How do you see the current investment sentiment in Germany and in the greater German speaking countries (DACH) generally? 

After the VC record year 2019, 2020 was and is of course currently a bitter pill to swallow. Investors are increasingly postponing decisions and are initially concerned with financing out their existing portfolio rather than taking on new things. However, from a macroeconomic perspective, I also observe that actual investment activity has not yet changed visibly since the beginning of the pandemic.

How has it changed from your perspective?

Similar to most European countries with bank-based financial systems, the German VC market is still relatively young and lags behind both in Europe and globally. Corona is certainly slowing things down here, but all in all, we still have a major development step ahead of us in view of the increasing importance of digital business models, which, after their start-up financing, need large-volume follow-up financing for growth and market penetration relatively quickly. Furthermore, I see an exciting movement towards “Entrepreneurial Investments” emerging, just the way we do it at e&Co. with “skin in the game”. Entrepreneurial investors like us are not only assessing, but entering target companies much more intensively, with know-how and guidance – so they are really taking care of their “babies” and are thus providing increased impetus for the future.

The focus topic of this year’s startup award series is smart mobility, which might be considered unfortunate during these times with the automotive industry facing big challenges itself. What’s your take on this?

The automotive industry has already been faced with a great need for change in recent years and must now act even faster and more flexibly. Companies in the automotive industry were only able to survive the pandemic through extreme cost discipline, so far. But the “postdemic” will only be won, if there is enough innovation in the pipeline to be able to offer the customers of the day after tomorrow. With the focus topic smart mobility you had the right nose for a topic that is still more acute than ever. People want to be mobile. Sustainably mobile. Efficiently mobile. Autonomously mobile. There is enormous scope for new business models that address the core problems of our need for movement.

How do you think smart mobility has changed in Germany and in DACH over the years?

We have seen a lot of exciting product and business approaches within 2, 3 and 4D mobility in the past years. Besides fancy concepts from large corporates, startups and scale-ups, especially the government-driven impact and intervention has been accelerating. I am keen to see how the different market players can foster the competition towards more clean and efficient mobility concepts.

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