Acton Capital is expanding its team in Europe and its presence in North America with the addition of Sophie Ahrens-Gruber to the firm’s investment team in Munich and the promotion of Hannes Blum – portfolio entrepreneur, former VP Amazon, and CEO of AbeBooks – to partner to head the firm’s investments in Canada and the US.
Since 1999, Acton Capital has been investing in tech-enabled business models and has supported more than 100 startups across industries, including global category leaders like AlphaSights (UK), Clio (CAN) or Mambu (GER). The announcement follows the successful first closing of Acton Capital’s sixth venture fund ACTON VI and multiple B2B investments in Europe.
Ahrens-Gruber will join the team of Acton Capital as of 1 July. Previously, she headed the Corporate Business Development and Corporate Responsibility units at Hubert Burda Media. Since 2011, Sophie led the due diligence for numerous deals of the multi-brand media house, served on the board of several US companies, and implemented the corporation’s sustainability program.
Blum, who joined Acton Capital in 2015, will continue to head Acton Capital’s investments in North America. The ex-Amazon VP and former BCG consultant is an active business angel and board member of numerous tech companies as well as entrepreneur. He was founding and scaling one of Acton Capital’s first portfolio startups “JustBooks”, which he merged with “AbeBooks” from Canada prior to the successful exit to Amazon in 2008.
