HTGF | High-Tech Gründerfonds

Technologische Souveränität braucht mutige Gründer:innen – und starke Partnerschaften. Wie gelingt die Finanzierung von Zukunftstechnologien – und welche Rolle spielt öffentlich-private Zusammenarbeit dabei? Am 30. Oktober durften wir die parlamentarische Staatssekretärin Gitta Connemann, Kathrin Wünnemann, Dr. Ulrike Zirpel und Lars Jüngling-Dahlhoff vom Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy sowie Dr. Bernhard Mohr (Evonik Venture Capital & Industrievertreter im HTGF | High-Tech Gründerfonds-Investorenbeirat) bei uns in Bonn begrüßen. Im Fokus des strategischen Austauschs: 🔍 Die Weiterentwicklung der HTGF VC-Plattform 🤝 Die Finanzierung von Schlüsseltechnologien für die Zukunftsfähigkeit unseres Landes und Europas 🔗 Die Brücke zwischen Forschung, Startups, Kapital – und Industrie & Mittelstand Seit über 20 Jahren investiert der HTGF in skalierbare Tech-Startups, die ganze Branchen neugestalten. Mit mehr als 60 privaten Fondsinvestoren aus Mittelstand, Konzernen und Family Offices ist der HTGF ein aktiver Innovationstreiber. Wir schaffen frühen Zugang zu neuen Technologien, fördern Kooperationen und geben Impulse für etablierte Unternehmen. Als Deutschlands aktivster Frühphaseninvestor bringen wir mutige Gründer:innen mit starken Ideen, privatwirtschaftliches Kapital und staatliche Unterstützung zusammen. Unser Ziel: Innovationen schneller in den Markt bringen – für einen starken, souveränen Wirtschaftsstandort Europa. 💬 Gitta Connemann, Parlamentarische Staatssekretärin bei der Bundesministerin für Wirtschaft und Energie und die Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für den Mittelstand: "Der HTGF ist ein Erfolgsmodell: Er bringt staatliche Impulse, privates Kapital und die Wirtschaft – von Startups bis Mittelstand – zusammen. Damit schafft er die Voraussetzungen dafür, dass Zukunftstechnologien in Deutschland entstehen und wachsen können." Herzlichen Dank für den offenen Dialog. Gemeinsam stärken wir ein leistungsfähiges Innovationsökosystem!

📰 From record-breaking funding rounds to new leadership and bold visions for AI, the HTGF is shaping the future of Germany’s innovation ecosystem. Here's our Deep Dive Newsletter for October.   - New Managing Director Sebastian Borek on competitiveness, innovation, and AI’s impact - €38M for plancraft to digitalize skilled trades - Interview with Julian Wiedenhaus - Tubulis GmbH raises €308M — Europe’s largest Series C in biotech - Interview with Peter Schindlmeier: casavi GmbH expands into AI-driven property management   Learn more ⬇️

Congratulations to Tubulis GmbH on the second closing of their already record-breaking Series C round!

🚀 Scavenger AI delivers the answers that SMEs need by closing the 70% business intelligence gap with a natural-language platform that makes data speak human. The startup now has raised €2.5 million in seed funding to make company data as easy to access as asking a question. 💶 The round was led by BMH Beteiligungs-Management Hessen, with participation from xdeck, a public innovation fund, and existing Investors HTGF | High-Tech Gründerfonds and Calm/Storm Ventures. The company will use the funds to address a €2.45 billion European market opportunity, accelerate product development, expand across Europe, and make enterprise-grade analytics accessible to every SME. 🗨️ Co-founder Maximilian Hahnenkamp says: “Our goal is simple: any employee should be able to make smart, data-driven decisions without needing to write a single line of code.” 💬 Co-founder Felix Beissel adds: “We are the European counter-model to the U.S. tech companies. Europe’s SMEs deserve AI that’s secure, explainable, and built around their needs, not a black box.”  🗯️Max Bergmann, Investment Manager at HTGF, comments: “Scavenger AI sets a new standard for data-driven decision-making in industry, by taking the speed and reliability of data analysis to an entirely new level. As the lead investor in the previous funding round, we were convinced early on that Scavenger AI could create substantial economic and social value for SMEs. We are excited to continue backing the team on this growth path.” Congratulations to Maximilian, Felix and the whole team at Scavenger AI! Learn more by following the links in the comments 👇

🤩 Time for a quick look back at yesterday’s Chemistry Pitch Day co-organized and hosted by our fund investor WACKER at their new Munich headquarters, Wacker House at Werksviertel. 🪢 Dr. Christian Hartel, President and CEO of Wacker, opened the event along with Dr. Martina Schulze-Adams-Adams, Head of Corporate Development at Wacker and HTGF Managing Director Dr. Achim Plum. They discussed innovation in the chemistry sector and the importance of startups and experienced industry players working together and how HTGF facilitates this with and for our fund investors. 🤝 We continued with an impulse talk featuring Dr. Georg Lautscham, CCO at our portfolio company SRTD Biotech and Dr. Hagen Richter, Head of Nucleic Acids Research at Wacker who gave insights into their experience of cooperation, which started at an HTGF Pitch Day, and led to quick results within mere months. 🗨️ Dr. Achim Plum, Managing Director at HTGF | High-Tech Gründerfonds, explained: “Events like this Chemistry Pitch Day show HTGF in action: Building bridges between innovative ideas, industrial expertise and capital has been part of our DNA since our inception 20 years ago. Our Pitch Days serve this purpose effectively!”  🚀We’re proud of this successful event and we’re looking forward to next year! Thank you to the team at Wacker for hosting us and everyone who joined us – whether to pitch or to connect. To learn more about the startups presenting as well as our panel check the comments below for a link to our previous post. ⬇️

🗓️🚀 Zeeg raises €1.1 million in pre-seed funding from HTGF | High-Tech Gründerfonds and BackBone Ventures to advance its Booking CRM platform. The platform combines appointment booking with CRM functionality – built in Berlin, hosted on German servers, meeting common requirements for European data sovereignty. 💸 With the fresh capital, Zeeg is developing AI-based assistants for the pre-sales process. These AI agents qualify incoming leads at the point of booking, shorten time to close, and simultaneously reduce cost per acquired customer. 🗨️ Mohammad Moghaddas (Mo M.), co-founder of Zeeg, says: "European companies need solutions that take their technological and regulatory requirements seriously. Our vision is a booking CRM that not only runs on German servers but also creates real value through AI." 💬 Florian Horbach, co-founder, adds: "We initially bootstrapped Zeeg completely and learned what matters: companies don't want tool silos, they want seamless processes. With this funding, we can now enter our next growth phase and realize our vision." 🗨️ Björn Sykora, Principal at HTGF, comments: "Zeeg combines scheduling, CRM, and AI in a European, sovereign solution that can be deeply integrated into various workflows. The high relevance across all industries and within numerous teams demonstrates the enormous market potential – delivered by an excellent team." Welcome to the HTGF Family and congratulations to the whole team at Zeeg. Learn more by following the links in the comments ⬇️

👏 A big thank you to the whole team at WACKER for hosting Chemistry Pitch Day 2025 at Wacker House in Munich! We had a total of 12 pitches today, across three sessions – learn more below 👇 🗯️ In our panel, moderated by Dr. Nik Raupp, Principal at HTGF, Prof. Dr. Olivia Merkel, Chair of Drug Delivery, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, and Dr. Dr. Martina Schulze-Adams, Senior VP of Business Development at Wacker, and Prof. Dr. Siegfried Waldvogel, Director Electrosynthesis at Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion, discussed “Molecules & Momentum: Start-Up Innovation with Corporates, where AI, Biotech & Sustainability Create the Future of the Chemical Industry.” We will share more pictures of the day and further information about the day’s program tomorrow. Stay tuned! 🚀Presenting startups and their representatives: Dr.-Ing. André Delavault, CEO of Catavis Applied Biotech: turning enzymes into catalytically active biomaterials. Dr. Frank Wallrapp, CEO of Twogee Biotech: second-generation sugar from biomass, that does not compete with food. Maximilian Webers, CEO of COLIPI: turning CO₂ into Climate Oil applying patented processes and microorganisms. Nicolas Krink, CEO of BioHalo: PFAS-free fluorinated biomaterials, that expand chemical possibilities and enable high-performance materials. Dr. Fabian Nagel, CEO of Secara: circular polymers from mixed plastic waste. Alexander Ebbrecht, CEO, CTO of akeno: autonomous production planning. Dr. Steffen Hau, CTO of Delfa Systems: real-time structural health monitoring. Dr. Innokentij Bogatykh, CEO of ModelForge: autonomous control systems for chemical plants.   Max Krause, CMO of Simplyfined: turning nature into next-gen chemistry, fossil-free and regulation-ready. Dr. Erik Wegener, CEO of Oxaphil: the Henry Ford of next-gen solubilizers — in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. Niels Dietzsch, CCO / COO of Mycolever: fungal biocompounds for industrial bioeconomy. Elias Samuel Hasel, Co-CEO of Isar Pyrolysis: turning plastic waste into fuel – anywhere. 🙏 Thank you to everybody who joined us and our hosts, Dr. Christian Hartel, Dr. Martina Schulze-Adams, Dr. Thomas Renner and the whole events and communications team for their support today!

🙏 Thank you for a great event and for letting us be a part of it, Women Start-up by UnternehmerTUM and UnternehmerTUM. Congratulations to all the participants, especially the winners! 🎉 cc: Joerg Traub

⚡️ The Grid goes to Slush! Together with our friends from BRYCK.COM, World Fund, and Vireo Ventures, we’re bringing The Grid - our own side event series - to Slush Helsinki for the very first time! What started just two years ago as a small gathering during Intersolar Munich has grown into a series connecting founders, VCs, and partners driving the energy transition. We can’t wait to see the energy community come together again in Helsinki - and to meet many of you shaping the future of energy tech. 👉 Join us: https://luma.com/yo0i5e3q CC: Johannes Weber; Timo Bertsch

💼 Verstärke unser Finance-Team als Buchhalter:in (Teilzeit, 50%) beim HTGF | High-Tech Gründerfonds! Du arbeitest gern strukturiert, behältst den Überblick über Zahlen und hast Lust, in einem dynamischen Umfeld Verantwortung zu übernehmen? Dann ist diese Position genau das Richtige für dich! 👉 Deine Aufgaben: Eigenständige Bearbeitung der Debitoren- und Kreditorenbuchhaltung Unterstützung bei Umsatzsteuer-Voranmeldungen und steuerlichen Themen Pflege und Abstimmung von Konten & Offenen-Posten-Listen Vorbereitung von Monats- und Jahresabschlüssen Was dich erwartet:  ✅ Flexibles Arbeiten – mobiles Arbeiten & individuelle Arbeitszeitmodelle  ✅ Ein starkes Netzwerk in der deutschen Start-up-Szene  ✅ Attraktive Benefits: Bonusregelung, Job-Bike, Deutschlandticket, 30 Tage Urlaub + Rosenmontag  ✅ Ein motiviertes Finance-Team mit zwölf engagierten Kolleg:innen Klingt nach einer spannenden Herausforderung? Dann bewirb dich jetzt als Buchhalter:in (50%, Teilzeit) beim High-Tech Gründerfonds in Bonn und werde Teil unseres Teams! 👉 https://lnkd.in/eHzVCWGn 🗨️ Bei Fragen steht dir Markus Tietz gerne als Ansprechpartner zur Verfügung.