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.

1. I left SponsorPay Management after 15 months of rapid growth. (Not really “news” for my close contacts )

- In July 2010 I left SponsorPay to take a sabbatical after I had built up the company for 15 months. My original contract as Interim Managing Director had been designed for 6-12 months. We later extended it to have me building up our USA Operations before I leave the company.

2. SponsorPay continued to grow and got new investors on board.

- SponsorPay continued the growth path under my successor Janis Zech and CEO Andreas Bodczek. (Now about 75 employees and growing further.) Most recently Nokia Growth Partners invested about $5 Mio alongside existing investors. I`ve been selling a part of my SponsorPay shares in that transaction.

3. I made several new pre IPO investments:

- Facebook.com (Bought employee shares in several transactions since june 2010.)

- Linkedin.com (Bought employee shares in one transaction in October 2010.)

- Slightly increased my position in a new financing round for SaaS-for-Lawyers company GoClio.com.

- Invested alongside my Team Europe Ventures partners in online food delivery platform Lieferheld.de. (big news ahead )

I`ve invested medium 5 to medium 6 digits amounts / in all companies. This is also the size I am looking for new investment opportunities.

4. My other major portfolio companies have been growing nicely as well:

- Madvertise.de profited from the strong growing mobile market and serves now 700 Mio Page Impressions per Month after 60 Mio one year before.

- Absolventa.de also developed very well and has now more than 1200 companies using their recruiting service.

5. I`m soon starting an exciting new company together with my partners from Team Europe Ventures…

6. I have an exciting opportunity for one or two very analytical future entrepreneurs !

This a big chance to develop everything that it needs to become an internet entrepreneur (know-how, network, reputation, access to capital and talents) within 1-3 years of very close collaboration with me and Team Europe Ventures. I also look for an entrepreneurial intern.

Please contact me already if you are interested. More TBA soon…

Madvertise is a quickly-growing Mobile Advertising Start-up that I co-founded as Venture Partner with Team Europe in September 2008.

Since then the strong operational founder team around Carsten Frien has reached good initial traction in the young but very fast growing mobile advertising market in Europe.

Recent US-based Mobile Advertising acquisitions of Admob (750million $ from Google) and Quattro Wireless (300million $ from Apple) give a good direction for the exit

More info:

Techcrunch: http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/03/30/mobile-ad-network-madvertise-secures-series-a-round/

Handelsblatt: http://blog.handelsblatt.com/webwatcher/2010/03/30/madvertise-sichert-fianzierungsrunde/

Gründerszene: http://www.gruenderszene.de/news/earlybird-und-team-europe-ventures-investieren-siebenstelligen-betrag-in-madvertise/

Thanks to the invitation from non-executive co-founder Lukasz Gadowski I had invested a small amount during the seed round in summer 2007.

Even though no transaction details are public it is no secret that all seed-investors made a fantastic multiple

The private shopping club made already 80m € revenue in 2009 – just 2 years after the company had been founded.

Congratulation and thank you to the founders and management and I wish you all the best for the future and further growth of Brands4Friends!