Marie-Louise Freesemann

Good opportunity

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VC-Markt im DACH-Raum: So sieht die "neue Normalität" aus https://buff.ly/45vkOpn The VC market in the DACH region reflects the changing landscape of the "new normal." Companies are focusing on online presence, e-commerce strategies, cloud technologies, and data analytics for decision-making. Cybersecurity investments have increased, and remote work setups are crucial for business continuity. Adaptability and resilience are shaping the current VC market in the DACH region. #VCtrends #DACHregion.

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Knowledge for a startup to find a good match with the right investors.

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Start-ups in Europe: a light at the end of the tunnel - finally!    This article by Nadine Schimroszik in Handelsblatt gives reason for hope for the tech ecosystem, as it summarises a development that has been tentatively emerging for some time: The number of new #start-ups in Germany is growing again, by 17 per cent, as shown by a comparison of the first quarter of 2024 with the same quarter of the previous year.   💡It is particularly interesting to see that most investments are being made in AI. An unmistakable sign that they continue to be a driver of innovation for the German startup ecosystem.   We recently came to a similar conclusion with my team, as part of our analysis of the German startup landscape. Our conclusion: more and more funding are being mobilised for ♻️ #Greentech business ideas that are based on AI-based technologies and have a positive impact on our planet. More info on our research at IRIS can be found in Startup Insider`s Investors Report 2024: https://lnkd.in/dU-5AMPz More info on Nadine’s insightful article here: https://lnkd.in/depicwGA

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AAA-Advisors GmbH Business Area „Board & Strategy“ 🚀 **Unlock Your Company’s Potential with Expert Strategy Consulting!** 🚀 🌟 "This strategy consulting perfectly aligned us for our goals." 🌟 "Thanks to the experience and expertise of AAA-Advisors as external advisors, we were able to optimise our strategy." 🔍 **What We Offer:** - 💼 Taking on advisory board and supervisory board mandates - 🧑‍🏫 Coaching of advisory boards, supervisory boards, and management - 🛠️ Workshops to develop a jointly supported strategic plan - 🔄 Evaluation of strategy changes and transformations - 💡 Facilitation of success-critical decision-making and planning processes, including M&A transactions - 🌱 Support on strategically relevant topics like sustainability, technological upheavals, or management appointments - 🌐 Continuous skill updates through our membership in numerous board and entrepreneur networks 📈 **Strategic Consulting for:** - Corporations - Start-ups - Mid-sized companies - Private equity Our senior advisors are dedicated to the sustainable development of your company: - 🛡️ Taking on supervisory positions - 🗣️ Providing coaching to board members - 🎯 Advising substantively on strategic alternatives 💡 Let's navigate the future together! #StrategyConsulting #BoardAdvisory #BusinessGrowth #Sustainability #Innovation #Leadership #CorporateStrategy #MergersAndAcquisitions #ManagementCoaching #StrategicPlanning #BusinessDevelopment #Entrepreneurship

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Very insightful report on the German VC landscape by #startupInsider! Especially the VC profiles and interviews make the funding process more tangible

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Reading tip for all startup founders with fundraising plans in DACH: Investoren Report 2024 by Startup Insider. This report provides valuable insights into the venture capital landscape, and is a must-read for anyone looking to secure funding. Plus, it includes bonus material from IRIS on the latest developments in our ecosystem. Get your copy here: https://lnkd.in/dU-5AMPz #startups #founders #VC #LP #fundraising

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I was delighted to join as a mentor for the second time, engaging with a new round of entrepreneurs and mentors. The presentations and direct feedback are always insightful, but the true highlight for me is the networking break and the Q&A sessions with the founders afterward. These interactions not only enrich the event but also provide unique opportunities to address the founders' specific needs and foster deeper connections. #startup #mentoring

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Last year, we invested in Viktoria Lindner and Leonie Ellerbrock from Mindsurance through Robin Capital. Today, we are excited to announce our rebranding to Bloom and introduce our product and modules to the global market. The incidence of illness is rising, and we face a workforce shortage. Leave management is becoming increasingly critical, yet Europe lacks a comprehensive solution. While the U.S. has platforms like Cocoon, backed by prominent firms such as Index, Firstmark, and others, Europe has been without a similar innovation—until now. I am thrilled that we are launching this venture, poised to grow into a significant company. Congratulations to Viki, Leonie, and the entire Bloom team! Bloom's commitment to growth, transformation, and nurturing potential sets it apart. Let’s delve deeper into their unique approach: Health Commitment: As global health challenges intensify, Bloom's mission focuses on improving health management systems. Empowerment: Bloom equips organizations and their leaders with the knowledge to understand the impacts of #sickleave and #absenteeism on business performance. They provide tools for enhanced transparency and early predictions, empowering proactive management and instilling confidence in the future. Simplification: Bloom is dedicated to simplifying processes associated with leave, absence, and occupational #health management, ultimately enhancing the employee experience. World-Class EAP: Bloom provides a customizable Employee Assistance Program (EAP) that ensures access to high-quality healthcare services. Compliance and Empowerment: Bloom assists HR professionals and decision-makers keep up-to-date and compliant with labor and safety regulations. Bloom’s initiatives are focused on advancing workplace health management through innovative and supportive solutions.

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It was a pleasure to participate in the panel on Innovation for tomorrow's customer at the SCORE! conference for retail and e-commerce yesterday. Thank you Toni Kurz and Nicole Blum for the very interesting perspectives shared and Malte Polzin for moderating the discussion. Innovation is the future and the only way to not get stuck in the past! #score24 #innovation #ecommerce

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🗣 Announcing our Cashwalk Premium Partner: SevenAccelerator SevenAccelerator is an early stage Venture Capital unit of ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE whose aim is to identify strong founders and startups at an early stage and help them to become category leaders in their segment through their media volume, as a sparring partner and through operational support. In their own words..... SevenAccelerator: START. SCALE. SUCCEED. We are one of the leading accelerator programs in Germany and Austria with more than 30 early-stage consumer-driven companies in our portfolio. We provide you with media convertibles, tailored media deals and our full expertise to boost your brand awareness and accelerate your growth. We invest premium TV and digital media into ambitious, scalable B2C startups with mass market-ready products and services which want to take the next big leap on their growth journey. 3 reasons why SevenAccelerator is the right investor for your startup:  1️⃣ SevenAccelerator offers startups access to the full premium, 360° media reach of ProSiebenSat.1 Group. Our integrated network of premium TV channels, streaming, digital video and podcasts as well as influencers allows you to reach every target group with scale. 2️⃣ Early stage startups benefit from our holistic services and expertise including campaign creation/planning/optimization, consulting and mentoring on all media and creative matters: from spot testing to introductions to experienced production agencies. 3️⃣ Companies can accelerate their growth through our unique investment approach and profit from our cash-free and flexible media convertible deal construct. This allows you to boost your company valuation and minimize the equity that needs to be issued in the future. 3 things that grab our attention in a startup:  1️⃣ Passionate founders who truly believe in their product/service and focus on delivering added value to consumers. 2️⃣ Heterogeneous teams with diverse professional experience and industry expertise who are open to questioning their own decisions. 3️⃣ And foremost attractive, highly digital and scalable B2C business models in GAS (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) which address a mass market and benefit from long-term TV brand building effects. ........ Wow ! Increase your funding chances and build lasting connections, no matter the event.    Connect with SevenAccelerator today !! ....... #Cashwalk #SevenAccelerator #invest #entrepreneur #funding #vc #pitchevent #premiumpartner #investment #startup #scale

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🎉 Over 100 startups across 15 categories from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern alone! A few weeks ago, we unveiled the map of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern’s startup ecosystem. Today, we're thrilled to introduce the dedicated startup map! This map showcases the dynamic and diverse entrepreneurship thriving in our beautiful region. Despite the tough startup rates, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has developed a great scene driving innovation and progress. As co-founder of Founders Bay, alongside Hannes and Toni, we started this accelerator with a clear mission: to unlock the entrepreneurial potential in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. It’s inspiring to see the growth and the incredible startups that have emerged. We are proud to support this vibrant ecosystem, fostering the innovative forces at work here. From tech to sustainable development, from medicine to education – the variety of startups shows off the huge range of talents and ideas that this region has to offer. Together, we are making Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania a landmark for innovation. 🌱 #Startup #Innovation #MecklenburgVorpommern #Entrepreneurship #FoundersBay

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Fractional CFOs are not only a startup thing I recently came across the interview between Snocks founder Johannes Kliesch and Philip Hitschler-Becker, CEO of the confectionery manufacturer Hitschler, a fourth generation family owned business. When Philip took over the business, he was facing a challenging situation and needed to quickly start restructuring. In the interview, he describes how he identified product lines that were not contributing to company profits and cut them down, eventually seeing his efforts turning into financial success. Now how does this obvious thing require a fractional CFO you might ask? Many family owned businesses, so classic „German Mittelstand“, have been constantly performing well since incorporation. Profits were surging, growth inevitable - things were going well. Many of these company grew to sizes of 100+ employees and, given the success, finance was not about analyzing what happened and planning what might work better but more or less just bookkeeping to fulfill the statutory duties, calculate taxes and determine how much cash can be paid out as dividends. Now as we all know, the recent years have been a lot different from what we‘ve been used to. Profits are plumetting and dynamics of business are changing rapidly. The traditional setups of these companies often aren‘t capable of compiling numbers in the required granularity and the team oftentimes does not bring the right expertise as they were always tasked to keep operations running but never asked to perform financial analysis. Typically, such companies do not require a full time CFO since this is a) a pricey resource and b)by adjusting systems and processes, hired finance executives would partially eradicate the flaws they were hired for quickly, making themaelves redundant. And this is where fractional CFOs come into play. We join companies on a part time basis and start fixing outdated processes right away. We are well trained to make sure the numbers needed to take strategic decisions are created as close to „on the fly“ as possible. And we advise on how to tackle profitability issues, navigate through the change process and support in redefining corporate strategy. And all of this, we do without permanent commitment, so you can part ways with us as soon as you have the feeling you have created the appropriate internal structures. Because oftentimes, once you refactored, many of those tasks can move back into the operational teams. And please, by all means, dont consider this as your last chance in rescuing the company. We are no Wizards that can run a restructuring in two weeks - and can support a lot better before you enter pure survival mode. If you lack financial transparency regarding your product and service lines or constantly miss your targets, get in touch with me or my fellow fractional CFO colleagues. We are happy to support you anytime. Do you have any success stories from fractional management to share? Happy to exchange!

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Heading back home to the golden ⭐️ city of Prague after three intense days connecting with the Startup/VC ecosystem during HTGF | High-Tech Gründerfonds Family Day and Hinterland of Things.  Here are my three my top insights I take home …  1️⃣ Start-ups are alive and kickin’ - I met great founders with promising ideas and made ample new connections with investors. My perception is, the downturn helped to bring the ecosystem back to focus on great products/solutions, rather than just closing the next round. 🙏 2️⃣ Excellent insights from a great keynote by Bjorn Tremmerie on the status of European 🇪🇺 Venture Capital & comparison vs. US 🇺🇸: European returns do not only hold up, but actually even exceed US returns 😮 💪. Also, emerging fund managers do very well return-wise - that’s great inspiration for Kamil Levinský and myself as we start to build the Jet Investment Venture Fund. 3️⃣ AI/ML reached an inflection point - it’s being integrated everywhere and helps strengthen all sort of products/solution. 🚀 ...and indeed "Bielefeld does exist” 😂 #venturecapital #startups

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Salary Guide 2024 - Venture Capital DACH The last two years were crisis years for many start-ups. The volume of financing fell by almost two thirds. The reasons for this are persistently high interest rates and high inflation, coupled with a recession and a difficult geopolitical situation. Added to this is the further withdrawal of foreign investors from financing German start-ups, particularly from the USA. Nevertheless, experts are optimistic about the current year, not least because of the enormous potential in the artificial intelligence and clean tech sectors. This optimistic outlook for 2024 is also reflected in the salaries of VC company employees. These have remained relatively stable and, in some cases, have seen a positive upward trend. #investmentbanking

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After the storm - It has been a rough couple of months in luxury e-commerce. FARFETCH has been rescued by Coupang, MATCHES has been put into administration by Frasers Group. The jitters have been felt by Mytheresa, too. H1 of FY 24 has turned out to be challenging with growth slowing down and margins under pressure. Now finally things are looking up. In Q3, hence from January to March, Mytheresa recorded an increase of 18% in net sales, driven by the US where the number of top customers jumped by 48%. "We believe that we have reached a healthier inventory situation with the spring 2024 collection", says Michael Kliger who is optimistic for the medium term. "Mytheresa will become a multi-billion business that'll be highly profitable and cash-generative." The big question: When will the share price reflect these good prospects? Despite a rally since the beginning of the year, the share price is still hovering well below the IPO level. One limiting factor is the low trading volume. No wonder that there's speculation that Mytheresa might go private. Michael doesn't confirm these rumours and says: "We have always said that we consider options in view of the undervaluation on the stock market. However, there are no concrete plans to go private." Check-out the full interview by Tim Dörpmund and me on TextilWirtschaft. Thanks Michael for your time! #ecommerce #luxury #luxus #valuation #stockmarket #goingpublic #goingprivate #shareprice #growth #branding #wachstum #marketing #apparel #clothing #customer #retail #einzelhandel #modehandel #womenswear #menswear #designer

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🌟 Get ready for ECD Munich - Europe's premier marketplace event, hosted by our sponsor Tradebyte! 🌟 📅 Save the Date: June 12th, 2024 📍 Location: Wappenhalle, Munich If you're in the fashion industry and looking to supercharge your online marketplace strategies, then mark your calendars for this must-attend conference. ECD Munich brings together the brightest minds and top brands in e-commerce for a day filled with insightful discussions, networking opportunities, and game-changing strategies. I think this is already my 7th ECD and I am really looking forward too it! Last year I met soooo many marketplace managers especially from all the big Fashion and Sports brands that I am looking forward to meet you there again! Alistair Dawson, Marco Albert, Giuliana P. Whom will I meet there? 🎤 Hear from industry leaders like: Olga Burfan, Head of Global E-Commerce, PHILIPP PLEIN Francesca Margherita Padula, Director Marketplace, Metyis Ivan Perra, Global Retail & Business Development Director, MOSCHINO Mimi Sewalski, CEO, Avocado Store Donna Darthuizen, MBA, Ex VP Fashion & Beauty, Otto Group Yaw Afram, Director E-Commerce, Clinton Großhandels-GmbH Additional speakers and topics are still being added to the program by host and organisor Alexander Otto, who has his work cut out for in the next weeks… But he has always delivered in the past, and definitely will do so again this year. Off-stage you’ll have the opportunity to meet service providers and marketplaces such as ZEOS, ABOUT YOU, Kaufland Deutschland, limango GmbH - A member of the otto group, Seven Senders, fashionette and Allegro. For me, The ECD in Munich is always a great possibility to meet old contacts and make new acquaintances and get new insights directly from your peers. It’s simply a must-have event for all European marketplace people, especially those with a fashion focus. So, if you don’t have your ticket yet, you better hurry before the places are all sold out: www.ecd-gate.com Whom will I meet at ECD Munich? Let me know in the comments! #marketplaces #marktplatzmanager #ECDMunich #Ecommerce #Fashion #marketplacebusiness #ecd

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If you have been wondering why C2M works; Jens Langkammer makes it crystal clear. For those surprised by the low costs, you probably have been unaware of the actual cost of manufacturing the vast majority of the product you buy… Access to customer designed product and consumer led assortments, direct connection to huge networks of highly efficient supply networks, and avoidance of Brand costs, margins etc. This is a very balanced review of C2M, its here to stay, and we should be learning from the example and taking the best of what they do, and apply it to our own Businesses, while operating ethically and improving on the faults of the ultra fast fashion. All businesses have something to learn from the C2M approach.

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Cheers to 90 years Anton Willer GmbH & Co KG a Bundesverband Freier Tankstellen (bft) member 🍻🥂 Thank you for having The Retail Marketeers & NACS on board at this special cruise at the saling city Landeshauptstadt Kiel: Axel Niesing & the Willer brothers! The Mittelstand is often described as the heart of Germany’s economy – and rightly so, given that mid-sized firms account for the largest share of the country’s economic output, employ about 60 percent of all workers, provide crucial training, and contribute significantly to corporate tax revenues in Germany. „Medium-sized companies in the form of bft petrol stations remain a constant in turbulent times and are drivers of innovation in mobility, as shown by the rapid introduction of HVO100 at our petrol stations," says Daniel Kaddik, Bundesverband Freier Tankstellen (bft) managing director. The independent petrol stations currently have a market share of 22 percent with more than 2800 petrol stations in 🇩🇪. The bft and its member companies see themselves as part of the solution on the way to greenhouse gas-neutral mobility and therefore see the filling station as a modern provider of existing and renewable energies, which include (green) electricity and hydrogen as well as sustainable biogenic and synthetic fuels (e-fuels). eFuels Forum

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