How I invest — Horch Ventures

What I look for

StagePre-seed and seed

First cheque€50,000 – €250,000

Reserved per companyup to €500,000 for follow-on rounds

RoleLead in small pre-seed rounds, otherwise co-investor

Business modelScalable B2B software, focus on finance and travel

RegionGermany, Austria, Switzerland — elsewhere in Europe when it fits

StakeMinority. No majority, no board seat

What I don’t do

No medtech, no defence, no infrastructure.

No majority acquisitions.

No companies whose market I cannot judge myself.

No rounds with twelve co-investors around the table.

No advisory work for a fee. Horch Ventures gives money and takes none. If you want advisory, that runs through promerget — and then I only invest once the mandate has ended.

The process

Email. The deck, three numbers, one sentence on the problem.

Conversation. Sixty minutes. We talk about the product and about you, not about the market.

Review. I go through the numbers, the technology and the contracts. Two to three weeks.

Decision. Mine. No body that interferes later.

Where my investments come from

Some of my investments come out of promerget mandates. I have worked with those companies for six months before investing. That is an advantage and a risk at the same time, which is why the rules are fixed:

The advisory mandate ends before the investment is signed. No commission is charged on capital I provide myself. There is no right of first refusal in the advisory agreement. And every co-investor is told in the first conversation that I advised the company.

If you would rather not go that route, pitch me directly. That is the normal path and it is just as open.

What I do afterwards

I am not in weekly check-ins. I am there when it comes to financing, acquisitions or an exit — the three moments where most founders are doing something for the first time that I have done ten times.

Send a pitch