Venture capital firm btov Partners announces the final closing of its new digital technologies early-stage fund with a volume of USD135 million.
It’s the second fund that focuses entirely on digital technologies, and the ninth for btov Partners in total. Investments in earlier fund generations included companies such as DeepL, Raisin, SumUp, Orcam, Seven Senders, Ottonova, Urban Sports Club, Ledgy, Foodspring (acquired by Mars) and Data Artisans (acquired by Alibaba).
The fund works very closely with btov’s Private Investor Network of experienced entrepreneurs. Over 70 of the network members invested personally in the new fund and will work closely with the fund team to identify investment opportunities and support portfolio companies. The list includes well known super angels such as Logitech founder Daniel Borel, Scout 24 founder Joachim Schoss, global unicorn hunter Daniel Gutenberg and further experienced entrepreneurs such as Holger Hengstler (Dress-for-less), Reiner Mauch (Consors), Toon Coppens (Netlog, Realo) and Tim Schiffers (ParshipMeet Group).
The investments of the new fund will concentrate on topics such as AI, Digital Health, FinTech, Logistics, B2B SaaS and Marketplaces, all across Europe and focusing on seed and series A stages.
The partner team consists of the previous fund’s line-up of Florian Schweizer, Jochen Gutbrod and Luca Martinelli plus new partner Andreas Goeldi, an experienced serial entrepreneur who co-founded several companies in both Europe and the United States. Goeldi had his first successful exit in 2000 and most recently was the CTO of Boston-based AI-oriented video marketing company Pixability. He holds four US patents in big data analytics and AI-based optimisation and has been an active angel investor for over two decades. Goeldi will focus his investments on companies in the AI, B2B SaaS and DevOps spaces.
btov Partners founder Florian Schweitzer says: “We are very grateful to have raised this fund with such strong support from our Private Investor Network, as well as from previous institutional LPs, particularly the European Investment Fund. The close collaboration with our investors and our expanded partnership will continue enabling us to identify and win non-obvious investment opportunities better than ever. btov was originally called BrainsToVentures and remains true to this spirit today: Nicole Herzog, for example, was initially a btov co-founder, then built up the software spin-off Umantis and is now active as a btov venture partner. Andreas Goeldi was a great entrepreneurial role model for me during my studies. He invested in btov startups very early on and is now a general partner.”
New partner Andreas Goeldi says: “I have known btov Partners since its earliest days and followed the impressive growth of the firm closely. SVOX, my first very successful early angel investment, was enabled by btov. It is a privilege to join this strong partnership now with this new fund generation. Europe’s entrepreneurial scene is bursting with energy and technical excellence, and we are in a perfect position to support the strongest startups.“
Florian Schweitzer adds: “The European VC industry has become very competitive, and we see that our unique combination of in-house expertise and our network of some of Europe’s most experienced entrepreneurs truly sets us apart. It didn’t come overnight – we have been building this for two decades now.”
