Austrian VC Speedinvest is today announcing a new five-person management team composed of CEO and managing partner Oliver Holle, GP Marie-Helene Ametsreiter — who has been with the firm for more than 10 years — and newly promoted GPs Markus Lang and Andreas Schwarzenbrunner. Nora Frizberg, the firm’s operating partner and general counsel, will also join the management team as COO.
For the last 14 years, Speedinvest — which has backed companies such as Wefox, GoStudent and Bitpanda — has been largely run by Holle, with help along the way from various cofounders and partners. But the VC has in that time grown to a team of 85 people spread across five offices in Europe, and more hands on deck were needed to lead the firm.
"This is not something that came out of the blue, it's been years in the making," Holle tells Sifted.
The news comes as two of Speedinvest’s longstanding partners — Mathias Ockenfels and Julian Blessin — stepped down this year. Ockenfels, who left in July, decided to “embark on a new chapter” after seven years at the firm, while Blessin, who stepped down in September, is focusing on building his new mobility startup, AllRide, which he announced yesterday on LinkedIn.
Speedinvest declined to comment on how the firm’s carry is split between its 16 GPs and partners, six of which are women. It doesn’t currently have an equal partnership, but Holle says there’s “potential” for that to happen in the future.
“We are promoting two relatively young people internally to general partner positions. There is a clear path for the rest of the partnership — and there’s not these three, four old guys that sit on the top and don’t share,” says Holle, adding that Speedinvest is trying not to fall into the “stupid trap” of “undersharing or greed” which can kill a firm.
“It's a people business and trust is everything here,” he says.
Survival of the fittest
Now that VC’s pre-2021 golden years — where capital was free-flowing and firms got used to an era of up rounds and unicorns — are over, some VCs are struggling to make deals, land exits and raise funds, while others are grappling with staff departures.
Many are re-strategising about how to stay competitive and ensure their firms survive in the long run. HV Capital, one of Germany’s largest VC firms, recently triggered a succession process and made several major promotions.
Others, such as Berlin-based firm Cavalry Ventures, have had to re-calibrate and refocus their fund strategy after three partners left Cavalry this year.
London-based Atomico also cycled through a handful of partners between its latest funds.
I think people underestimated how tough of a job it is and how hard it is to create liquidity, and how quickly returns can evaporate if some of your unicorns go south.
“The European VC industry had 10 years of fun, years of upward trends in pretty much everything we did, lots of up rounds and unicorn creation. And I think people underestimated how tough of a job it is and how hard it is to create liquidity, and how quickly returns can evaporate if some of your unicorns go south,” says Holle.
“I think everyone has to ask themselves, ‘Do I really want to do this?’ Because it’s not so fun if you have to fight and you’re not always winning.”
Like many firms, Speedinvest is considering how to stay competitive in a changing VC landscape.
Holle says the rise of big platform funds seen in the US is coming to Europe, which means that LP capital is concentrating in fewer, larger firms that invest across stages and geographies.
He predicts the market will eventually bifurcate into two very distinct venture models.
On one hand, small, focused, nimble funds that have specific expertise. And on the other, big venture funds that “can do the things that smaller funds can’t do”. For example, building specific sector expertise, setting up a platform business or, in Speedinvest’s case, setting up a team of three M&A specialists that help its startups find exit opportunities, which in turn, creates liquidity for the firm.
“In Europe, there's a big middle ground of funds that haven't done anything in terms of innovation, haven't done anything in terms of setting themselves apart — maybe apart from just being well established in the local networks,” says Holle.
He adds that in a challenging environment, where LPs are increasingly more discerning about where they invest heir money, firms need to have a clear strategy and an idea of how to differentiate themselves in the market.
Bullish on Europe
Despite chatter that European tech is declining and that companies here are continuing to lose ground to their US peers, Holle says he still believes in the continent’s potential.
“It’s so untrue to think of Europe as not exciting,” he says. “I’ve been doing this for a while now and we have so many more top founder teams that have already built a big company and are coming back [to found again] with five, seven term sheets to pick and choose from. That’s exactly the kind of quality density I think Silicon Valley has had maybe for 20-30 years; we’ve had it the last three to four years.”
The firm plans to go out to fundraise next year, says Holle, having closed its fourth early-stage fund, of €350m, in January. It has investors stationed in offices in London, Paris, Munich, Vienna, and Berlin.
Speedinvest has sector-focused teams that invest across deeptech, fintech, health and techbio, marketplaces and consumer, climate and industrial tech and SaaS and infrastructure. But the most exciting dealflow, says Holle, is coming from deeptech companies focusing on a range of issues from material science and new chips to quantum fusion.
“Nowadays, you have to invest in hardware to some degree,” says Holle, pointing to portfolio company Cylib, which is building a factory in Germany for battery recycling.
“I don’t think we would have thought about this a few years ago, but it’s really exciting.”
Update, Nov. 28, 2024: This article has been updated to reflect that Speedinvest no longer has a US office.
