High-Tech Gründerfonds

Overview

High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) is a Bonn-based seed and early-stage venture capital investor that backs technology startups with a base in Germany. It is organised as a public-private partnership: the German federal economics ministry and the state-owned development bank KfW sit alongside a large group of private industrial and Mittelstand investors in its funds. HTGF calls itself Germany's most active venture capital investor, per its own website https://www.htgf.de/en/ , and operates from offices in Bonn, Berlin and Munich.

Why this entity matters

HTGF is one of the structural pillars of Germany's startup financing system. It was created in 2005, when German technology startups had very little access to early-stage equity after the dot-com crash, and it has since become a first-money-in investor for hundreds of deep-tech, life-science, industrial-tech and digital-tech companies. Because it typically leads seed rounds and then helps founders prepare for follow-on funding, its decisions shape which technology companies reach later-stage investors in Germany. Its public-private structure also makes it a reference model for how state capital and corporate capital can be combined without turning the fund into a funding agency, a point its managing director stressed in a Startuprad.io interview.

Company or institutional background

HTGF was established in 2005. In a December 2020 Startuprad.io interview, then managing director Alexander von Frankenberg described the original funding structure as roughly 240 million euros from the German federal government, about 15 million euros from KfW and about 17 million euros from six large companies, with an independent management team and its own variable pay structure; these figures are the interviewee's own account and have not been independently verified for this record. The English Wikipedia article on the fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Gr%C3%BCnderfonds describes four generations of seed funds (HTGF I to IV) and a fund volume of over 2 billion euros across all vehicles, including an HTGF Opportunity Fund launched in 2024, with around 790 portfolio companies; these totals are as reported by Wikipedia and move over time.

HTGF's official announcement of its fourth fund https://www.htgf.de/en/new-high-tech-gruenderfonds-seed-fund-exceeds-expectations/ states that HTGF IV passed 400 million euros in commitments at its first closing on 14 June 2022, with the federal economics ministry and KfW Capital as public investors and around 40 private investors contributing more than 130 million euros. The same announcement notes that the preceding fund, HTGF III, had a volume of 319.5 million euros and 33 private investors. The firm's website currently describes typical pre-seed and seed investments of 800,000 euros or more, growth-round capacity of up to 30 million euros per portfolio company, a preference for companies no older than three years, and four focus areas: deep tech, life sciences and chemistry, digital tech and industrial tech.

Michael Brandkamp, the fund's first managing director until 2019, is described in a Startuprad.io interview as having written and executed HTGF's original business plan; Alexander von Frankenberg succeeded him. HTGF's website announced on 1 July 2026 that Axel Nitsch and Johannes Weber were named partners https://www.htgf.de/en/axel-nitsch-and-johannes-weber-named-partners-at-htgf/ . Leadership titles have changed over the years and should be checked against HTGF's own site.

Role in the ecosystem

Within the DACH ecosystem HTGF is typically the lead investor in a startup's first institutional round and then a recurring participant in follow-on rounds. In the 2020 interview von Frankenberg said the fund was investing in around 80 percent B2B companies, took the lead in seed rounds, and offered support with fundraising introductions, hiring, business development and access to its corporate investors. He also described a two-step decision process, a team pitch followed by an investment board that includes representatives of the fund's investors, which he characterised as a professional venture-capital process rather than a political one; this description is the interviewee's own.

Recent portfolio milestones reported on HTGF's own website include the acquisition of biotech Tubulis by Gilead for up to 5 billion US dollars in April 2026, also covered by third-party outlets such as https://www.startbase.com/news/gilead-uebernimmt-tubulis-fuer-bis-zu-5-milliarden-us-dollar , and a 411 million euro financing round for fusion-energy company Proxima Fusion in July 2026, which is reported on HTGF's site and has not been independently re-verified for this record. In the 2020 interview von Frankenberg also named the sale of Emma, the mattress company, to Haniel as one of the fund's largest exits to date.

Selected relationships and affiliations

HTGF's public investors are the German federal economics ministry and KfW Capital, the venture arm of KfW, which is catalogued as a separate Startuprad.io entity (kfw). Its private investors are drawn from German industry; the 2020 interview named companies such as Bosch, SAP, Bayer and BASF, and HTGF's own investor pages list further groups. Portfolio companies mentioned in Startuprad.io coverage or on HTGF's own site include Emma (catalogued as emma-sleep), Mister Spex, Amal Therapeutics, Tubulis and Proxima Fusion. Michael Brandkamp, formerly of HTGF, went on to found the European Circular Bioeconomy Fund (ECBF), which Startuprad.io covered in a founder interview. No other affiliations are asserted here.

Startuprad.io relevance

Startuprad.io has featured HTGF twice. A December 2020 interview with Alexander von Frankenberg, titled Meet Europe's most important Seed Investor, covered the fund's history, public-private model, investment criteria and sourcing approach, including its active sourcing of newly funded companies from public databases. A later founder interview with Michael Brandkamp of the European Circular Bioeconomy Fund discusses his earlier role as HTGF's first managing director and links to a separate video conversation with HTGF. Both posts were refreshed in September 2026.

Public source context

This record draws on HTGF's own website and press releases, the English Wikipedia article on the fund, third-party reporting on the Tubulis acquisition, and Startuprad.io's own archive coverage cited below. Fund totals, portfolio counts and current leadership change frequently and are given as reported at the time of writing. Figures quoted from interviews are the interviewees' statements. Fund-level return data and individual investor commitments beyond those announced by HTGF were not found in public sources and are omitted rather than estimated.

Startuprad.io coverage

Meet One Of The Investors Investing 300 M € For Europe’s Green Deal To Become Reality — Founder Interview
Published: 15 March 2026
Last updated: 20 September 2026
Coverage type: Interview
https://www.startuprad.io/post/meet-one-of-the-investors-investing-300-m-for-europe-s-green-deal-to-become-reality-founder-inte

Meet Europe’s most important Seed Investor
Published: 22 December 2020
Last updated: 20 September 2026
Coverage type: Interview
https://www.startuprad.io/post/meet-europe-s-most-important-seed-investor

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