Startups – Speedinvest has invested 350 million euros in 250 startups

The early stage investor from Vienna Speedinvest has invested around 350 million euros in over 250 start-ups over the past 10 years. Four investments in Speedinvest – Bitpanda, GoStudent, Tier and Wefox – are already valued at more than $1 billion. “There will be IPOs,” SpeedInvest founder Oliver Holley told reporters in Vienna on Friday. The media has already speculated about the initial public offering of Berlin-based Insurtech Wefox and Vienna-based crypto platform Bitpanda.

The portfolio also includes ten startups that are also given a good chance of achieving a $1 billion valuation, said Speedinvest’s president. More than half of these startups are located in Austria or Germany.

In total, Speedinvestor has raised around 450 million euros from institutions and private investors, with 100 million euros currently still available for investments. Several local investors and companies are involved, including Russmedia, Styria, Heinzel and Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz, the state development bank, Uniqa, Raiffeisen, Erste Bank and Bawag. Speedinvest typically invests between €500,000 and €3 million in a startup and receives 5-20 percent of the company’s stock in return.

Vienna was left behind as a startup site

So far, Speedinvest has moved away from investments to make a profit about 14 times. The largest exit was made by the Vienna-based classifieds platform Shpock, which was worth about 200 million euros when it was sold to the Norwegian media group Schibsted. When asked, Hall did not want to comment on how much Speedinvest has taken in the stock sale so far. Hall explained that the investment fund “Speedinvest 1” launched in 2011 with a value of 10 million euros, and “Speedinvest 2” launched in 2015 with a value of 91 million euros tripled to quadruple.

Speedinvest has so far raised about two-thirds of all venture capital in Austria for start-ups. In the past 10 years, domestic venture capitalists have raised about 680 million euros. Hall noted that Vienna, as the start-up location, was succeeded by London, Berlin and Warsaw. According to Holly, there are 656 venture capitalists and 24 young companies with unicorn status (company valuation at $1 billion) in London, 112 venture capital (VC) donors and 11 “unicorns” based in Berlin, and in Vienna there are 6 ventures . The capitalists and 2 “rhinos” (Bitpanda and GoStudent). The number of capital owners in Vienna has stagnated over the past ten years. In 2011 there were already five labor capitals in Vienna. “This has to change, there is a lot to do,” said the Speedinvest president. But he is “very optimistic” about the future. “It has nothing to do with politics, but with startups.” Hall appealed to politicians to implement the ads. (Abba)