News & Podcast

Usually startups receive the awards, but the KfW Capital Award shifts the focus to the other side of the ecosystem: venture capital investors and VC actors.

The transatlantic venture capital firm Voyager Ventures is opening an office in Munich in March 2026 – its second European location after London. Investor Elena Ballesteros explains in this interview which early-stage startups the VC invests in, what matters in a pitch, and why the team is now specifically looking for energy, industrial, and AI startups with strong technical roots in southern Germany.

University2Ventures (U2V) is launching a multimillion-euro fund to support deeptech startups from European universities with a focus on artificial intelligence, industrial tech, and clean tech.

We from Munich Startup met with three investors at Slush 2025 in Helsinki. In the interview, Inga Grieger from BMW iVentures, Ronja Stoffregen from Rehau New Ventures and Eva Spannagl from OpenAI talk about what they look for in founders, why it’s a good time for new ideas, and what added value they can provide to startups.

With Jasper Schlump, Talent Tree gains an experienced bridge-builder between the startup world, venture capital, and impact investing. After almost six years at impact investor Capacura, Schlump is now joining the Munich-based recruiting company, which specializes in tech and impact positions. There, he takes on the role of head of business development.

By age 24, Darius Göttert has already founded more startups than most people do in a lifetime. From student ventures via Spreadly to the hacker house FORA: Göttert builds ecosystems for young founders and wants to shape the next generation of entrepreneurs in Germany with his network. That and more on Pitch & People.

Better Ventures is a Munich venture capital firm founded in 2020 by Tina Dreimann, Cedric Duvinage, and Christoph Behn. Set up as an impact angel club by founders for founders, the VC invests particularly in impact startups – that is, in scalable business models that offer solutions to social or ecological problems. The focus is on early-stage startups. From Munich, Better Ventures has invested in companies such as Everdrop, Logistikbude, and Ocell. In this interview, Tina Dreimann explains how the venture capital firm works, what she looks for as an investor, and what constitutes a no-go when pitching. First published on: May 7, 2024

You can find the investor interview with Marc Alexander Kühn from UVC Partners and all other episodes of our podcast on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon Music, Deezer, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Radio Public, Breaker, Overcast, Castbox, Podcast Addict and Anchor. Marc Alexander Kühn holds a master’s degree in engineering and computer science from the Technical University […]

You can find the investor interview with Claudius Jablonka from 10x Founders and all other episodes of our podcast on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon Music, Deezer, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Radio Public, Breaker, Overcast, Castbox, Podcast Addict and Anchor. Dr. Claudius Jablonka initially led the Center for Digital Technology Management (CDTM) at TU München and LMU […]