosystem yet from that perspective, with some exceptions like cloudControl (European PaaS provider)
  • While there is a fair distribution of startups across the stages (from seed to late stage), overall the ecosystem is too recent to have a very solid track record of exits.  Some examples:  ImmoScout (sold to DT for €450m), Idealo (a comparison shopping site, acquired by Axel Springer in 2006), gate5 (today “nokia Maps” employing 800 people in Berlin), StudiVZ (sold to one of its investors, Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, for €85 million in 2007), MyphotoBook (sold to Holtzbrink), Nugg.ad (provider of predictive behavioral targeting solutions for digital advertising, acquired by Deutsche Post in 2010 for €50M), KaufDa (local search and local promotion search, acquired by Axel Springer), Zanox (acquired by Springer for €250m), Casacanda (online shopping club for daily design inspirations, acquired by Fab.com in February 2012 in an all-stock deal valuing the company at around $10M), Brands4Friends (sold to eBay for €150m, etc.)
  • Sounds like the government hasn’t quite caught on – in starck contrast to London or NYC.  The success of the Berlin ecosystem seems to have been entirely driven by a grassroot, community effort.
  • There’s less VC money available than in other places like NYC (or to some extent London); companies tend to be very capital efficient and tend to monetize early .
  • One point people disagreed about: some say the ecosystem is still a bit  “clique-ish”, the community hasn’t yet completely geled as a full integrated, selflessly supportive environment (at least compared to SF or NYC) –others disagreed, citing Berlin’s community as one of its key assets.
  • Successful entrepreneurs are starting to give back to the ecosystem in the form of active angel investments.  Some notable examples: Dario Suter, Fabian Heilemann, Christophe Gras, Christophe Maire, Christian Vollman, Marco Börries, Martin Sinner, Lukasz Gadowski, Michael Brehm, etc.
  • Rocket Internet (Samwer brothers) plays have alone raised close to 1bn in 2012 alone and breeds large number of 2nd generation entrepreneurs with international experience. Employs overall 10,000 people in Berlin alone.
  • Team Europe, project-A and other Incubators breed ambitious international companies (Madvertise, Delivery hero, Sponsor pay)

Notable Startups

  • Soundcloud: world’s leading social sound platform
  • Amen: the place for creating and sharing opinions about the extra ordinary things in life.
  • Gidsy: community marketplace for authentic experiences
  • 6wunderkinder: multi-platform productivity solutions for individuals, groups and businesses
  • Wooga: third largest social games developer in the world
  • Delivery Hero:  global network of online food ordering marketplaces
  • Zalando: largest European  eCommerce group (including shoes)
  • 9flats (peer to peer apartment rentals)
  • Lieferheld: platform for ordering and paying food online
  • EyeEm: smart photo-sharing application for smartphones
  • Txtr: distributed eBooks platform
  • Readmill: social and shareable reading platform
  • Researchgate: community for researcher and scientists
  • MoviePilot: promotion platform for movies (DFJ esprit)
  • Monoqi.com: highly curated commerce
  • Other companies/products that came back in conversations: HelloFresh, Trademob, Travis-Cl, Fort Rabbit, Cobot.

Angels, seed investors, founder collectives or micro VCs

  • Rocket Internet (Dealstreet, Wimdu, GlossyBox, Westwing, 21Diamonds, payleven)
  • Team Europe (Delivery Hero, Lieferheld, Madvertise)
  • Christophe Maire: Swiss serial entrepreneur, currently CEO of Txtr, investor in soundcloud, Amen, EyeEm, LoopCam, Appaware, PhoneDeck
  • Klaus Hommels: Swiss leading European angel investor
  • Ashton Kutcher: investor in Amen, Gidsy, Soundcloud
  • Martin Sinner: MD at Idealo and active angel

VCs

  • US funds: Highland (Wooga, getyourguide), Union Square Ventures (Soundcloud), Kleiner Perkins (Soundcloud), GGV (Soundcloud), RedPoint Ventures (9flats), JP Morgan (Zalando), kinnevik (RocketInternet), Benchmark, FounderFund (Researchgate), Spark Capital (getyourguide)
  • International funds: Index Ventures (Soundcloud, Gidsy), Atomico (6Wunderkinder), Balderton (Wooga), DST Global (Zalando), Kite Ventures (Delivery Hero, Lieferheld), ru-Net (Lieferheld), Sunstone Capital (Amen, Gidsy), Wellington Partners (EyeEm, Readmill), e.Ventures (9flats, kaufDa, Dealstreet), Passion Capital (EyeEm), Mangrove Capital Partners, Partech, b-to-v Partners, etc.
  • German funds: Earlybird, HV Holtzbrinck, IBB (ClipKit, cloudControl), Earlybird Ventures, BMP Media Investors, Tengelmann Ventures, Dumont Venture, High Tech Gründerfonds (a public private partnership with 10+ corporate investors, currently investing out of a €293.5 million fund), GMPVC (German Media Pool, invested in 9flats).
  • Corporates: BDMI, T-Venture (ClipKit, 9flats, 6Wunderkinder).