Scouting Europe’s Scene for Startups
Alex von Frankenburg, MBA ’92 , directs High-Tech Gründerfonds.
Alex von Frankenberg turns bright ideas into big bucks. As managing director of Germany-based venture capital firm High-Tech Gründerfonds, he steers money to young companies in the industrial and digital tech, life sciences, and chemical sectors. He also oversees marketing, fundraising, and investor relationships as the leader of a 75-employee team at the firm’s Bonn, Germany, headquarters.
“We have a broad technology focus that includes machinery, robotics, quantum technologies, energy, bio and med tech, and software,” says von Frankenberg, who was born in Stuttgart, Germany, and attended business school on a Fulbright scholarship. He chose McCombs for its concentration on entrepreneurship and finance. After he graduated in 1992, von Frankenberg returned to Germany, earned a Ph.D. in business from the University of Mannheim and worked as a venture manager at Siemens Technology Accelerator in Munich. In 2005, his interest in technology innovation led him to High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF). He likes nurturing seed-stage startup companies and watching them grow.
Mister Spex, a Berlin-based online eyeglasses and contacts retailer, was backed by HTGF in 2008 and has achieved global success. Some HTGF investments get bought by major players such as Johnson & Johnson. German pharmaceutical company MYR, which developed an antiviral drug to treat hepatitis D, received capital from HTGF in 2011 and 2014 and was acquired last year by American drugmaker Gilead Sciences for $1.39 billion.
“Innovation that’s successful can improve lives, and that’s exciting,” von Frankenberg says.
The McCombs grad also scouts for new blockchain and cryptocurrency ventures, developing technologies he compares with the internet 30 years ago. “It would be wonderful to fund the next Amazon, Google, or Facebook in the cryptocurrency space.”
Von Frankenberg, a distance runner who’s clocking miles until he’s run the length of Earth’s 24,901-mile circumference, thanks Texas for his enterprise. He says the American mentality to get things done and take chances seeped into him at UT. “I saw people in Austin approaching new things and just going for it,” he says.
Early in his career at HTGF, the internet bubble had burst, and funding for German startups was scarce. Von Frankenberg tapped that Texas can-do spirit and his ability to write business plans, generate revenue, recruit competent managers, and sprout startups to help turn the tide. “Today, we look at Austin and Silicon Valley, very effective startup ecosystems, and we think Germany is catching up.”
Story by Gretchen M. Sanders
This article appeared in the spring 2022 issue of McCombs magazine. Click on the link to see the full issue.
