picture from left: Jürgen Lederer (KPMG), Berthold Baurek-Karlic (Venionaire), Michael Petritz (KPMG), Christoph Drescher (Dealmatrix), Fabian Greiler (Venionaire)

Last Thursday, the 0100 Conferences took place at the Hilton Hotel in Vienna. The goal of the Conference is to bring Western and Eastern Investors together. The event originally launched last year under the name of Up Venture Conference“. 0100Ventures – the organizers of the event – are well-connected in Europe, which has been reflected in the international speaker lineup.

Michael Petritz, Partner at KPMG Austria, started the conference with an opening panel about “Venture Capital in Europe”.

 

 

Together with Uli Grabenwarter (Deputy Director – Equity Investments at EIF), Olivier Schuepbach (GP at Partech Ventures), Joe Schorge (Managing Partner at Isomer Capital), Ralph Guenther (Partner at Pantheon), and Fabian Heilemann (Partner at Earlybird) he discussed the status quo and future of the VC industry in Europe. The topics included the role of incubators, accelerators, and co-investment schemes in Europe for VCs. They also mentioned the European Super Angels Club, powered by KPMG and Venionaire, as one example for new investment opportunities in Europe. The Club provides a platform for (U)HNWI, family offices, foundations and corporate investors to follow Europe’s leading venture capital funds as co-investors.

We were involved in two panels. Dan Choon, the Managing Partner of Venionaire Investment, moderated the panel about the Automative Industry with Sophie Paturle (Managing Partner at Demeter Partners), Paul McNabb (Partner at Episode 1), Juraj Vaculik (CEO at AeroMobil) and Michael-Viktor Fischer (CEO at Smatrics).

 

 

 

At the same time, Berthold Baurek-Karlic participated in the second panel as a speaker about “Angel Investment in CE”. He mentioned that Austria has seen a rapid development during the last years. In 2013, the total Business Angel Investments in Austria amounted to only € 2,9 Mio. In 2015 we had total angel investments of € 16,3 Mio.  – more than in Poland with € 12,4 Mio. (see EBAN European Early Stage Market Statistics 2015) However, the whole CEE region is gaining speed with a 130% increase in angel investments between 2013-2015. (see investeurope.eu)

 

 

The Conference had a high-quality of speakers and guests. The organizers, 0100Ventures, are based in Bratislava, with the aim to create and support new ventures, foster local talents and contribute to the development of the European startup ecosystem. Besides 0100Conferences, they operate a 600 m² co-working space in Bratislava and are offering rapid development and value chain optimization for established companies. We are looking forward to hearing more of their initiatives! By the way: Join their next event in Dublin on May 10.

© Featured Image: © Mako Hindy / Masahi Films

Last Friday, the beautiful Dylan Hotel in Amsterdam was the venue of choice for Clever Clover’s annual New Years event. The founders and managing partners of Clever Clover invited current portfolio und prospective startups, experts, and investors to share some news about the current portfolio of the firm (NEO I), thoughts on the last year, important learnings that have been made and how they kickstarted NEO II, with some little modifications compared to NEO I. Venionaire started to work with Clever Clover a little bit less than a year ago and it has been a trustful start of a strong collaboration between our two firms.

Amsterdam is a very interesting startup hub, you can literally feel innovation every second you walk around, as the city is a benchmark for electric mobility, many cabs are Tesla cars and there is this beautiful mix of modern, creative, courageous architecture shaping the character of the city. Of course, the Netherlands have a long tradition in international trade and do have numerous international corporates as well as some of the wealthiest pension funds, but we learned that there is even more, speaking to one of the rising startup accelerators NEXT Amsterdam. Esther and Timan are not only building their own business, they are also very enthusiastic about developing the ecosystem in Amsterdam and connecting it to European Hubs – let us see what we can do together.

 

NEO II

It sounds a little awkward, that NEO II is a Venture Capital Fund fully dedicated to the old economy – where most people would expect a strategy of digital or tech products, when they hear “Venture Capital”. Clever Clover is different. NEO II, the second fund of this VC focuses in particular on Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCGs) and it is a very well needed field to cover. The best proof for this is the strong demand of startups approaching the experienced network of Clever Clover.

We do believe there is a lot of fantasy in retail products and trust in the deep knowledge of Clever Clovers team. It is very hard to build a brand and place products in shelves all over the world, it is very expensive to develop hardware products and bring them into mass production, but if you succeed, you have most likely build a sustainable “old-economy” company. Venionaire brings in additional network and resources to back the management team in special situations. It’s valuable expertise in the field of digital services, performance marketing and fundraising helps Clever Clover in the development of their portfolio companies.

Clever Clover focuses on five sectors in relation to FMCG: Media, Sports, Distribution, Food and Retail in general. A unique selling proposition make NEO II a very special fund: NEO II aims at an exit through a founders buy-back of shares – at a clear multiple set at the time of investing. In order to achieve this goal, Clever Clover selects specific products and matches them with a strong mentoring and market access network in order to build solid, profitable companies.

The regional focus of the fund is mainly Austria and Netherlands, as it is obvious considering the core operations out of Vienna and Amsterdam. With its first portfolio, NEO I invested and accelerated a number of well-known startups like Flying Tent, Scoot and Ride, FlyFit or Adoptiq – with regard to performance, Clever Clover confirmed that its portfolio is exactly on track to achieve its target return.

NEO II was established as a legal cooperative (B.V.) based in Amsterdam and registered as an AIFM, by Marloes Voermans (Netherlands) and Heinrich Prokop (Austria) in 2016 and started to sign investors (members – to be technically correct, speaking of a cooperative). Marloes is very creative and hands-on. Connecting start-ups with the right people is an art to her and this is truly some magic hard to copy. Heinrich really needs no introduction in Austria, as he has been on three seasons of the famous Puls 4 TV Show “2 Minuten 2 Million”. He is a very successful entrepreneur in the field of FMCG himself – having run and build Gutschermühle to what it is today. (Note: Gutschermühle was acquired by swiss HACO AG in 2015)

Big ideas in front of high mountains: This year the Business Angel Day – organized by AplusB and the Austrian Wirtschaftsservice – took place in Obergurgl, Tyrol. One of the highlights was the nomination of Hermann Hauser as Business Angel of the year 2016. Hauser invested just a couple of weeks ago in the crowd investing platform CONDA. Alone this year, he could add nine new Austrian startups to his portfolio. (on the picture from left: Bernd Litzka (aws), “Business Angel of the Year 2016” Hermann Hauser, Marcus Hofer (AplusB) and LR Patrizia Zoller-Frischauf).

 

Pushing the startup agenda

Tyrol seems to be a good place for the venture industry: Over 100 participants took part at the Business Angel Day, among them many new faces and international top investors. Perfectly organized with a great activity package (get together dinner, gondola ride, and ski race), the event offered many opportunities for networking. This year, the main topic was about co-investments. Experts such as the Business Angels Markus Ertler and Peter Koch, or lawyer Rainer Kaspar (PHH Rechtsanwälte), shared their knowledge. Daniel Beck, investment manager at the European Investment Fund (EIF) emphasized the importance of European angel networks. Such networks offer angels – among many things – access to high-quality deal flow and professional execution of transactions. Our CEO Berthold Baurek-Karlic got a lot of positive feedback for the idea of a pan-European Angel Club, a project we are working on with KPMG Austria. In addition, he had good talks with Magdalena Hauser-Venier from I.E.C.T. about investments in artificial intelligence and quantum computing. A great sign for the fast progressing Austrian startup ecosystem was the participation of the Austrian Broadcasting Company ORF with its new startup engagement vehicle futurelab.261.

 

Hub to new markets

Thanks to the support of the Tyrolean government and especially Mrs. Patrizia Zoller-Frischauf, Tyrol is evolving to a regional startup anchor. The Business Angel Day is already the second high-class event this year in Tyrol. In July, the Business Angel Summit attracted over 100 business angels and investors to visit Kitzbühel. Harald Gohm and Marcus Hofer from CAST and Standortagentur Tirol together with AWS i2 Business Angel Börse and sponsors such as PHH Rechtsanwälte or Venionaire, these events are acting as networking hub to new markets, primarily to Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. Opportunities such as the Business Angel Day are very important for the Austrian startup ecosystem emphasizes Rainer Kaspar, a partner at PHH Rechtsanwälte: “We really appreciate the effort undertaken by AWS and Standortagentur Tirol to bring together the Austrian investors community and also involve investors from neighboring countries. This was again a fabulous event which leads the way in building a solid base for potential co-investments in the DACH-region.”