#5 Andreas Olmes - Principal at Hightech Gründerfonds

Dr. Andreas Olmes is THE expert at HTGF - the most active early-stage VC in Europe - for industrial tech ventures. Since 2008, Andreas has been financing companies in hardware-related industries. Seven successful exits have covered over half of the investment outlay for his portfolio. He also enjoys programming Excel and CapTable tools to make the lives of his HTGF colleagues easier. Not too long ago, he co-initiated an expert circle at HTGF focusing on product-market-fit. Andreas Olmes holds a PhD in physics and has always enjoyed working on the strategic development of companies. In the first ten years of his professional career, he handled the transformation of an eye-surgery practice into a clinic, set up his own VC-financed technology firm and helped the owner of a sales company to establish his firm in the laser market, in a move that proved highly successful. 

With Andreas, we not only discuss why there are so many physicists among successful VCs and tech transfer officers, but also what triggered him to become a VC. Also, he has a very clear picture of how a successful startup team looks like: he advocates for more „product teams“ instead of the dominant model of rather management-driven teams. This is also due to the fact that for him product-market-fit is the key enabler for successful venturing. We also touch upon the role of research organizations in forming new ventures and his perspective on the right deal structure. Since Andreas is a passionate supporter of the sustainability movement, he also outlined why deep tech is the solution for addressing many of the relevant issues.