About
I am an entrepreneur and CEO, who has started and helped grow six digital- and software companies. Four amounted to something, two were shut down (one voluntarily). For the past 15 years, I have also been helping and investing in other entrepreneurs as an angel investor, board member, and advisor. Areas where I can contribute are: General management expertise for growing tech businesses, ideation, preparing pitches and fundraising, a network in the US and in Europe based on 20 years experience in the tech sector. What excites me as an angel investor are large market opportunities and founders with unique insights into these. I also have a love of music, so music-tech companies strike a natural chord. I serve as a member of the European Advisory Board of Harvard Business School.
Experience
Angel Investor & Advisor
Cool companies
Present
Investments into start-ups and later stage companies with large market opportunities and founders, who have a unique insight into these. Some of these are: + Momox -- European Re-Commerce leader with $375M in revenue + FreeAgent -- one of the first European fintechs. IPO + Controlant -- cool-chain platform (enabled Covid vaccine transport) + ESL -- largest eSports company in the world + SDA -- industrial DevOps. Insight Partners invested + NYSHEX -- ocean shipping software. Goldman Sachs, Mastercard invested + Audiotool -- cloud-based DAW. Bitkraft invested + Mogenius -- DevOps / Kubernetes operations platform
Co-Founder & Ceo
Present
MegaZebra is a mobile games company based in Munich and Montreal. We have been around for more than 10 years. We had a couple of large hits and also our share of misses. Since joining the company as Co-CEO in 2016 I spearheaded the following initiatives: + Buying the company back from investors & co-founders + Rebuilding the company's leadership team + Establishing an agile, scrum-oriented product development process + Starting our Montreal office + Reinvigorating our product pipeline with a structured pitching- and prototyping process + Negotiating a licensing deal with ABC Television and Disney for the Desperate Housewives Game + Taking the company to profitability
Investor & Board Member
Momox is the market leader for re-commerce in Europe with $375M in revenue (2023). As an early investor I helped the founder to get the company investment-ready, put a business plan together, and raise its first multi-million financing round. Subsequently I joined the board.
Founder
wirWinzer operates an online marketplace, where people can purchase wine directly from vintners for the best prices. We built up the the largest offering of German wines integrating over 1.500 vintners on our e-commerce platform. Hawesko, the publicly quoted and leading wine-retailer, acquired a majority share in wirWinzer in 2016 and full ownership a few years later. My contributions include having the original idea, recruiting the co-founder- / leadership team through my network, shaping the product, setting strategy, acquiring vintners, and raising several rounds of financing.
Mentor
hub:raum · Berlin
Hub:raum is the incubator of Deutsche Telekom AG. I am a mentor there helping portfolio companies and validating new candidate start-ups.
Co-Founder
SnipClip die digitale Fabrik GmbH
Snipclip is a social media software development company. The company pioneered social app development in Europe. The company was acquired by a larger digital media agency. My contributions include developing the business idea together with my co-founder, recruiting the core team, and helping grow the business.
Founder (Honeytracks)
HoneyTracks is a big data SaaS business for the video-games industry. Our products help visualize complex data for designers, product managers, and marketing folks. IQU, based in the Netherlands, acquired HoneyTracks. My contributions include having the original idea, recruiting the co-founder team through my network, defining and shaping the product, acquiring customers, and raising financing. Check out a presentation with over 28.000 views, which I held at Casual Connect: "The Game Life-Cycle & Game Analytics: What metrics matter when" on http://slidesha.re/13n6PlH
Senior Lecturer
Technische Universität München
Established and taught the seminar "Launching Innovative Products" at the Chair for Technology and Innovation Management. The seminar is taught on the basis of the case-study method and included cases such as Netflix, Zara, Electronic Arts, and Zipcar. When I had to resign from teaching due to other work-load, the course concept was continued by another professor due to its popularity with students. It was rated as one of the best courses at the university.
Founder & Board Member
Simplaex (formerly GameGenetics) is an ad-tech company providing AI-powered technology to increase the performance of Supply Side Platforms (SSP), who facilitate the sale of ad-space on websites, apps, and games. My contributions are having the original idea, recruiting the co-founder team through my network, shaping the early product and strategy, and raising several rounds of financing from angel investors and VCs.
Partner
Venture Capital: I was involved in over 20 transactions including equity financings, debt financings, M&A, and one IPO. Served as board member.
Education
Harvard Business School
Master of Business Administration (MBA)
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