Oliver Holle

In 1997, Oliver was working on his Ph.D. thesis in Economics at Columbia University when he decided to embark on a new path and found a company. This was long before terms like "mobile," "entrepreneur," or "startup" were commonplace in Europe. This “crazy” decision laid the foundation for Oliver to later become a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Speedinvest.

After raising way too much money and spending it all in the early 2000s tech bubble, Oliver and his team battled for three years against insolvency. They emerged from the brink of failure by successfully pivoting to mobile data. A merger with two other startups resulted in 3united AG, a highly profitable European leader in mobile content and messaging. 3united was eventually acquired by Verisign, leading Oliver to Silicon Valley, where he gained valuable experience at a leading U.S. tech company.

The experience convinced Oliver that European founders can win big in the Valley and beyond. He returned to Austria determined to build a new type of venture fund, defined by his strong belief that seed-stage venture capital requires a very different model than he had personally experienced. 

Despite warnings from pretty much everyone he knew, Oliver and his scrappy founder team developed their unique venture model and, in 2011, raised a tiny micro fund of €10M. Speedinvest was born.

Since then, Oliver has developed Speedinvest into the beast it is today, which he would argue continues to be an enormous entrepreneurial journey in itself.

Oliver continues to play an active role in the firm, overseeing fundraising, growth initiatives, and emerging markets. He also serves on the boards of 15+ portfolio companies, including Wikifolio, Cobee, Fraugster, and Inkitt.

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