Future-Proofing Speedinvest: Meet the Management Team Leading us into our Next Generation of Success

The average European VC fund has been in business for just over ten years, lagging multiple decades behind the biggest brands in Silicon Valley. The startup industry in Europe, too, is incredibly different from when we opened our first tiny office in Austria in 2011. Back then, Europe wasn’t yet known for creating unicorns, and we were far from having offices across the continent, and beyond.

Speedinvest began life like the startups and founders we back; hungry and hard-working, an underdog with limited resources and big dreams to help build European companies that redefine global industries. That dream remains unchanged despite the last few years being tough on both founders and investors alike in European tech.

Just as the drought in funding over the last two years drove a lot of startups out of business, the current market environment is also driving consolidation in our asset class, with some funds finding it challenging to raise new capital while others look for larger platforms to find a home.  

The rise of giant platform funds — amassing vast capital and merging with other players — is shifting from the US to Europe, resulting in LP capital concentrating in fewer, larger firms that can play across stages and geographies. Established brands like A16Z and General Catalyst have raised nearly half of the VC funding in 2024 in the US.

As LPs look to back a smaller pack of proven winners, it seems inevitable that capital will increasingly flow towards two very distinct models of venture. Small, nimble, and highly focused niche funds on one hand and powerful venture platforms that leverage scale and synergies on the other. Everybody else will face an uphill battle, which makes having clarity on your path as a fund is critical.

Speedinvest has long embraced the platform fund strategy.

With six full-scale offices across Europe, six sector-focused teams, and 80+ employees in key functions, we’ve built a unique investment platform for Europe and beyond. This foundation enables us to take the lead investor role in over 350 companies at their earliest and most impactful stages.

By focusing on pivotal global tech sectors across multiple markets and industries, we can provide our LPs with a unique level of diversification without compromising on performance.

Such an approach requires continuously scaling our AuM and team, enabling us to remain among the few funds that consistently partner with generational companies.

But sustainable growth takes time. Very few VC funds even last this long. For Speedinvest, raising Si 4 in 2022 not only positioned us as a brand that is here to stay but also marked a very early stage of our journey. 

With this vision to build a new type of European VC – a large-scale, professionalized firm that stands the test of time – we also need to be forward-thinking about the art of company building within Speedinvest. We need a roadmap that guides us on our path toward professionalization and global excellence, avoiding the two classic traps that have destroyed many great firms over and over, namely: 

• A lack of willingness by current leadership to provide clarity on generational change and share economics

• A lack of willingness by successful Investors to put in the work to build a great company – from transparent and fair processes to a cohesive culture

We kicked off our future-proofing plan by becoming a fully licensed alternative investment firm earlier this year to ensure rigorous oversight of our investments to the greater long-term benefit of our LPs and founders. With this comes added supervision under EU frameworks and passporting rights alongside authorization by Austria’s Financial Market Authority (FMA). 

Now, we’re excited to announce the next phase of our forward-focused plan – a new, broader management team that will lead Speedinvest into 2025 and beyond.

Broader (and purposely younger) leadership, same direction

We’re strengthening our leadership team with exceptional investment and operational talent to drive sustained success and avoid the pitfalls mentioned above. 

Speedinvest is preparing for the next generation of success with the promotions of Andreas Schwarzenbrunner and Markus Lang to General Partner, and our General Counsel Nora Frizberg to COO. Our long-time General Partner Marie-Helene Ametsreiter remains on our management team, alongside our Founding Partner Oliver Holle who will continue as Managing Partner and CEO. 

Each of these long-time, driven, and proven team members brings a unique passion to the mix and stands for one core element of Speedinvest’s successful formula. Let’s start with our Seed practice, which is at the core of our value engine.   

Founder-focused expertise, at scale 

One core belief at Speedinvest is that investors must be able to understand founders at their level. To ensure we can proactively support our founders, we built sector-focused teams across Fintech, SaaS and Infra, Marketplaces & Consumer, Health & TechBio, Deep Tech, and Climate Tech & Industrial Tech. These teams provide our founders with experts who understand their industries as much as (or more) than they do, helping them to scale from day one – a key differentiator and value add for all involved. 

The continued success of those teams will be managed by Markus Lang, who joined Speedinvest in 2015.

With deep expertise as both a founder and investor, Markus has been instrumental in scaling major portfolio companies like GoStudent, Prewave, Sona, Refurbed, and Upvest. Markus will provide tailored guidance and strategic insights to help our teams identify new growth opportunities, navigate challenges, and build high-impact businesses from the ground up. He will also be a hands-on resource for both established portfolio companies and the new founders joining our ecosystem.

"After years of building a company and a decade at Speedinvest backing 50+ teams, combining investor and operator experience feels natural. While founders will always remain at the core of what we do, we must constantly iterate and improve as an organization.” — Markus Lang

Driving Speedinvest (and our asset class) to new frontiers

As a product, venture capital has seen limited evolution. Despite being an industry focused on rapid scaling, many funds have struggled to achieve the level of growth and adaptability needed to thrive long-term.

Andreas (Andy) will play a key role in defining and refining our strategic roadmap. With nearly a decade at Speedinvest, Andy has been pivotal in shaping our fund’s direction and investment approach, bringing a clear, forward-looking strategy to our mission. In addition to leading our Climate Tech and Industrial Tech team from Paris, Andy will work across all teams and funds to anticipate market shifts and develop strategies that keep us agile, competitive, and well-positioned for sustained growth.

“VC as an asset class in its core has not changed for decades. We want to be an innovator in our industry. This means building the best fund products and products for our founders and helping them achieve their global ambitions.” — Andreas Schwarzenbrunner

Nora Frizerg, who has served as our general counsel for over six years, will assume the role of COO to focus on managing our now licensed fund manager and investment vehicles. Unlike most VC funds in Europe, which are either too small or tend to outsource fund management, we have committed to a model that puts sustainability and oversight at the heart of everything we do.

As the industry matures, VCs becoming licensed fund managers will probably become more normal and vice versa: The more VCs become licensed, the more the industry will mature. By providing professional services to founders and LPs, our licensed model further strengthens our scalable, high-impact investment platform.

“Speedinvest has always taken a very entrepreneurial approach, not only when supporting our founders and investors, but also regarding our own strategy and products. We often do things differently than the typical VC - with a broader focus, at a bigger scale, and with a larger and more diverse team. Our ambition is to keep pioneering, while also continuing our path of constant professionalization and not losing our approachable and diverse culture.” — Nora Frizberg

VC is a People Business 

Marie-Helene, who has more than a decade of first-hand experience partnering with pre-Seed and Seed startups, knows first-hand how critically important those first few years are. The time to Series A in Europe is around 24 months, on average, while the early-stage failure rate is between 70-80%, per Dealroom, so every day, every month counts. 

The foundation of our founder support platform, which has been part of our value-add to founders since the beginning, is leveraging our massive network to connect our founders to potential customers, leading follow-on VCs, industry experts, and more to ensure they’re fully equipped to succeed. And we’re just getting started!

“Early-stage VC is a people business. Portfolio Support, our talent, and our brand are of critical importance to the fund’s success. I will focus all of my energy on driving these topics forward.” — Marie-Helene Ametsreiter

VC is a team sport. Attracting and retaining top-tier talent is crucial to building a world-class team. And we’re committed to further strengthening our company culture to the benefit of our fund, founders, and key stakeholders.

Today, our team comes from different generations and backgrounds with experience in politics, operations, marketing, and law, just to name a few. Our mission is to ensure our entire operation, from back-end staff to our newest investors, has the support needed to do great work through a strong culture of excellence. 

There’s still work to be done, but the engine we’re building is primed for continued growth and success.

Everything we have built since 2011 has led us to this moment. 

We’re now simply doubling down on what has set Speedinvest apart as a fund – a high level of trust and sense of collaboration among us as well as a clear, almost outrageously ambitious vision of where we want to take this company.

To fulfill this vision, we need to do more than just be the best investors possible. We also need to build the best investment company out there. All the pieces are now in place to provide our key stakeholders with an industry-leading level of support and success.

We’ve got some very exciting plans for the future (more on that soon!) and we’re confident that the best is yet to come for Speedinvest and the entire European tech and VC ecosystem. 

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