A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend to become registered, startups refer to new businesses that intend to grow large beyond the solo founder. At the beginning, startups face high uncertainty and have high rates of failure, but a minority of them do go on to be successful and influential.
In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a type of ownership of assets and is a class of assets, which function as modes of financial management for operating private companies that are not publicly traded in a stock exchange.
Venture capital is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which have demonstrated high growth. Venture capital firms or funds invest in these early-stage companies in exchange for equity, or an ownership stake. Venture capitalists take on the risk of financing risky start-ups in the hopes that some of the firms they support will become successful. Because startups face high uncertainty, VC investments have high rates of failure. The start-ups are usually based on an innovative technology or business model and they are usually from high technology industries, such as information technology (IT), clean technology or biotechnology.
Sunil Bharti Mittal is an Indian billionaire entrepreneur, philanthropist and the founder and chairperson of Bharti Enterprises, which has diversified interests in telecom, insurance, real estate, education, malls, hospitality, Agri and food besides other ventures. Bharti Airtel, the group's flagship company is one of the world's largest and India's largest telecom company with operations in 18 countries across Asia and Africa with a customer base of over 399 million. Bharti Airtel clocked revenues of over US$14.75 billion in FY2016. In 2022 he was ranked the 11th richest person in India by Forbes, with an estimated net worth of US$14.5 billion.
Thomas Peter Limberger is a German industrial manager, restructuring expert, and investor. He is the founder of SilverArrow Capital, an investment company that generated a 24% return in 2014 and a 19% return in 2016.
Martín Varsavsky Waisman-Diamond is an Argentine entrepreneur based in Spain who founded several companies worldwide, including Urban Capital, Medicorp Sciences, Viatel, Jazztel, EINSTEINet, Ya.com, Eolia, FON and, most recently, Prelude, Overture Life and Goggo Network. This serial entrepreneur condition made Forbes Magazine describe him as Young, Rich & Restless back in 1999.
Corporate venture capital (CVC) is the investment of corporate funds directly in external startup companies. CVC is defined by the Business Dictionary as the "practice where a large firm takes an equity stake in a small but innovative or specialist firm, to which it may also provide management and marketing expertise; the objective is to gain a specific competitive advantage." Examples of CVCs include GV and Intel Capital.
Henry D. Jackson is an American investor and entrepreneur, who has been a UK citizen since 2005. He is chief executive of OpCapita LLP, a London-based private equity firm. Jackson founded OpCapita in early 2006 alongside operating partners David Hamid and John von Spreckelsen.
Cornelius Boersch is a German serial entrepreneur, technology investor, business angel, and author. He is the founder of the investment companies Mountain Partners AG and Conny & Co. Boersch is considered as one of the most active and well-known investors in the (European) technology and start-up scene and is the initiator of the annual Entrepreneurs Day at Tegernsee, Bavaria, which takes place annually since 2007. His best-known investments are Alando.de, Lieferando, the Scout Group, wefox, Kavak, and reBuy.
Vienna Capital Partners (VCP) is a corporate finance advisor and private equity investor headquartered in Vienna, Austria.
Tecan Group Ltd. is a Swiss company providing laboratory instruments and solutions in biopharmaceuticals, forensics, and clinical diagnostics for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, university research departments and diagnostic laboratories.
Johannes "Hannes" Androsch is an Austrian entrepreneur and consultant; a former Social Democrat top politician who served as an Austrian Finance Minister from 1970 to 1981 and additionally as vice chancellor from 1976 to 1981; and a former banker who from 1981 to 1988 was the general director of the Creditanstalt-Bankverein and subsequently an advisor to the World Bank. From 1989 onward he built an industrial investment group, Androsch International Consulting (AIC), which is a major factor in Austria's internationally active corporate landscape. In addition, Androsch's foundation is an important sponsor of research and development activities in Austria, where he is regularly consulted on matters of political, economic and financial importance.
Brad Keywell is an American entrepreneur from Michigan. He is the founder and executive chairman of Uptake Technologies, an industrial AI software provider. He is an early investor of Tempus Labs, co-founder of Groupon, Echo Global Logistics, Mediaocean, DRIVIN, and Lightbank. As of August 2020, his net worth was estimated at US$ 2.7 billion. Keywell is the recipient of the 2019 Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur Of The Year award.
Alteryx is an American computer software company based in Irvine, California, with a development center in Broomfield, Colorado. The company's products are used for data science and analytics. The software is designed to make advanced analytics accessible to any data worker.
Patrizia SE has been active as an investment manager in the real estate market across Europe for more than 38 years. Based in Augsburg, Germany, the company is listed on the Frankfurt stock exchange and, among others, is a member of the SDAX and MSCI World Small Cap Index.
Carsten Jens Maschmeyer is a German billionaire businessman, investor, and panel member of the German investment television series Die Höhle der Löwen. He is the founder and owner of the Maschmeyer Group which combines all of his current business activities. Through ALSTIN he invests growth capital in emerging industries and future markets with outstanding innovations in sectors like the Internet, technology, and life sciences. Through Paladin Asset Management, his team undertakes value investments in publicly listed companies. Through Seed & Speed, Maschmeyer provides seed investments to very early-stage companies.
Rainer-Marc Frey is a Swiss businessman and investor. He has substantially shaped the Swiss financial services sector and the international hedge fund industry.
Martin Saidler is a Vienna-born Swiss businessman and investor in internet and financial technology companies. He has done most of his investing in central Europe, working mostly through a holding company called Centralway, and subsequently through a family office called Saidler & Co.
Venture capital in Poland is a segment of the private equity market that finances early-stage high-risk companies based in Poland, with the potential for fast growth. As of March 2019, there is a total of 130 active VC firms in Poland, including local offices of international VC firms, and VC firms with mainly Polish management teams. Between 2009–2019, these entities have invested locally in over 750 companies, which gives an average of around 9 companies per portfolio. The Polish venture market accounts for 3% of the entire European ecosystem of VC investments, mainly in the digital space.
David Albert Friedberg is an American entrepreneur, businessman, and angel investor. He founded and was chief executive of The Climate Corporation, whose $1.1 billion sale to Monsanto in 2013 made it the first unicorn (finance) in the emerging agricultural technology space. He is currently founder and CEO of The Production Board (TPB). He is a co-host of the All-In podcast. Spanning his career, he has contributed to 32 patents.
