“The invest­ment envi­ron­ment is very good: there are attrac­tive invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties, valua­tions are low, more and more expe­ri­en­ced teams to build successful compa­nies can be found in the market. The gene­ral econo­mic envi­ron­ment is extre­mely good, espe­ci­ally in Germany. Those who curr­ently have capi­tal to invest have really attrac­tive condi­ti­ons ahead of them. The biggest chall­enge by far remains fundraising.”

“The No. 1 chall­enge conti­nues to be fund­rai­sing. Inves­tors are very hesi­tant in deci­ding who to put their trust in. A clearly diffe­ren­tia­ted invest­ment stra­tegy is a mini­mum requi­re­ment and inves­tors want to see the extent to which mana­gers have the appro­priate tools and know-how to successfully execute their diffe­ren­tia­ted stra­tegy. Inves­tors take the time to analyze this closely and evaluate it in paral­lel with perfor­mance data. Since the hurd­les for successful fund­rai­sing are alre­ady very high for estab­lished teams, it seems reasonable to assume that the chall­enge to close a fund is even grea­ter for first time teams. — The best oppor­tu­nity for a First Time Team is to first iden­tify a port­fo­lio and seek inves­tors for it very specifically.”

“Cash is King — a busi­ness ulti­m­ately exists to gene­rate posi­tive cash flows. Some foun­ders forget this when deve­lo­ping their busi­ness plan. The struc­ture and deve­lo­p­ment of the company must be geared towards scalable posi­tive cash flows. Then a company can be finan­ced. It is also very helpful to approach inves­tors in a very targe­ted way. Not every VC is a good fit for every company seeking funding, and it does­n’t make the chance of success any grea­ter if you approach a biotech inves­tor with a clean­tech invest­ment case.”