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.”

from left: Berthold Baurek-Karlic (Venionaire Capital), Hannes Cizek (RZB Group), Jörg Skornschek und Daniel Strieder (Cashpresso), Michael Höllerer (Executive Board RZB Group), Paul Kaiser (RLB Oberösterreich). © RZB Group

Raiffeisen Zentralbank AG (RZB Group) selected Cashpresso as the winner of its “Innovation to Company Startup Challenge”. Cashpresso offers its customers a quick and easy way to borrow money via mobile phone. The Viennese FinTech receives an innovation bonus of 10.000 Euros and – even more beneficial – Raiffeisen is offering the startup a long-term cooperation. This is for both sides a win situation: “While traditional banks profit from the dynamics of FinTechs, they need on the other hand the know-how, data and systems of big banks to scale their product and services”, says Michael Höllerer, a member of the RZB Group executive board and responsible for digitalisation and innovation. Raiffeisen will present the results of this cooperation in the second half of 2017.

Second places go to Blue Code and purchased.at

Besides Cashpresso, the Austrian startups Blue Code and purchased.at [Update 2019: purchased is no longer in business] were invited to the final pitch at the RZB Group headquarter. Blue Code is offering a payment method for smartphones while purchased.at is a payment solution for merchants of digital goods. Our CEO Berthold Baurek-Karlic mentored all three startups, helping them to prepare for the pitch. As operative deal flow and analyst partner of “Innovation to Company”, Venionaire identified and analyzed for RZB Group more than 87 startups in Europe with a focus on payment solutions. The startup challenge was the first milestone for Raiffeisen in its corporate startup engagement strategy. The bank is now developing its own accelerator program, which will have certainly a huge impact on the Austrian startup ecosystem.

Innovation to Company

Innovation to Company is Europe’s biggest Corporate Innovation Challenge: RZB Group, A1, AccorHotels, Microsoft, New Frontier Group, Post, and Verbund invited startups to work with them on specific challenges. The aim of this initiative is to merge the innovation strength of startups, with international networks, strong market positions and the financial power of large corporations.

Our friends from IXOLIT are extending their payment solutions portfolio by investing a six digit number in the German startup SEPAexpress. Ixolit also supports the startup by integrating their payment solution into their own payment gateway IXOPAY. Among others, the Austrian Fintech experts Bernd Egger and Michael Müller (mPAY24 and co-founder of paysafecard) as well as Michael Rudhart, CEO of Windata, are already invested.

SEPAexpress is a white-label DirectDebit solution for 3rd party payments. Founder and CEO Viktor Brenner developed the product especially for payment providers as an easy installable, secure and affordable service for DirectDebit payments. DirectDebit is a very common und often used payment method in Europe. Almost every second costumer prefers paying with DirectDebit over credit card. Biggest advantages of DirectDebit for merchants are the low costs of transactions and high preference by costumers.

SEPAexpress is already the third investment of the Austrian IT company and payment provider IXOLIT this year, which is getting more active in the field of early stage investments. They invested a five digit number into BarriqueAffairs, which are producing a luxury Cooking Spoon made out of old wine barrels, and launching purchased.at, a payment solution platform specialized for merchants of digital goods.

We are more than happy to support them with our PR services regarding the transaction. You can read the full press release in German here. If you are interested in getting your transaction in the media, just give us a hint.