Vanagon.vc

 “In our current economic system. You can earn much easier money by destroying nature and not by protecting or restoring it. And this is a field that is, fortunately, changing now with nature tech”. 🌱 Excited to share our latest conversation with Susanne Fromm, co-founder of Vanagon.vc, a pioneering VC firm based in Munich! We discussed the fascinating concept of nature as an asset class and how Vanagon Ventures is investing in the twin transitions of digitalization and decarbonization. Tune in to learn more about the cutting-edge technologies and transformative potential within the climate tech sector. 🌐💡 Link to the episode 👇 https://lnkd.in/dn4iAHbZ #VentureCapital #NatureTech#ESG #Digitalization #Decarbonization #ClimateTech #GreenTransition

Vanagon.vc, eine in #München ansässige Risikokapitalgesellschaft, die in umweltfreundliche Spitzentechnologien investiert, hat ihre Investition in LoopID bekannt gegeben. Das #Startup entwickelt digitale Lösungen für die entstehende #Kreislaufwirtschaft, die es Marken ermöglichen, profitable Kreislaufgeschäftsmodelle zu entwickeln, Kosten und Kundenbindung während des gesamten Produktlebenszyklus zu verbessern und neue Nachhaltigkeits-vorschriften einzuhalten. Mehr zum #Deal hier 👇 #Investment #Growth #KI #Innovation #Technologie #VC #VCMagazin Christian Adler Alexis Gamboa Susanne Fromm Joerg Walden Sandro Stark Axel Roitzsch

🐛💥 These little fellas truly understand exponential growth… Vanagon.vc Rooftop Pitch & Lunch time again! We regularly host events for our investors to facilitate in-depth exchanges under the motto "Invest together, learn together." This time a family office edition, which we were delighted to co-host together with the wonderful Elisabeth Platzer, Nihal Alan Wuerst, and Carina Platzer. After we welcomed our 40 guests on the rooftop terrace overlooking Munich, my co-founding partner Sandro Stark presented our fund, Vanagon.vc, a Munich-based VC investing in planet positive frontier tech startups. Afterward, we had the pleasure of hearing three keynote presentations: the first two Vanagon portfolio companies, and the third one, Bionsect, was brought to our event by our co-hosts. 1️⃣ Dr. Sonja Stuchtey from The Landbanking Group kicked off by showing a brief excerpt of recent CNN news summarizing extreme weather events around the world, emphasizing the urgent need to mitigate and adapt to climate change. She then introduced her company and their platform, Landler, based on AI and remote sensing. Landler allows for nature restoration at scale by enabling ecological evaluation and monetization of natural capital by turning nature uplift via regenerative agriculture or other regenerative land use practices into valuable financial assets. 👨🌾 2️⃣ Christian Adler introduced LoopID, their AI-powered software-as-a-service solution to create and manage semantic digital twins of physical products that comply with the upcoming EU Digital Product Passport regulation. LoopID offers recommerce platforms, end-to-end traceability tools as well as features allowing customers to chat with products such as their running shoes or washing machine to inquire about product properties, repair, take-back, or resale. ♻️ 3️⃣ Till von Geldern-Crispendorf BIONSECT showcased their production of alternative animal proteins using … insects 🔍🐛. These little fellas truly understand exponential growth: Within 6 weeks, 1kg of mealworm larvae becomes 75kg. After another 6 weeks, it becomes 5.6 tons, then 420 tons, and finally 31,500 tons of larvae. Vertical insect farming enables a zero-waste circular economy. Waste streams from the food industry are upcycled into high-quality proteins, mostly used for animal feed. The larvae manure is also utilized as an organic fertilizer. We were delighted that the event was so well received by our guests and also we very much enjoyed the presentations and meaningful networking in a relaxed and inspiring atmosphere. 🤝✨ 🙏🌟 Special thanks to our wonderful co-hosts from ECN Performance! Your support made the event truly memorable. We also thank all attendees for their enthusiasm and participation. We look forward to continuing these fruitful conversations and collaborations. #Vanagon #Pitch&Lunch #FrontierTech #VC #NatureTech #CircularEconomy #Munich #FamilyOffice

🚀 We’re thrilled to announce that Vanagon.vc has invested in LoopID, a leader in AI-powered solutions for the circular economy. ♻️🌍 Our current linear economy — extracting, producing, and discarding after use — leads to pollution, emissions, and biodiversity loss. 🔍 THE LOOPID SOLUTION: LoopID develops cutting-edge digital solutions that help maintain resources within the economy, encouraging sustainable product use. Concretely, LoopID enables brands to adopt profitable circular business models, improve cost efficiency, and enhance customer engagement throughout the product lifecycle. Their platform also ensures compliance with new sustainability regulations, particularly the upcoming EU Digital Product Passport regulation. Core Features: • AI-Powered Digital Twins: Semantic digital twins of physical products. • Secure Take-Back Systems: Facilitating product returns and recycling. • Recommerce Platforms: Supporting resale and reuse. • End-to-End Traceability: Tracking products from creation to end-of-life. Focus Sectors: • Electronics/ICT • Textiles/Fashion • Real Estate LoopID collaborates with industry leaders like Infineon Technologies to create tailored solutions for these sectors. 🤝 THE FOUNDERS: • Christian Adler: Former AI expert at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), with degrees from LMU Munich, UC Berkeley, and Leuphana University. He brings vast experience in digital transformation. • Alexis Gamboa: Expert in digital twins, with a background from EY, the Technical University of Munich, and Costa Rica. Both founders met at CDTM in Munich and participated in accelerators at UnternehmerTUM (Xpreneurs) and UC Berkeley. 💶 CO-INVESTORS: Apart from Vanagon’s investment, LoopID benefits from significant funding from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWK) and has joined the Silicon Valley-based B2B Alchemist Accelerator, which has also invested in the company. Furthermore, Joerg Walden, a circularity veteran and founder of iPoint Systems, co-invests with Vanagon. 💬 Christian Adler: "With their support and trust in our team and capabilities, Vanagon enables us to focus on the development and deployment of our solution together with our partners at high speed and also provides us with access to other top-notch investors and advisors, such as Jörg Walden. Our goal for the coming months is to further demonstrate and scale our solution in key markets to accelerate the circular transformation of our economy." At Vanagon, we look forward to supporting LoopID in paving the way for a circular economy. 🌱 With their deep domain and technology expertise, the LoopID team has managed to not only leverage frontier technologies such as AI and blockchain to allow companies to intelligently comply with upcoming digital product passport regulation, but the solution also allows for a completely new level of engagement between products and customers. #CircularEconomy #AI #GreenTech

Call for applications! 🌏 👩💻 🎓 For all who would like to learn more about #Planetary #Boundaries and how next gen software technologies, in particular #Blockchain in combination with #AI and new #IoT, drive solutions accelerating the transition to a #regenerative #economy. Together with the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management and movers & shakers in the NatureFintech space, we at Vanagon.vc have co-initiated and co-designed a global online education program. 📣 This is a Call for Applications for the next and only ReFi Talents cohort in 2024: An 18-Week Mentoring Program Empowering Talent for Leadership in the Regenerative Finance Space The program has 3 phases that will help ambitious talents to quickly onboard to the regenerative finance ecosystem. The goal of the program is to guide the way for talents to get active and become entrepreneurs, technologists, regulators, investors or influencers in the space to drive the transition to a regenerative economy via technology. This program is free of charge (EUR 0), you just have to apply. The Frankfurt School Blockchain Center will admit a maximum of 200 participants to this program starting on July 22, 2024. 👉 Application Deadline is June 30, 2024. Read more here about how to apply: https://lnkd.in/dqfShzad Abdullah Melik Yildiz Daniel Holk Sandro Stark Axel Roitzsch Esther Val Alison Filler 🟠 Jong-Chan Chung

🌍🔄 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗔𝗜 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗲𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗶𝗿𝗰𝘂𝗹𝗮𝗿 𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝘆 𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝘀𝗲𝘀... This was the topic of my talk at the 25th Entrepreneurship Forum of the INSEAD Alumni Association Germany (IAAG), which this year was fully dedicated to #Artificial #Intelligence 🤖. The event was an awesome convergence of insightful talks by leading minds in AI and inspiring conversations with the participants 💡🤝. 🌱🔄 During my session, I discussed the #twin #transition, the dual mega transformation driven by the green transition of our economy and the new wave of frontier technologies such as AI, distributed ledger technologies, and new kinds of data sources/IoT 🌿🖥️. I also highlighted several examples of companies in the Vanagon.vc portfolio using AI for regenerative and circular use cases. For instance: - 🌳📡 Companies using remote sensing and AI to track and assess nature restoration at scale - such as The Landbanking Group (AI-based platform enabling risk mitigation and investments in planetary-scale nature restoration) or Renoster (bringing deep transparency into the carbon markets via remote sensing and machine learning - reviewing existing and monitoring new carbon projects) 🌍🔍. - 🌱📊 Our portfolio company Senken, the world’s 2nd largest marketplace for removal carbon credits, is using AI to measure the carbon sink potential of climate projects offered on their platform. Furthermore, Senken uses AI to benchmark the footprints of the corporates they work with 🏢🔍. - 🤖🏭 Also in the digital industrial space there are compelling use cases. We will shortly announce an investment in an ♻️ AI-powered circularity software and are currently in due diligence with other AI-powered digital industrial startups. Stay tuned. It was an honor and pleasure to speak at & participate in this valuable conference and to listen to the presentation of fellow speakers! 🎤🎉 Thank you to everyone who attended, presented, and made this event a memorable experience 🙏✨. And of course, a huge shoutout to the wonderful team who pulled up this event: Margret Dupslaff, Benjamina Mirnik-Voges, Charly Sayn-Wittgenstein, Kristin Torre Vinuesa, and Verena von Guionneau. #INSEAD #EntrepreneurshipForum #AI #RegenerativeEconomy #Innovation #Sustainability INSEAD

🌍 Empowering The Twin Transition 🌍 I am thrilled to announce that I will be joining Vanagon.vc as a Visiting Data Strategist starting next week! 🎉 Vanagon is at the forefront of driving the Twin Transition through early-stage investments in startups leveraging Frontier Tech to solve global coordination failures. I am eager to contribute to their mission of supporting industry experts in their efforts to transform the economic landscape. In my new role, I will be supporting Vanagon's Data Strategy, focusing on enhancing data-driven strategies and improving their impact on the venture's daily processes. I look forward to working with a team of visionary leaders committed to creating a sustainable future. Thank you Sandro Stark & Axel Roitzsch for giving me this amazing opportunity! #NewBeginnings #DataStrategy #Sustainability #GreenTech #Innovation #VanagonVentures

𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐲 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐮𝐧 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬.... I was invited to join the ultimate antidote event that might be destined to become the WEF of my generation. Paloneo is a member-owned platform established in 2021 by students from the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, and St. Gallen. Its main objective is to foster a culture of impact by enabling the trusted exchange of culture, ideas, and capital among its members, who are primarily rising leaders under the age of 40. This is how events are run and why it cured my event fatigue: ❌No keynote speakers ✅ Community-led learning circles ❌No staged panel discussions ✅ Deep conversations and knowledge transfer ❌ No 1000 visitors ✅ Small, high-profile community ❌Large event venue in a crowded city ✅ Tucked away hideaway in the German countryside As Ludolf asked me to facilitate an Impact Circle on ‘Nature as an Asset Class,’ I also wrapped my head around how to structure content and discussions in a way that is inclusive and engaging for a diverse set of backgrounds. We ran the session together in an open and participatory setup, exchanging ideas and thoughts on barriers that are slowing us down from transitioning from an exploitative, linear, and fragile economic system towards a regenerative, circular, and resilient one. We shared our group discussion outcomes back with the whole Paloneo community afterwards - the right incentive schemes, education, and de-ideologizing the conversations were some of the key points discussed in the circle. I still feel the vibrance and gratefulness from this weekend community, and I am so excited to see where the Paloneo journey will take us. Ludolf von Schöning Amélie Madrona Chase Tecimer Valentina Elner-Kupcha

Diving into #NatureTech while "flying" above Munich. 🎡 At this week's BayStartUP #VentureCon 2024, Sandro Stark and I had the opportunity to host a learning session with investors in a gondola of Munich’s ferris wheel. We talked about 🌿NatureTech - one of our absolute favorite topics at Vanagon.vc. It describes solutions using the latest technologies to protect & restore nature. 🚡 We very much enjoyed presenting the topic in our gondola to other investors and discussing with them high above the ground. Thank you to all who participated! We talked about the #voluntary #carbon #market constituting an important mechanism to funnel funds into protecting and restoring nature. There is an urgent need, however, to renew this market with technology to tackle present issues such as lack of transparency, double spending, middlemen absorbing large parts of the value creation, and quality issues within carbon projects. We introduced the work of our portfolio company Renoster, which has managed to create massive incentives for more honesty in the market via radical transparency: using remote sensing, machine learning, and extensive experience to assess nature-based carbon projects and publishing methodologies and results - causing global media echoes. We also explored radically new approaches such as Nature Equity markets enabled by our portfolio company The Landbanking Group - combining latest technologies to assess nature along four dimensions (carbon, water, soil, biodiversity) to create individual natural capital accounts. These serve as underlying for Landbanking claims that can be assetized and traded (explainer movie https://lnkd.in/daYXkp4V). 🔗 We also had a great time during the other parts of the VentureCon conference, which provided a fantastic platform for networking, with an investors-only lunch offering inspiring conversations with familiar and new faces, followed by walking pitches from innovative startups. 🙏 A big thank you to Barbara Dombay, Dr. Carolin Plagmann, Carsten Rudolph, Bomboes Kerstin and the entire BayStartUP team for organizing this exceptional event. Looking forward to attending the next edition. #VentureCon2024 ___ Vanagon.vc is a Munich-based VC fund investing in the Digital Green Transition. We focus on solutions in NatureTech, Circularity, and B2B Data & Finance that harness next-gen technologies like AI and DLT to accelerate the transition to a regenerative economy.

🔥 Fighting wildfires with technology & protecting Arctic sea ice with … water 💦🧊. The first edition of AYW24 conference happened last week and taught us about #Climate #Resilience 🌍. I was invited to speak at the inaugural ADAPT YOUR WORLD powered by CAP event, held at the Nymphenburg Palace in Munich. 🌱 During the panel, 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗕𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗳𝗶𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗕𝗶𝗼𝗱𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻, I was honored to join - Yasmine Cathell, Founder of Soil Sommelier - Veena Balakrishnan, Founder of UN Youth Negotiators Academy - Eric Pierre Georges Servat, VP at Livelihoods Venture - Nikola Baumschlager, Venture Consultant at XPRENEURS (UnternehmerTUM), who expertly moderated the session We talked about e.g. 🛰️ #Technological #progress brought us into the mess of exceeded planetary boundaries but latest technologies are also powerful tools to create solutions to mitigate biodiversity loss e.g. by boosting science and measuring positive impact of restoration measures and making them more investable. Our portfolio company The Landbanking Group, for instance, is documenting nature uplift from regenerative land management practices with earth observation and AI and putting nature on the balance sheet. 🍊 #SoilBiodiversity plays a crucial role in human health. Restoring it can improve the nutritional content of our food, leading to healthier diets. Degraded soils had a devastating effect on micro nutrients in our food. As Yasmine Cathell pointed out, today we need to eat 8 oranges to get the same amount of Vitamin C that one orange had 70 years ago, which also means consuming much more calories. 🌲 #ConnectingWithNature has been scientifically proven to have positive effects on #MentalHealth. Simple experiences such as a walk in the forest can have surprising benefits. Phytoncides molecules emitted by trees have the benefits of lowering cortisol and our heart rate, in addition to acting as an anti-inflammatory and strengthening the immune system. 🇪🇺The #EU #nature #restoration #law and its crucial importance for biodiversity. The law that has been fully negotiated over the past 2 years is now at stake - which has hardly been noticed by the public. The law aims to protect and restore habitats in the European Union, of which 80% are in an ecologically poor condition. 6000 scientists had called it the most important law of our generation. 💡 Furthermore, we were able to learn from e.g. Annika Zawadzki | Boston Consulting Group (BCG), on adaption technologies, Benedikt Bösel on regenerative agriculture, Lena I. Fuldauer | Allianz on climate risks and from several startups e.g. OroraTech: detecting wildfires with thermal intelligence. Or from Arctic Reflections, regenerating Arctic sea ice by spraying it with water - to restore the solar reflectivity and slow down further warming. 👏 A big thank you to the AYW founders Ulrich Seitz and Ivonne Briceño and MC Britta Muzyk - Tikovsky for enabling the important impulses!