Bertelsmann Investments

Motley Fool Ventures searches inside and outside of the norms to find exceptional early-stage technology companies. A sister company of The Motley Fool, we launched our first fund in 2018. Our North Star: Make your portfolio represent your best vision of our future. Investment Thesis Motley Fool Ventures is an early-stage venture capital fund powered by The Motley Fool's brand, investing approach, and communities. We combine the best of both worlds: Like a traditional venture capital fund, we have outside limited partners, prioritize investor returns, and make decisions independently. However, like a corporate VC, we have the backing of a successful operating company with access to resources that most VCs can only dream of. Our ValuesMotley: Foster inclusion and belonging. Collaborative: Do great things together. Innovative: Search for a better solution. Then top it. Fun: Revel in your work. Striving: Make us proud. Competitive: Play hard, play fair, play to win. Why We Invest The Motley Fool has a long and proud history of being on the side of entrepreneurs and individual investors, and Motley Fool Ventures is excited to play a role in the next chapter of that history.

We cultivate an ecosystem of exceptional people and enduring partnerships to sustain MIT’s pursuit of world-class education, cutting edge research, and groundbreaking innovation. MIT Investment Management Company (MITIMCo) is a leading investment management firm which invests exclusively on behalf of MIT to support its educational and research mission. We currently manage over $25 billion in assets. We invest primarily in partnership with external investment managers. We invest all over the world across a variety of strategies including long equity stock picking, hedge funds, private equity, venture capital, real estate, and natural resources.

Inclusive Investing™ is a market-backed discipline that allows us to cast a targeted, yet wide net when sourcing companies, while keeping outsized returns and impact front and center in our investment decisions. There’s a lot of talk about demographics and a lack of diversity in venture capital. Inclusive investing is a strategy that proactively addresses this problem. While we’re pioneering this strategy, the data supporting our thesis is on our side: diverse fund managers earn better returns, and companies with diverse leadership outperform their peers. Inclusive Investing™ goes beyond diversity - it’s a new investment discipline that can transform the way we source, invest in, and scale businesses, and in doing so, create new pathways to prosperity for individuals, businesses, and communities at scale. Inclusive Investing™ levels the playing field so the best businesses and most talented teams succeed. A Five-Pronged ApproachImplemented cohesively, these five areas of practice yield an Inclusive Investing™ discipline Zeal is spearheading in the venture world across private markets.Diverse Fund Managers: Fund managers and the broader team are diverse with complementary backgrounds and skill sets. Diverse Management Teams: Companies proactively source diverse management teams with complementary skill sets and backgrounds that help portfolio companies outperform. Geographic Inclusivity: Funds source from a wide range of geographies across the U.S., not just traditional geographic VC “hotbeds”. Investment Focus: Investment allocation is directed to sectors where fund managers expect continued innovation and opportunity for disruption. Impact Lens: Investments seek to achieve top tier financial and social returns that impact low-wealth communities and small businesses.

Advance Venture Partners ("AVP") combines the disciplined approach of an institutional venture and growth equity investor with the strategic insights, access, and impact made possible by a high-value strategic partner. Our initial investments in businesses range from $5 million to $30 million, and we have a broad investment mandate across software and consumer verticals, including digital health and insurtech. AVP is affiliated with Advance, the private, family-held holding company focused on fostering long-term growth and innovation across a diversified portfolio in media, technology, entertainment, education, communications, and other growth sectors. Advance’s portfolio includes Conde Nast, Advance Local, The IRONMAN Group, American City Business Journals, Turnitin, 1010data and is among the largest shareholders in reddit, Charter Communications, and Discovery. Our investment thesisWe are theme or sector-driven and are comfortable investing in companies serving either enterprise or consumer end markets. We work tirelessly to support exceptional founders and operators building disruptive, landscape-changing businesses. We write $10 to $25 million first checks into businesses with product in market, evidence of product-market-fit, sound fundamentals, compelling growth, and large end markets. Our evergreen fund structure allows us to be patient capital and long-term strategic partners to our portfolio companies. AVP is built in partnership with Advance, a family-owned multi-genera­tional holding company that owns and operates enduring media and technology companies. We concentrate our time in industries and verticals where we have built conviction around evolving market trends and the opportu­nities created for emerging platforms. We are actively pursuing investments in verticals including digital health, data platforms, insurance technology, and financial technology.

We are looking for entrepreneurs and their brilliant ideas. We want to be there when technologies call entire industries into question. Since 2014, we have seen this as both an opportunity and a challenge. Today, DvH Ventures is one of the most active early-stage investors in Europe managing various venture capital funds from its offices in Cologne and Vienna. Our story began with our first venture capital fund and the significant backing of publisher Dieter von Holtzbrinck. We focused our early stage investments on publishing-related, digital business models and supported startups from then on not only with funding, but also with an enormous media reach of the publishing groups Handelsblatt, Tagesspiegel and DIE ZEIT. This fund was soon followed by a dedicated investment fund with a focus on Fintechs and InsurTechs and fund investors from the banking and insurance industries. Thanks to the business-related media, we were able to build up one of the most successful FinTech portfolios with such stars as LIQID, Compeon or Nect. Both funds are now disinvesting. Today, we operate two independent and very active early-stage investment funds. With DvH Ventures Fund III, our Digital Tech Fund, we have been investing primarily in deep tech and education startups since 2017. This enabled us to attract the founders and potential of companies such as LiveEO, StudySmarter, Masterplan or buynomics at an early stage. In August 2020, DvH Ventures launched a new €60 million Digital Health Fund in the first closing, which invests in technologies across Europe that solve future healthcare challenges. OUR APPROACH As an independent venture capital fund, we invest in early investment rounds with initial tickets between € 500k and € 2m, often acting as lead investor. In addition to financial resources, we support our portfolio companies with management expertise and an international investor network. An exclusive media-for-equity program also offers access to strong brands such as Handelsblatt, WirtschaftsWoche, DIE ZEIT and Apotheken Umschau, and thus an enormous reach into the respective target groups. INVESTMENT FOCUS We invest in ideas whose success we believe in. We are building successful investment clusters including but not limited to the fields of digital health, education or financial services and will stay hungry for more digital innovations. These can be ideas in artificial intelligence, enterprise software, Internet of Things and Big Data. The same applies to mobility, energy or the future of work. On the other hand, some of our most successful startups are those with ideas that we hadn't even thought of yet. So, if you want to pitch convincing ideas that don't come from the areas mentioned above – we'd ❤️ to hear about them.

Axion Ventures is launching a new venture capital fund aimed at strategically investing in a very selective portfolio of high-growth, early-stage companies. Where We Come From Rooted in Babson College’s renowned entrepreneurial principles, our investment approach focuses on identifying, building, and scaling high-potential platforms through strategic acquisitions and operational excellence. We conduct rigorous market analysis to identify scalable platform opportunities with untapped potential, guided by the entrepreneurial mindset cultivated at Babson College. By deploying strategic capital into complementary startups and providing incubation support, we foster innovation and drive value creation. Through integration and Babson College-inspired growth strategies, we build cohesive platform ecosystems, optimizing operational synergies and scalability. Additional acquisitions enable vertical integration, strengthening competitive advantages and ensuring sustainable growth. Our structured exit strategies deliver superior returns, embodying Babson’s principles of innovation, leadership, and strategic foresight.