Project A

🚀 OMG, Are You Ready for PAKCon 2024's Marketing Hive? 🚀 Hey marketing legends! If you haven't heard about PAKCon 2024's Marketing Hive yet, where have you been?! This is THE event that'll blow your mind and supercharge your career! 🔥 What’s Happening? • Kick off the day with a buzzing breakfast session – get hyped and meet your fellow marketing mavens. • Immerse yourself in a whirlwind of electrifying talks, panels, and hands-on workshops. Two epic tracks, all the insights. • Mingle and munch during a killer lunch with your new besties. • Wrap it up with an explosive closing session and keep the vibes alive with a legendary evening bash at Haus Ungarn. 🌟 Why You Can’t Miss This! PAKCon is Europe's wildest, most hands-on conference, bringing together digital wizards, visionary founders, savvy investors, and top talents from across the continent. 🌍 This Year's Theme: "Activate" In these crazy times, learn how to turn challenges into opportunities. Our marketing sessions will give you the secrets to maximize resources and slay in today’s world. This isn't just an event – it's a life-changing, career-defining experience! Don’t miss out, or you’ll seriously regret it. Get your ticket NOW! 🎟️💥 https://lnkd.in/e8SqSwMS #Marketing #pakcon24 #marketinghive #projecta #venturecapital #startup

Exit News: Our portfolio company 42matters has been acquired by Similarweb. Zurich-based 42matters provides a full suite of app intelligence and analytics products and services. This acquisition is great news for 42matters as it will enhance their ability to provide world class App Store and Mobile SDK data. Together with Similarweb, a leader in market and business intelligence and a partner of 42matters for several years, the company will continue to help clients make more informed decisions in the competitive digital landscape. The existing management and founders will remain on board. We wish them and the entire 42matters team all the best! Andrea Girardello, Andreas Budde, Ivan Delchev cc Uwe Horstmann, Florian Heinemann Read more about the acquisition: https://lnkd.in/dysx9nbp

Issue 19 of our #Resilience Tech Newsletter: This week, guest author Matthias Joest explores the dangers posed to our Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) and how to make them more resilient. GNSS is indispensable across various sectors, including mobility, logistics, energy, telecommunications, and defence. However, these systems can be disrupted through jamming as can be witnessed in the Ukraine or recently in the Baltic Sea. Read on about novel solutions and strategies to make location-based services more secure: https://lnkd.in/eG4kk3Yu We’re also supporting the inaugural European #DefenceTech Hackathon in Munich this week. If you want to meet us, sign up https://eurodefense.tech/

𝗟𝗲𝘁’𝘀 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁, 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘄𝗲? Simon Walter and Charlotte Niklahs will co-host a dedicated #Management Hive at this year’s Project A Knowledge Conference 2024! Alongside a group of innovators, founders and strategists, they will discuss how to “activate” when it comes to building, scaling and transforming ventures and incumbents. ➡ How do we create high-performance cultures and organizations? ➡ Is corporate venture building dead? ➡ Is the idea of strategy actually still good? ➡ Is hardware eating software eating the world? ➡ Are venture client units a real silver bullet or just the next buzzword? Secure your tickets now and see you on September 20 in Berlin: https://lnkd.in/eFp9Kdcd

"We need to have more technology based companies in Europe. And it's our responsibility to create an environment in which they can work." At Hinterland of Things, our GP Florian Heinemann discussed the state of early and later stage #venturecapital with Nadine Schimroszik from Handelsblatt, Marie-Helene AMETSREITER (Speedinvest) and Carsten Gjørtler Salling (Dreamcraft Ventures). They discussed the trends, challenges and opportunities that will shape the industry in 2024, in particular how a tech-friendly capital market and the right environment in terms of regulation, talent and spin-offs will be needed for the European startup ecosystem to thrive. Full panel talk in the comments.

𝗟𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗸 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗯𝗶𝗴 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗘𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲! 💻 Our portfolio company Black Semiconductor raised €254.4 million in one of the largest #DeepTech funding rounds in Europe to date. This underlines the strategic importance of strengthening the continent's technological sovereignty and #supplychain resilience. 🤖 ARX Robotics has raised €9 million led by the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF), Discovery Ventures and us. We look forward to continuing to support ARX on its journey to deploy robust and modular ground robots at scale in #dualuse scenarios. All the details, plus the first ever European #DefenceTech Hackathon, can be found in the latest issue of our #resilience newsletter. Link in the comments.

Black Semiconductor raises one of the largest funding rounds for a #deeptech company manufacturing chips in Europe to date: €254.5 million. This is a massive step to bring back much-needed technological sovereignty to Europe and ensure resilience in key enabling technologies and supply chains. Black Semiconductor is developing a new way to build networks of chips leveraging a novel material: graphene. The company’s technology and hardware facilitate optical chip-to-chip connections, allowing chips to interact almost as if they were one. This new generation of chip networks will solve connectivity barriers and multiply computing power and efficiency to enable efficient data centers, generative and embedded AI, and autonomous driving. €228.7 million public funding come from the Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Klimaschutz and Ministerium für Wirtschaft, Industrie, Klimaschutz und Energie des Landes NRW over the next 7 years under the IPCEI ME/CT program. Additionally, €25.7 million were raised in private funding co-led by Project A, Porsche Ventures and other renowned investors. Having already backed their seed round, we’re excited to continue to support the company on this path to technological sovereignty and mass production in Europe. East Hill Equity - Managing Scania Growth Capital, Capnamic, TVF | TechVision Fonds, NRW.BANK.,Vsquared Ventures, Cambium Capital Management, Onsight Ventures.

Our portfolio company ARX Robotics has raised a €9m seed funding round from NATO Innovation Fund (NIF) as lead investors, with Discovery Ventures and us as existing investors joining in. ARX has become one of the pioneers in autonomous and modular robotic solutions that redefine cost-effective technology for #defence and commercial use cases. #dualuse The new funding will enable ARX to expand its team, scale production capabilities and help European armed forces future-proof for robotic warfare by overcoming the lack of mass in unmanned ground systems. We first invested in ARX's pre-seed round and supported its ideation process in our Studio: https://lnkd.in/eXSckeyg Kudos to Marc A. Wietfeld, Stefan Roebel and team for shaping the future of European #resilience.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗔 𝗞𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗹𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸! This year we are going to do things differently. Instead of one big event in one place, we will split up into hives to cover the wide range of topics that keep us busy in the #startup and #venturecapital world. So on 20 September, we'll once again bring together founders, operators, investors and thought leaders from across Europe. 🔟 Content-specific hives: Each Hive is a mini-event in itself, focusing on a specific topic: #tech, #marketing, #investment, #sales #people, #management, #AI, #data, #defence #profitability. 🎉 Convention: We'll all come together in the evening at the Convention for a big party and networking. This year's theme, "Activate", focuses on reducing the waste of resources and maximizing existing potentials in the face of economic, geopolitical and social challenges. Activate your customers, activate your network, activate your community. The application phase has started, make sure to apply for a hive and the convention. More here: https://lnkd.in/e-Krvb2

Congratulations to our portfolio company re:cap on their USD 14.6m Series A round! re:cap operates a financing and data insights platform, providing alternative debt financing and software to tech and services businesses. Today they also introduce a decision-making platform for institutional investors, allowing them to turn data into insights for better financing decisions. #fintech With the new funding round led by Entrée Capital with participation from Felix Capital and us, the company is able to continue its very strong growth path. Happy to continue to support Paul Becker, Jonas Tebbe and the entire team on their journey. https://lnkd.in/eV-7Uxfv