Some weeks ago Berthold Baurek-Karlic (CEO & Managing Partner of Venionaire) and Frank Floessl (Associate Partner @ Venionaire) met Barbara Steininger, Journalist at the Austrian Business and Economy Magazine Trend and talked about Family Offices, their reasons for investing differently than classic venture capital funds and why this can pay off for founders.

Strategy

In family offices, capital is often preserved over generations. Obviously trust and close ties count for a lot. The atmosphere is familiar, club-like, people share visions. Wives or adult children often come along to the appointments to see what networks the parents’ generation has built up. They want to see what networks their parents’ generation has built up. It is an entrepreneurial legacy they are entering.

The younger generation likes to invest in those areas they know or are close to. Venionaire, for example, is invested in a subsidiary of the Linde publishing house, and is working on the digitalisation strategy of a nearly 125-year-old specialist publisher. But nevertheless family offices and their investments also have to go through times of crisis too.

It is a time of opportunity and decisions

“In crises, there are always a lot of start-ups because more founders simply come onto the market. For investors who were used to investing only when the sun was shining, this is a shock at first. You have to accompany founders through the crises, which sometimes also means pulling the plug..”

Berthold Baurek-Karlic, Managing Partner (CEO)  explains the current situation.

For Frank Floessel, crises are a time when entrepreneurial personalities grow:

“You learn a lot during a crisis. Even if it’s just to readjust your entrepreneurial ego. Crises are part of every entrepreneur’s biography. We are closer to the founders during crises.”

The full article was published in German in the Austrian Business Magazin Trend on 25 November 2011