Event description
Everyone is very welcome to the first virtual event of Startup Disrupt in Germany! In September we’ll live stream an amazing event with extraordinary speakers both from corporate and startups. We will talk about the startup ecosystem in Germany, investments, opportunities for foreign startups, and many other interesting topics.
📡 The event will be online streamed in English.
This event is brought to you with the kind support of #Holkyzmarketingu, CzechInvest, Growth with Google, LXVI, Born Digital, HubHub, and others.
€0.00 inc. VATRead more
🕖 Agenda
6.30 pm – 6.35 pm CET – Welcome Speech
6.35 pm – 7.15 pm CET – Founders: How to succeed as a startup in Germany?
7.15 pm – 8.00 pm CET – Community Partners: How to find the best partners for your hyper-growth?
8.00 pm – 8.30 pm CET – Pitch Night with German and Czech startups
Speaker – Welcome Speech
Pavel Chovanec (DACH, CzechInvest)
Pavel works for the governmental investment promotion agency CzechInvest for more than 15 years, currently on the post of Representative for D-A-Ch Region, where he facilitates investments to the Czech Republic and expansions of Czech start-ups to Germany. On previous posts of Investment Division Director and Head of Investment Project Management Department, he was responsible for execution of investment supportive programs, investment incentives, preparation of industrial zones and various other tasks of investment policy. He graduated from the University of Economics, Prague, specializing in Economic Policy. He is interested in investment promotion and new technologies.
Moderator – Founders: How to succeed as a startup in Germany?
Patrik Juránek (CEO, Startup Disrupt)
Patrik is a Founder at Startup Disrupt, a platform for startups, technology innovators, and other entrepreneurs. In 2016 he co-founded Startup Grind Czech Republic as part of a global community and built a community with 3000+ entrepreneurs on board. He is also an external consultant for global technology companies and a founding member of LXVI Ventures. Patrik was also announced as the winner of the Ecosystem Hero in the Central European Startup Awards.
Speakers – Founders: How to succeed as a startup in Germany?
Hendrik Brandis (Co-founder and Partner, Earlybird)
Hendrik is a Co-founder and Partner at Earlybird who is based in Munich, Germany. Hendrik’s current domain focus is deep tech and enterprise productivity for startup companies with corporate-division software and hardware products, as well as selected high-tech topics.
Hendrik currently serves on the boards of Earlybird portfolio companies aiven (Helsinki, Finland), Aleph Alpha (Heidelberg), B2X Care Solutions (Munich), HiveMQ (Landshut), Instamotion (Munich), Isar Aerospace (Munich), MyDataModels (Valbonne, France), Onefootball (Berlin), and Simscale (Munich).
Elena Poughia (MD, Dataconomy)
Elena is the MD of Dataconomy, one of the top 10 AI magazines & educational platforms in the world, and the founder of Data Natives, Europe’s largest data science conference. She is the initiator of HackCorona, an incremental part of the EUvsVirus community. She is currently Communications Advisor to Polypoly & works with AI startups to get them investment ready and mentors various startups through the VHP, tech2impact, African Tech Vision program. She is particularly committed to supporting womxn and marginalized communities by helping them become established in tech professions.
Anna-Franziska Michel (CEO and Founder, yoona.ai)
CEO and founder Anna-Franziska Michel is a “Digital Female Leader Award” winner in the field of “Innovation” She comes from a fashion background having worked at Zalando and previously founder of different Startups, now she is CEO and Founder of yoona.ai based in Berlin. yoona.ai is among the 1% percent of companies worldwide in which Techstars invested in and were allowed to go through the Accelerator program. yoona.ai is a unique SaaS solution which helps the fashion industry to optimize processes and save time and costs by our deep tech platform without designers burnout and encouraging sustainability while enhancing creativity. yoona.ai believes that the fashion industry should be digitized to the highest degree to send it on a better, a “greener” path and finally close the gap between this industry’s economic and and sustainable goals of this industry.
Jan Martens (Sales Director, Born Digital)Jan is a very experienced Entrepreneur and Executive Salesperson with a very solid background in telecommunications & IT. He is passionate about good communication and networking. He has delivered many successful projects globally with a strong focus on the German, French & US-based markets. He has joined Born Digital this year to build our successful journey in the DACH region and spread our business opportunities globally.
Moderator – Community Partners: How to find the best partners for your hyper-growth?
Stephan Horvath
Stephan has over 20 years of international C-level experience in working for network agencies and consulting firms. He is the founder of Ideations, a firm connecting knowledge, investor relations, and advising tech clients and tech funds on business and innovation strategies. He is also the founder of the SilkRoad Cooperation, a collaborative think tank where Eurasian SMEs can nurture wealth through cooperation and trade. Previously Stephan worked as CEO/President of IPG Digital and Media Services, building relationships with international clients and corporations.
Speakers – Community Partners: How to find the best partners for your hyper-growth?
Jessica Espinoza (Chair, 2X Challenge
Vice President, Private Equity Venture Capital, DEG/KfW)
Jessica Espinoza is Vice President for Private Equity & Venture Capital Investments at DEG, the German Development Finance Institution (KfW Group) and the Chair of the 2X Challenge, a global initiative that has mobilized over $11 billion of gender lens investments since its launch at the G7 Summit in 2018. Jessica serves on the Board of Directors of AlphaMundi Foundation and of the Mexican financial institution Mega as well as on the Advisory Board of several private equity funds. As a mentor for Endeavor, she supports high impact companies as they scale up. Jessica is the Founder of XOCO, an edtech venture empowering adolescent girls in the Global South and a fellow at Columbia eLab. She is a PhD candidate at University of Siegen, researching the transformative potential of gender lens investing. Prior to joining DEG, Jessica was a Member of the Management Board at ProCredit Bank Nicaragua and part of the Group Funding team at ProCredit Holding. She managed the Africa Regional Office of MicroFinance Transparency in Ghana and led a flagship program to promote responsible finance across Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America.
Ruth Cremer (Entrepreneur in Founders’ Education)
Ruth Cremer originally studied Mathematics, and finally sticked to the numbers: She advises startups, investors and corporates with new (digital) projects on business models, KPIs and financial planning. As a former investment manager for tech startups, she knows the demands and needs of both investors and startups very well. Her work as university lecturer for entrepreneurship inspired her to create different digital and physical learning products in that area. Moreover, she is the current coach of the lean innovation intrapreneurship programme at Deutsche Telekom and the current consultant for the evaluation and preparation of the German TV Show “Die Höhle der Löwen” (German “Shark Tank”/“Dragon’s Den”).
Oleg Chervonnyi (Seed and Series A investments of Verve Ventures)
Oleg is currently responsible for Seed and Series A investments of Verve Ventures in Germany. Before that, he was a part of the Speedinvest team, working on seed investments in the European and North American markets. Oleg also worked with EnBW New Ventures, investing in energy, mobility, and urban life markets. During his bachelor’s studies, Oleg joined First Momentum Ventures as the first employee. He played an important role in building up its investment department, doing first investments, and developing software for automated sourcing of early-stage startups. Having an educational background in data science and engineering, Oleg is passionate about technology-based and data-driven business models.
Ashish Kumar Mittal (Vice President, Bank Open)
Ashish Kumar Mittal is a seasoned professional who has a strong passion for startups. In his career of over 16 years he started as a software developer and has over the years worked at leadership positions in multiple top startups-turned-unicorns like Flipkart, N26 and Zalando. He is currently leading European expansion for an international startup Bank Open which is the first and fastest growing business NeoBanking startups in Asia. He has vast experience in tech lead growth, advanced AI/ML systems (eg. dynamic pricing) and has lead multiple startup-within-a-startup initiatives.
Prof. Dr. Björn Holste (Co-Founder, Liminalytics and Technology Institute)
Björn was educated at the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany, Babcock Graduate School, North Carolina, and Harvard Business School, Mass and holds a master’s degree in mechanical engineering and business administration as well as a doctorate in macroeconomics.
He has 20 years of professional experience in the financial industry with major financial institutions like UBS and Deutsche Bank on the Managing Director level. Björn serves as a lecturer for several German Universities and has an extensive background in major programming languages.
His passion as a serial entrepreneur is focused on sustainability and value creation in the data economy.