Named #1 of NextBerlin 100 List – and hope that it helps filling 100 open positions!

April 12th, 2013

Yesterday NextBerlin Conference Jury & Audience Voting named me #1 out of  100 (pre-nominated!) European Digital Influencers.

Thanks to everybody who contributed – I hope the nice visibility helps finding more top talent for 100+ attractive openings at HitFox Group, SponsorPay, Madvertise & Absolventa!

Have a look at the career sections below and help me spreading the word :)

http://www.hitfoxgroup.com/english/career/open-positions
http://www.sponsorpay.com/careers/jobs/
http://madvertise.com/career
http://www.absolventa.de/arbeiten-bei-absolventa

Angela Merkel visits the Start-up scene

March 8th, 2013

Yesterday I and several other German Entrepreneurs got the seldom opportunity to meet Angela Merkel at a Start-up Event!

(Thanks for organizing this cool event to Lars Hinrichs as well Florian Noell and Thomas Bachem from DeutscheStart-ups.org.)

I was very positively surprised by her Charisma and she hold a smart and entertaining speech about how she`d like to support Internet Entrepreneurship in Germany.

Afterwards she took about 45 minutes to discuss and listen to our ideas.

It`s a smart strategic move from her (definitely inspired by Philip Roesler) to affiliate herself with the Internet & Start-up scene.

The is were the sustainable growth is and it will also benefit her public image – just 6 months ahead of the upcoming elections…

I hope (& believe) her interest in the Internet Start-up scene will continue afterwards!

at a start-up event in Berlin...

 

HitFox Group expanding into Asia with local presence in Korea

November 8th, 2012

Today we announced HitFox Group`s expansion into Asia and the appointment of Ludolf Ebner-Chung as General Manager!

3 out of our 4 portfolio companies (Ad2Games, AppLift, & GameFinder) are growing fast in Europe and US, now working together with 150+ Mobile & Online Game Publishers.

Our whole group now consists of 70 awesome professionals with the large majority being based in Berlin – some other exciting locations tba soon…

I`m at this moment in Busan/Korea for G-Star Conference and excited to be first time ever in Korea…

Looking forward for a lot of good meetings & new partnerships at G-Star and some quality time & partying with Ludolf, Ruben (Haas), Janis Zech & Michael (Liebe) in Seoul this weekend!

HitFox Game Ventures launches AppLift & GameFinder

August 14th, 2012

Today we announced foundation & 7-figure € funding of our 2 Mobile Game Marketing Start-ups AppLift & GameFinder.

As Techcrunch put it right HitFox Game Ventures started and funded them pretty hands-on in the “German Style Incubator model”.

However with Kaya Taner (AppLift MD) & Xavier Rezgui (GameFinder MD) we have 2 strong co-founders on board.

Both have before been outstanding team members at HitFox.

I like this way of picking Co-Founders particularly for 2 reasons:

1. Both parties know each other before and have adequate expectations.

2. It is motivating your existing team and also attracts further top talents.

Did I mention that we have 30+ open positions at the moment? ;-)

 

 

 

 

 

HitFox Game Ventures: The world`s first Game Distribution Incubator

July 31st, 2012

Since it`s start in 2008 I`ve been founding companies together with my friends and close business partners from incubator Team Europe.

Most recently we`ve started together HitFox - a Game Distribution Company.

Now we are proud to announce the next evolution step HitFox Game Ventures – the world`s first incubator focussed on Game Distribution. 

We are now a team of 55 and just moved into our new HQ at Rosenstr. 16-17 – the former office of Groupon. 

The first 2 start-ups besides HitFox and Ad2Games (which we aquired in February 2012) are progressing fast and will be announced soon…

 

 

Facebook IPO this friday – how you can profit now from buying Google shares

May 16th, 2012

This Friday Facebook`s long expected IPO is finally happening. The initial valuation will likely be around 100$ billion dollar.

I was lucky to buy my Facebook stock much cheaper in 2010 on the secondary market  - and I will sell most of it soon after the IPO (on the secondary market again due to the 6 month lock up for my shares).

During the last year I`ve written 3 articles on different strategies how you can profit from investing in Facebook or their IPO:

 

http://www.gruenderszene.de/finanzen/vor-dem-borsengang-investieren

http://www.gruenderszene.de/news/zynga-facebook-ipo

http://www.socialgamesobserver.com/guest-post-faceboo-ipo-12488

 

Here`s now a short term “tactic” for the last minute – possible for everybody who owns already a stock depot:

 

Buy Google stocks now before the IPO – they are relatively undervalued and will rise when people compare Google`s value to Facebook!

 

Given the strong investors demand (and a 900m user base) it`s likely that the price will jump 20-50% within the first minutes /hours after the IPO.

That means Facebook`s valuation could reach 120-150$ billion dollar.

 

Even though I believe in Facebook`s longterm potential to be worth much more in short term they are relatively overpriced – at least compared to Google.

Google has today a market cap of $200 billion and a Price/Earning Ratio around 19 while they are still continuously growing.

Moreover they have plenty of cash in the bank – if you calculate that out their P/E ratio is even much cheaper.

Facebook will at a valuation of 120-150$ billion have a Price/Earning Ratio of 120-150.

While Facebook is growing faster than Google they are – at least in the short term – not fair valued when Facebook is worth 60-75% of Google`s valuation.

When Facebook is realizing the 120-150$billion valuation this Friday people will compare Google and Facebook closely.

There should be 2 effects

1. Google`s stock will rise

2. Facebook`s stock might loose relatively a bit (or not become even more expensive)

 

Part of the effects should happen immediately. Part of the effect could happen during the following days, week`s and months after analysts had some time to compare.

For the last 3-4 years I`ve more or less always split up my  money available for stock investments between Google, Amazon and Apple stocks – sometimes adding some side-investments in smaller Internet stocks.

Before the IPO on Friday I`ve now put for a short time 100% of my stock investment liquidity in Google.

Even though the described effect might only be good for a few percent return – it`s a few percent in a few days or weeks.

Moreover the downside risk is rather low:

Google is “cheap” anyway at the moment even without comparing them to Facebook and the share could easily go up 20-40% during the next 12 months.

If you agree with my opinion, hurry up now. It`s not too late now to benefit from the Facebook IPO – even without owning FB shares.

 

Disclaimer:

Since I own both Facebook and Google shares I could (in theory) profit from a significantly higher demand.

Also keep in mind that stock investments are always risky and  I could definitely be wrong with my above mentioned opinion!

 

Gruenderszene.de steadily grows – next big milestone: Heureka Conference at May 7th

April 9th, 2012

5 years after my own involvement at Gruenderszene.de I`m very happy to follow that Gruenderszene.de is growing steadily.

Within the last 6 months they`ve successfully established VentureVillage.eu - I already love it for the unique, entertaining style to report about our scene!

Recently the Gruenderszene.de team around Mark, Joel, Nora & Marguerite expanded into Start-up Events.

I`m sure they`ll be able to leverage their reach, brand and execution power to be successful.

I very much enjoyed their latest “Spätschicht”-Event.

Now they work on a much bigger event with the upcoming “Heureka-Conference” on May 7th (during Berlin Webweek):

40 prominent national and international speakers are covering hot topics like Incubation, Internationalization & Mobile.

About 500 guests are expected – I`m already looking forward to it and hope to see you there!

Tickets & info:

www.heureka-conference.com

 

 

 

 

Investment in E-Commerce & SaaS-Start-up Grünspar.de

December 6th, 2011

This week my investment in profitable and rapid-growing E-Commerce & SaaS-Start-up Gruenspar.de was press-released. I`ve been knowing the company for a while since I studied together with Founder & CEO Sebastian Kotzwander. After a really tough bootstrapped start he managed to get the company now on a very promising growth path in the two synergetic business fields E-Commerce and SaaS for Energy providers. Grünspar.de increased revenues in 2011 10fold and is my first investment in a company from my “home” city “Münster” :)

Exciting new Start-up: HitFox soon launching with a mid 7-digit invest from 4 strong VCs

August 12th, 2011

Since April this year I have been founding together with Tim Koschella and Team Europe a very ambitious Start-up:

HitFox is very soon offering Deals on Games and Game Equipment.

I`m really proud of the very strong team: 25 people based in Berlin that we handpicked after a heavy screening of more than 250 applicants.

Besides I`m happy to cooperate again closely with Team Europe – the incubator where I have been Venture Partner before and with that I co-founded SponsorPay and Madvertise together.

We recently got pre-launch a medium 7-figure investment from Holtzbrinck Ventures, Hasso Plattner Ventures, Tengelmann Group and Kite Ventures – I`ve been personally co-investing a medium 6-figure amount.

We launch with the first Deal in Germany during Gamescom and will quickly internationalize to other European and american countries afterwards.

Exciting times ahead :)

Pre-IPO investments in companies like Facebook

July 28th, 2011

For the first time since a long time I wrote a guest article (in german language) on Gruenderszene.de:

Pre-IPO investing in hot “start-ups” like Facebook

I`ve been investing several times in 2010 in Facebook and Linkedin.

Currently I am looking for sellers of Wooga.com and Dropbox.com shares.

Please ping me if you know an investor/employee/founder willing to sell.

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