Anssi Uimonen

Founding Partner

Nordic Science Investments

Finland

One of the people with the best knowledge of how to access deeptech startups from universities is Anssi Uimonen, founding partner at Nordic Science Investments.

Anssi and the NSI team have decades of experience successfully spinning out companies from universities and building them into global success stories. With a mission to support tech transfer offices and invest early in breakthrough scientific discoveries, NSI is helping build the next generation of tech companies.

Anssi’s journey into investing started remarkably early – making his first investments at 14 and launching his first venture at 15. Since then, he’s built a long and international career in finance and venture, living across five countries on three continents before co-founding Nordic Science Investments.

Julian Riedlbauer

Partner

Drakestar

Germany

Julian started his career in tech M&A in 2008 at Corporate Finance Partners. He then spent 11 years building and leading GP Bullhound’s presence in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and was responsible for the M&A advisory in the region. Before that, he was a successful tech entrepreneur and digital manager.

He has led around 70 mandates for well-known companies, including the financing rounds of Signavio by Summit and the late growth round of USD 177 million round by Apax Digital, the growth financing round of Mambu by Bessemer Ventures, and the exit of Infinigate to the PE Fund H.I.G, the sale of TLGG to Omnicom, the sale of Elbkind to Reply IT, the EUR 100 million sale of Astragon to Team17, the USD 68 million financing round of Lingoda by Summit, the sale of InnoGames to MTG with a valuation of EUR 260 million, the exit of Factor Eleven to Armira Private Equity and the EUR 50 million capital increase of Neura Robotics. He is a proven expert in growth equity financing rounds and company sales to strategic buyers and private equity investors.

Sascha Berger

Investment Director

NEOM & Berger Invest

Saudi Arabia

Investor and strategic advisor with nearly two decades of experience bridging capital and technology across Europe, North America, and the Middle East, with a focus on life sciences, healthcare and AI.

I invest myself and advise funds, family offices, and sovereign entities on investment strategy, fund design, and ecosystem development, helping align capital and technologies with long-term national value creation.

Currently, as Investment Director at NEOM, I lead global life science investments to lay the foundation for Saudi Arabia’s emerging tech ecosystem. My work combines venture capital execution with ecosystem strategy, forging partnerships with global investors, technology pioneers, and national institutions.

Before NEOM, I was General Partner at TVM Capital, one of the most experienced transatlantic life science venture funds. There, I sourced and executed more than $100M in biotech, medtech and health AI investments, guided successful exits, and partnered with leading pharma and diagnostic groups such as Eli Lilly and Qiagen.

Executive Board Member Life Science Acceleration Alliance (LSAA) | PhD in Finance | MSc in Technology Management (Biochemistry focus)

Galina Sagan

Principal

NEOM & Berger Invest

Hitachi Ventures

Galina specializes in venture capital investments across digital and environmental sectors, bringing her expertise to the field since 2018. At Hitachi Ventures, she leads investments in areas such as AI-driven productivity, enterprise SaaS, digital infrastructure, and environmental digital solutions, overseeing deal sourcing, due diligence, and portfolio strategy. Galina is also an active board observer for companies including Makersite, BeZero Carbon, I Peace, Grow Inc., and StrikeReady.

Previously, she was a Senior Associate at Speedinvest, where she focused on early-stage investments in climate tech and industrial AI. Galina began her career in digital strategy as part of IBM’s Watson IoT Consulting Practice, where she led digital transformation initiatives for clients. She holds both a bachelor's and a master's degree in engineering from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) as well as a Executive MBA from IESE Business School.

Ali Alam

Venture Partner & Deep Tech Venture Builder

Earlybird & ESMT / DEEP Pioneers

Germany

Ali is a 4x founder turned investor and venture builder focused on solving the big messy world problems with deep tech and impact innovation. He currently manages DEEP Pioneers at ESMT, matching top IP and researchers with experienced entrepreneurs/operators and coaching teams through early commercialization, de-risking them from lab to market. While he invests into pre-seed impact startups with a migrant background in his capacity as a venture partner with Earlybird.

Claudia Marcusson

Managing Partner - LP

Zero Emission Fund

Singapore

Ms Claudia Marcusson is a recognized sustainability and climate-tech leader with an exceptional career spanning Financial Services, education, entrepreneurship, and innovation. As Managing Partner of the Zero Emissions Fund, she drives the acceleration of decarbonization and ClimateTech focused startups and scaleups.

She is an advisor to founders, corporate executives, and venture capital funds across Europe and Singapore, helping to bridge the gap between sustainability and profitability, with a focus on future-ready business models, product-market fit, and international expansion.

With over 22 years of global leadership experience in investment management, insurance, banking, and FinTech across three continents, she brings unparalleled industry insight.

Claudia is an Adjunct Lecturer on Sustainable Finance, Green Technology, and corporate innovation & entrepreneurship at the National University of Singapore (#8 globally) and delivers executive programs for corporates and C-suite leaders as a subject matter expert for a.o. MIT and Imperial College London.

Gulsah Wilke

Head of German Office - Partner

DN Capital

Germany

Gülsah Wilke is Partner and Head of Germany at DN Capital and co-founder of 2hearts. She is also a Goalkeeper of the Gates Foundation and an extended board member of the German Startup Association. Previously, she was COO at Ada Health, an investor at Axel Springer, a member of the supervisory board at StepStone and a consultant at McKinsey. She is passionate about supporting and investing in diverse (founding) teams and building leadership positions in the technology sector with her experience, capital and network.

In 2023, Gülsah received the "Impact Entrepreneur of the Year" award from the German Startup Association.

Manager Magazin counts her among the most influential women in German business and Handelsblatt honored her as "Role Model of the Year".

Colette Ballou and Erika Reimann

LP and Chairwoman /Managing Director Germany

BALLOU Capital / BALLOU PR

Germany

Colette Ballou is an entrepreneur and limited partner.

Over 20 years ago, she took a huge risk: she sold just about everything she owned, moved to Paris and started Ballou, a communications advisory that works with high-growth and dynamic B2B and B2C companies as well as VCs and real estate organisations. She watched her bank account plunge to almost zero and was facing having to return to the US to live in her father’s basement, but then all the hard work and risk-taking paid off and Ballou became a success. The firm went on to work with companies and investors including Facebook, WhatsApp, Pinterest, Box, ServiceNow, Shopify, Stripe, Deel, Accel Partners and Wise. It has been an amazing ride and it’s not over yet.

Today Ballou handles European and US PR for clients remotely and from its offices in Paris, London, Berlin and Barcelona. Colette Ballou’s primary client-facing role at Ballou is advising LPs (including single and multi-family offices), GPs and CEOs. She helps them use communications to gain an advantage over their competition. For VCs and founders, she crafts compelling narratives to attract investment and, once invested in, helps them build trust and increase engagement. She also specialises in crisis management. As such, she regularly has high-level confidential conversations and makes a point of sharing what she can - anonymising, of course - so that others can benefit from the lessons and perhaps avoid similar mistakes. That is why she writes and participates in conferences.

She is also an investor in funds including Cavalry Ventures, Connect Ventures, Asia Partners and WIP Capital.

Olav Ostin

Managing partner

Tempo Cap

UK

Olav Ostin is Founder and Managing Partner of TempoCap, a pan-European primary and secondary tech investor with offices in London, Paris, and Berlin. Olav has been active in the venture capital and secondary industries for over 20 years.

In 2021, he was named one of RealDeals 20 most influential people in venture capital and private equity for TempoCap’s successful exits of Depop for $1.625B to Etsy and CurrencyCloud for $925m to Visa in 2021.

In 2006, Ostin co-founded TempoCap, which was part of the DFJ Network from 2012 to 2016. TempoCap has acquired 11 portfolios of assets and closed multiple single assets transactions