Investing in Europe’s
most passionate founders.

We look for entrepreneurs and their brilliant ideas. We want to be there when technologies disrupt entire industries. Since 2014, we have seen this as both an opportunity and a challenge. Today, DvH Ventures is one of the most active early-stage investors in Europe, managing several venture capital funds from its office in Cologne.

Our story began with our first venture capital fund and the significant backing of publisher Dieter von Holtzbrinck. We focused our early-stage investments on publishing-related, digital business models, supporting start-ups not only with funding but also with the enormous media reach of the Handelsblatt, Tagesspiegel and DIE ZEIT publishing groups.

The fund was soon followed by its own investment fund focusing on fintechs and insurtechs, with investors from the banking and insurance sectors. Thanks to the business media, we were able to build one of the most successful FinTech portfolios with stars such as LIQID, Hypatos and Nect. Both funds are now disinvesting.

Today, we run two independent and very active early-stage investment funds. With DvH Ventures Fund III, our Digital Tech Fund, we have been investing primarily in deep tech and education startups since 2017. This has enabled us to get involved at an early stage with the founders and potential of companies such as LiveEO, StudySmarter, Masterplan or buynomics.

In August 2020, DvH Ventures launched a new Digital Health Fund with a first closing of €70 million to invest in technologies that solve future healthcare challenges across Europe.

OUR APPROACH

As an independent venture capital fund, we invest in early-stage rounds of between €500,000 and €2 million, often acting as lead investor. In addition to financial resources, we support our portfolio companies with management expertise and an international investor network. In addition, an exclusive media-for-equity program offers access to strong brands such as Handelsblatt, WirtschaftsWoche, DIE ZEIT and Apotheken Umschau, and thus an enormous reach into the respective target groups.

INVESTMENT FOCUS

We invest in ideas that we believe will succeed. We are building successful investment clusters, including but not limited to digital health, education or financial services, and will remain hungry for more digital innovation. These could be ideas in artificial intelligence, enterprise software, the Internet of Things and big data. The same goes for mobility, energy or the future of work.

On the other hand, some of our most successful startups are those with ideas we haven't even thought of yet. So if you've got a compelling idea that's not in one of the above areas, we'd ❤️ to hear about it.