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.