Munich More and more founders are investing the proceeds from the successful sale of their companies back into the venture capital scene. The most recent example are the founders of the companies Sonnen, Zooplus and Flaschenpost, who have allied themselves with Paul-Josef Patt, one of the most successful technology investors in Germany. You are now joining the new fund of his company eCapital as a financier and investment partner.
At Sonnen GmbH Patt was once the first financier. “He was the first who dared to invest with us,” says Ostermann. Ostermann is now joining Patt’s new “Fonds V” as a venture partner, which has already raised 100 million euros and wants to double the amount.
In Silicon Valley, it has long been customary for founders who have successfully sold to bring the money back into the start-up cycle. The fact that this trend is now increasingly reaching Germany is perceived positively in the scene.
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“It is a very good sign for the further development of the ecosystem that successful founders are increasingly investing in the next generation,” says Carsten Rudolph, Managing Director of the Bay-Start-up investor network. For the young companies, this has “the inestimable advantage that they have investors on board who are really familiar with all the customs of the start-up scene and usually also have a very good network”.
At the beginning of the year, for example, five founders of start-ups valued in billions invested in the software company Remberg, which wants to help medium-sized companies with digitization. Among the sponsors were Personio boss Hanno Renner and Bastian Nominacher from Celonis.
The founders stand for three of the biggest exits in recent years
Stephan Weich, who once co-founded Flaschenpost, is also part of Paul-Josef Patt’s new alliance. According to industry circles, the beverage delivery service was sold to Oetker in 2020 for around one billion euros. The third new venture partner is Cornelius Patt. The cousin of the eCapital boss co-founded the online retailer Zooplus, which was taken over by Hellman & Friedman (H&F) and EQT for several billion euros.
The three founders have thus achieved some of the largest exits in Germany in the past three years. Together they are now investing in companies like Dryad. The start-up is developing a solar-powered sensor network that will enable gas sensors to detect forest fires within an hour, ideally before they are visible to the naked eye.
“Unfortunately, that’s the topic of this summer,” says Paul-Josef Patt. A sensor covers more than one hectare of forest and costs less than 50 euros. As has now been announced, eCapital is leading the financing round. Toba Ventures and Time Ventures as well as Semtech are also on board as new investors. With the proceeds he wants to further develop the technology and open the forestry market for applications of the Internet of Things, said Dryad CEO Carsten Brinkschulte.
The devices should report forest fires before they are visible to the naked eye.
(Photo: Dryad)
The new fund is intended to invest in so-called deep-tech companies that focus on high-tech innovations as part of an impact investment. “These are topics that we have been doing for 20 years,” says Bernd Arkenau, Managing Partner at eCapital. Investors are in particular family offices.
In the current uncertain environment, investors are somewhat more cautious. “One or the other is affected by the crisis on the capital market or in the operational business and is a little more cautious,” says Arkenau. But experienced investors also know: “Times of crisis are always times of opportunity.”
The first investments have already been made
The first three investments were made even before the closing. On the one hand, eCapital became the lead investor in the Hamburg start-up 1Komma5 Grad, which wants to offer private customers photovoltaic systems, electricity storage, charging infrastructure for electric cars and heat pumps from the product and installation to the green electricity contract from a single source.
Parts of the founding team were already at Sonnen, and Ostermann helped to make the first contacts. “The company is already heading for a turnover of 200 million euros in its first full financial year and is growing incredibly fast,” he says.
The second investment was the stake in Numbat. The company develops fast charging stations with integrated battery storage. Ostermann was already involved in the seed phase as an early investor and arranged the contacts to eCapital. The company has already found its first pilot customers, and hundreds of pillars are to be erected soon.
According to Patt, a fourth investment is imminent. It is a technology platform that “enables sustainable and customer-oriented shipping solutions for non-food e-commerce deliveries and guarantees an emission-free last mile”. This is where Flaschenpost founder Weich might have tied the strings in the background. “I asked myself: Where can I use the experience I have gained so far in a meaningful way?” he says.
Investors have launched a new fund for deep tech companies.
Investor Patt is convinced that the commitment of the founders can achieve a lot: “In Germany we have the opportunity to be at the forefront of important future impact topics.” Research institutions such as the Fraunhofer Institutes are involved in technology development at an early stage. If the young founders now found the necessary capital and were accompanied in the company development by experienced entrepreneurs and investors, a lot could come of it.
And investors can look forward to profitable returns: “We are still over 20 percent in our last fund,” explains Patt.
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