H/F Berlin Talk #7: From Venture Capital to Exit

The exciting topic for H/F Berlin Talk #7 is Exits. We will be joined by Ventech's Christian Claussen, and Dominik Matyka, co-founder of Plista and partner of Calvary Ventures. - We will discuss raising venture capital and selling companies from both the VC's and the founder's perspective ---What does it take? What pitfalls should you look out for? How can you maximize value? - Ventech will share a few learnings from several multimillion Euro exits and balance this with pragmatic founder insights from Dominik Matyka - There will be an open Q&A during/after the session Speakers: 1. VC - Christian Claussen: Christian joined Ventech in 2013 as the firms fourth Equity Partner. Looking back on over 17 years of hands-on innovation financing, Christian has personally invested more than €110m as a Partner with TVM Capital/Munich-Boston (1998-2008) and OMNES Capital/Paris (2009-2013).This included lead/co-lead investments into Tantau Inc./Frankfurt-Austin (NSDQ: 24/7 Systems), T.I.M.E AG/Frankfurt-Barcelona (acquired by Genesys), Telesnap GmbH/Stuttgart (acquired by Netwise), CoreOptics Inc./Nuremberg (acquired by Cisco), and many many more. Prior to joining the VC Industry in 1998, Christian worked nearly 10 years in Europe's Telecommunications Industry as Head of Strategic Bus Dev and Product Management in Siemens' Public Networks Group. He holds an MSc. in Electrical Engineering from the Technical University of Karlsruhe (D), University of Essex (UK) and the Ecole Supérieure des Ingénieurs en Electronique et Electrotechnique (Paris/F). 2. Founder - Dr. Dominik Matyka: Dominik is the founding partner of the super angel fund, Calvary Ventures. Including his last company Plista, pioneering innovative solutions for targeted digital advertising, Dominik has already built and sold his third company. Since early 2014, the WPP Group owned, Plista has nearly 200 employees and is represented in 15 countries. Matyka who speaks five languages, studied International Business in Vienna, London, at the St. Gallen prestigious university, and TU Berlin. 3. Moderator - Stephan Wirries: Stephan joined Ventech's investment team in Europe in 2012 and led investments from Ventechs Seedprogram into firms, such as CrossEngage, European Games Group, and Realbest. He attended universities in Germany, Austria, Italy, Denmark and Finland and has degrees in Information Systems, as well as Strategy, Innovation, and Management Control. Ventech (http://www.ventechvc.com), one of Europe's leading venture capital firms, invests through offices in Paris, Munich, and Helsinki, into high-growth companies with activities in the digital economy (internet, media, e-commerce, mobile, software and communications infrastructures). Ventech also runs a local team based in Shanghai, which manages a dedicated regional fund, while offering business development support in Asia, for European portfolio companies. With more than 650M€ raised since 1998, Ventech has invested in over 120 companies in Europe, China, Russia and in the US. In 2015, Ventech China announced their first closing of its US$180m fund. Current active investments in Europe include successful high growth companies, such as Augure, Believe Digital, Picanova, Speexx, TV Smiles, Unilend, Vestiaire Collective, Webedia, Stickyads (acquired by Comcast), and Withings (acquired by Nokia). This will be followed by networking, as usual, with snacks and drinks. :) Hope to see you there! H/F Berlin Team