Nomination
The German Startup Awards will be handed in eight categories and one special category to outstanding personalities of the German startup ecosystem. The nomination phase will start the 1st of September and will end the 31st of October 2020.
The category stands for startup founders with outstanding and exemplary founding histories, characterized by ups and downs as well as the founders intrinsic will to fight for their visions and ideas. Therefore, our founders of the year are an example and an inspiration to others.
Selection criteria
- The nominated person must have founded at least one successful startup in Germany.
- The founded company is a startup according to the criteria presented below.
- The nominated person is characterized by it’s sense for innovations, strong resilience and commitment. Within the founding process, the nominated person went through challenges and came out of them as a stronger personality.
Not only founders of later stage startups go through ups and downs, also the founding process itself can be challenging. The category ‚Newcomer of the Year‘ honors founders who launched their startup successfully in the years 2019 and 2020.
Selection criteria
- The nominated person founded it’s first startup in the years 2019 or 2020.
- The founded company is a startup according to the criteria presented below.
- The nominated person stands at the very beginning of it’s entrepreneurial career and achieved it’s success by showing courage, vision and operative strength.
The category ‚Social Entrepreneur of the Year‘ celebrates founders challenging the great problems of our time. Climate change, poverty, education for all – there is no challenge our Social Entrepreneurs can’t meet. They connect entrepreneurial success with social and ecological responsibility and work hard to make the world a better place.
Selection criteria
- The nominated person founded at least one startup contributing to the solution of social issues and/or to the development of social innovation.
- The founded company is a startup according to the criteria presented below.
- The nominated person proves by it’s entrepreneurial and social behaviour, that the social and ecological responsibilty is prior to the economical outcome of their startup.
To be successful, founders need a good a idea and a lot of resilience, but they also rely on partners who share their vision and who support them. The category ‚Investor of the Year‘ honors investors who support their founders financially but also by sharing their courage, expierences and passion.
Selection criteria
- Within the last 5 years, the nominated person did invest in at least one startup.
- The financially supported companies are startups according to the criteria presented below.
- The terms of the investment provided a fair balance between investor and founder at any time.
- The nominated person supports it’s beyond the financial investment, e.g. in terms of mentoring, and recruiting, and plays an active role in the development of the startup.
General criteria:
The companies founded or supported by the nominees must be startups and meet the following criteria based on the definition of the German Startups Association:
- Startups are younger than 10 years and
- have (or strive for) a significant employee/sales growth and/or
- are (highly) innovative in their products/services, business models and/or technologies.
Jury 2021
Gloria Bäuerlein
Chief Operating Officer, Back
Gloria is the Chief Operating Officer of Back, a Berlin-based software startup that helps companies automate and scale their internal operations. She previously led the global strategy team of KRY, Europe's largest telemedicine provider. Prior to joining KRY, Gloria was an investor at Index Ventures and Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) where she focused on pan-European growth stage investments. Gloria is a Vice President of the German Startup Association.
David Hanf
CFO Thermondo
Gesa Miczaika
Partner Auxxo Beteiligungen
Uwe Horstmann
General Partner Project A Ventures
Stephanie Kaiser
Founder and CEO Heartbeat Labs
Stephanie is Founder and Managing Director of the digital health platform Heartbeat Labs. With more than 12 years experience in building and developing digital, consumer-oriented products and diverse teams, she is responsible for the areas of product development, engineering, marketing, BI, and venture execution. Since 2018, she is advising the German government in her role as member of the Digital Council.
Philipp Kreibohm
Founder home24 and Investor at SB21
Philipp is a Berlin-based entrepreneur and investor. In 2009, he founded home24, the leading ecommerce platform for home & living in Europe and LatAm, which he lead for ten years and took public in 2018. Together with his friends at SB21, Philipp is an active angel investor in numerous internet and technology companies including Auto1, Amorelie (exit to ProSiebenSat1), Billie.io, Billpay (exit to Klarna), Betreut.de (exit to Care.com, IPO 2014), CarJump (exit to Peugeot SA), Comtravo, eDarling (IPO 2017), flaschenpost, Freighthub, Lingoda, Lillydoo, MODIFI, McMakler, PlusDental, Medwing, Nebenan.de, Tradoria (exit to Rakuten), Visual Meta (exit to Axel Springer), Xletix (exit to Infront) and Zalando (IPO 2014). Before founding home24, Philipp was a founding MD at Rocket Internet. Early in his career, he worked briefly for Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and The Boston Consulting Group.
Elisabeth Löwenbourg-Brzezinski
Principal ACTON CAPITAL PARTNERS
Elisabeth is investing on behalf of Acton Capital in game changing companies and digitally native brands, including The Female Company (GER), KOIO Collective (US) and ArtNight (GER). Prior to Acton Capital, Elisabeth was leading a €200m coinvestment programme at the European Investment Bank (EIB), advised clients on mergers and acquisitions at Goldman Sachs, and worked on bank recapitalisation for the European Stability Mechanism. She holds a Harvard MBA degree with honors, an M.Sc. from London School of Economics with Distinction, a Diplôme from Sciences Po Paris, and is an alumna of the German National Merit Foundation. Elisabeth is part of the leadership team of the non-profit organisation ‘Leaders for Climate Action e.V.’, and drives topics like diversity & female empowerment in Europe’s startup ecosystem, supporting various related initiatives (e.g. Female Founders Global).
Felix Jahn
CEO und Gründer McMakler
"Die Szene in Deutschland wird immer professioneller und internationaler. Gründer und Investoren kommen aus der ganzen Welt, um in Deutschland – und vor allem in Berlin – zu gründen und zu investieren. Diese Professionalisierung tut der Szene gut und es ist toll zu sehen, wie hier ein echtes Ökosystem entstanden ist, das vor zehn Jahren noch undenkbar war. Ich freue mich als Jury-Mitglied für die German Startup Awards 2021 dabei zu sein und möchte vor allem denGründerinnen und Gründern Mut machen, an ihre Visionen und außergewöhnlichen Geschäftsmodellen festzuhalten. Die deutsche Startup Szene hat viele herausragende Persönlichkeiten zu bieten – mit den Auszeichnungen zeigen wir, dass wir an sie glauben." Felix is an active entrepreneur and business angel. A WHU graduate, Felix was one of the first MDs of Rocket Internet, responsible for many of the initial companies incubated in 2007-2009. He went on to start Home24 in 2009 and run it as Co-CEO until 2014. In 2015 he started German hybrid real estate agent McMakler as founding investor and executive Chairman and has additionally taken over the CEO role in 2018. His current and past private business angel investments include Zalando, Auto1 Group, HomeToGo, among others. Bild (C) MCMakler
Anne Kjær Bathel
Co-Founder und Geschäftsführerin ReDI School of Digital Integration
"Role models help inspire new founders. Selecting and promoting future role models is a great responsibility - and a real pleasure!" In response to the refugee crisis Anne founded ReDI School, a vocational training program teaching programming skills to migrants and unemployed, to help fill the 124.000 open IT jobs in Germany. ReDI currently has 5 locations teaches 1800+ students per year. 60% of those women! The many success stories have resonated internationally and Angela Merkel and Mark Zuckerberg have come by to be inspired.
Tim Schumacher
Gründer und Investor TS Ventures
"Der GSA 2020 war eine herausragende Veranstaltung, und er hat viele AkteurInnen der deutschen Startup-Szene wohlverdient ausgezeichnet. 2021 bin ich daher super gerne wieder mit dabei, als Jury-Mitglied, aber auch hoffentlich live im Mai 2021." Tim Schumacher is a German Investor and Entrepreneur, with a focus on ad tech, marketing and consumer products. For over ten years, he was the CEO of publicly traded Sedo.com, which he co-founded. Since 2012, he has founded and/or invested in multiple start-ups like Aklamio, Hitfox, PiwikPro, SaaS.group and Ecosia. He also co-founded Eyeo (makers of Adblock Plus), where he acts as Chairman.
Ina Remmers
Mitbegründerin & Geschäftsführerin nebenan.de
Ina Remmers always thinks big: With Junge Helden e.V. and nebenan.de, she wants to change the way we live together. Her heart beats for brands and communication, but also for solving social problems such as loneliness or waste of resources. Her path as an entrepreneur focuses not only on economic success but also on sustainable effects.
Dr. Kati Ernst
Co-Founder & Co-CEO ooia
"Ich bin Jury-Mitglied für die GSAs 2021 weil es wichtig ist, unterschiedlichen Persönlichkeiten des Startup-Ökosystems eine Bühne zu geben und zu zelebrieren" Dr. Kati Ernst founded the female empowerment startup ooia (formerly ooshi) together with Kristine Zeller in 2018. As a direct to consumer brand, ooia establishes innovative products for women in Germany - e.g. ooia period underwear. In 2019 both were honored by the federal government as creative pilots, and in 2020 they became part of the Top50 by OMR. Kati was honored as Best Newcomer at the German Startup Awards last year. Before she became a founder, Kati worked for McKinsey & Co., Inc. for 12 years.
Christian Piechnick
CEO & Co-Founder Wandelbots
Christian Piechnick is co-founder and CEO of Wandelbots, a leading Startups for robotic teaching software. Within 2 years Wandelbots has grown to 90+ employees and recently received 26MM Euro in funding from 83North, Microsoft and Siemens. In addition, Christian is the chairman of the advisory board for the industrial excellence cluster Smart Systems Hub as. In 2020 he was awarded as the “Newcomer of the Year” by the German Startup Association. After receiving his Diploma in Media Computer Science started his PhD on “Role-Based Self-Adaptive Software Architectures” at the Technische Universität Dresden. Christian is one of the co-founders of the international workshop series “Model-Driven Robot Software Engineering” (MORSE) and the initiator of the “Robots in Saxony” (RoX) network. In 2016 Christian was one of the co-founders of Ubiance, a startup focusing on human-machine interaction.
Christian Kroll
Founder & CEO Ecosia
"Erfolgreiche Social Business können einen wesentlichen Beitrag zur Lösung globaler Probleme beitragen." Christian is the founder of Ecosia, the search engine that plants trees. He launched Ecosia in 2009 after a year-long trip around the world to help people in developing countries and to do something about climate change. The Berlin-based search engine now has 60 employees and millions of users, enabling the company to plant a tree every second.
Daria Saharova
Partner Vito ONE, Founder 1E9 Denkfabrik
Daria builds on 20 years of experience in entrepreneurship and finance. In her last role as managing partner of Vito ONE, she built the first German-based proptech and energy tech VC. Daria is an expert advisor to the European Commission and maintains a close relationship to tech entrepreneurs as co-founder of the think tank 1E9 Denkfabrik.
Ferry Heilemann
Founder FreightHub
Iris Bethge-Krauß
Executive Managing Director, Association of German Public Banks (VÖB)
Iris Bethge-Krauß (1969) serves as Executive Managing Director of the Association of German Public Banks (VÖB). As a leading banking association in the German banking sector, VÖB represents 59 member banks – among them the Landesbanken as well as the promotional banks. Prior to joining VÖB in July 2017, Ms. Bethge-Krauß led the press and communications department as a member of the Management Board at the Association of German Banks (BdB). Previously, she served as head of the press department and chief of staff at the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth.
Christian Hassel
Divisional Board Member, Commerzbank AG
Florian Nöll
Head of Innovation & Corporate Development, pwc
Marcus Lemli
CEO Germany und Head of Investment Europe bei Savills
Marcus Lemli has been CEO Germany and Head of Investment Europe for Savills since 2012 and, during this time, has grown the brand further while significantly increasing its market shares.
A graduate in Business Administration and Real Estate Economics, he started his career in industrial agency at JLL in Frankfurt in 1996. Two years later, he moved to Madrid to head up the investment department for Spain before joining Savills in the same role in 1998. Lemli returned to JLL in Germany in 2006, where he was responsible for capital markets and leasing.
Contact us
Catharina Fichelmann /// Project Lead
catharina.fichelmann@deutschestartups.org
Christoph Stresing /// CEO Politics & Communications
christoph.stresing@deutschestartups.org
Franziska Teubert ///CEO Partner Management
franziska.teubert@deutschestartups.org
Event Organizer
As the representative and voice of startups in Germany, the German Startups Association speaks up for a founder-friendly Germany and works towards a flourishing German startup ecosystem. The association represents more than 1.000 members.
