The venture capital firm b-to-v Partners with offices in St. Gallen and Berlin has successfully raised its third fund with a first closing of €63 million focused on internet and mobile ventures. In addition to its funds, b-to-v has a network of over 200 Business Angels, whose members can participate in individual investments through b-to-v. As a result, over €100 million will be available to b-to-v in the coming years.
Around 80 percent of the fund will be allocated to companies in German-speaking Europe, while the other 20 percent will be deployed in ventures around the globe. Overseeing the fund are Florian Schweitzer, co-founder at b-to-v and Dr. Jochen Gutbrod, who previously invested via RI Digital and Raffay & Cie. and has recently joined b-to-v. Schweitzer and Gutbrod have already invested in companies such as Facebook, Westwing, SavingGlobal and Blacklane. The fund will invest in early-stage companies in a variety of industries with a special focus fintech, e-commerce and marketplace models.
Jochen Gutbrod, Executive Chairman at b-to-v: „We are convinced that the digital transformation still holds huge potential and want to play a relevant role in creating the next generation Mittelstand.” Overall b-to-v presently has over €200 million in assets under management. The company is divided into three areas which work closely together. While the Advisory Team attends to the b-to-v Business Angels, the Internet & Mobile Investment Team conducts its own venture capital investments in digital start ups. The Advanced Technology Investment Team invests in hightech start ups in areas such as clean tech and life sciences. Over the past ten years, business angels from the b-to-v network have regularly tripled the volume of the funds through direct co-investments. The portfolio companies benefit both from the network as well as the angels’ know-how, especially in the early stages of its development.
b-to-v works together particularly closely with the angels from the advisory committee. Florian Schweitzer on this: „I have been able to work with the angel investors for the last 14 years. All of them have accomplished extraordinary things as businessmen and are well versed investors with a broad range of perspectives. Our boundless and open discussions about trends and concrete challenges led us as a group to invest increasingly in FinTech start-ups in the spring of 2012. Specifically, these Angels included Alain Nicod, founder of compex und leshop, Bernd Hardes, co-founder of Econa, aperto and Ampere, Daniel Gutenberg, founder of Gutenberg Communication Systems AG, Holger Hengstler, co-founder of dress-for-less, Joachim Schoss, founder of Scout 24 and Reiner Mauch, co-founder of CortalConsors.
(Press Release)
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