Venture Stars

Venture Stars is a Munich-based venture capital firm specializing in early-stage investments, specifically pre-seed and seed rounds, for innovative digital B2C and B2B business models. The firm typically deploys initial tickets ranging from €500k to €1.5m, aiming to support bold founders who are actively shaping the future. Their investment philosophy is deeply rooted in a founder-first approach, stemming from their own extensive entrepreneurial backgrounds.

Before transitioning into a venture capital fund, Venture Stars operated as a successful company builder, co-founding numerous market-leading startups. Many of these ventures individually scaled to over €200m in revenue and €20m in annual profit, collectively securing more than €200m in funding. This hands-on experience in founding and scaling companies provides Venture Stars with a profound understanding of the entrepreneurial journey, enabling them to offer not just capital, but also strategic guidance and operational support to their portfolio companies. Florian Calmbach, a managing partner, initiated Venture Stars' first fund in 2014 alongside his partners, building on the firm's earlier company-builder success.

The firm maintains a boutique approach to its portfolio, investing in a selected, high-quality group of companies to ensure focused support for their development. Notable investments include AlphaPet, a digital player in the pet market; Finoa, operating in the crypto asset ecosystem; Finanzguru, a financial planning application; Holidu, a search engine for vacation rentals; and Freshflow, an AI-powered replenishment platform for food retailers. Other portfolio companies span areas such as cybersecurity (CyberDesk), digital healthcare support (DaphOS), and green energy trading (Otark).

Venture Stars is led by a small partnership of serial entrepreneurs, including managing partners Martin Junker and Florian Calmbach, founding partner Stefan Pfannmoller, principal Raphael Budday, and operating partner Christian Maerzke. This team brings many years of experience in founding and scaling startups and their organizations, offering a unique blend of investment acumen and practical entrepreneurial insight to their portfolio companies.