Active Venture Partners has announced the appointment of two new team members with strong entrepreneurial and venture capital experience. Active has doubled its team from five to 10 team members in the last three years and is one of Europe’s fastest-growing venture capital firms. Sebastian Blum joins as partner coming from previous senior roles in Silicon Valley’s mobile technology and VC market while Georg Stockinger takes up his role as venture advisor bringing large-scale digital business expertise to the firm. Common to both is a strong commitment to extending Active’s game-changing approach based on active value building and operational support for its portfolio companies which is setting the company apart from traditional venture capital fund managers.
Building on its success in the mobile startup community, Active has appointed Sebastian Blum from his previous position as VP of business development at California-based photo viewing app developer Cooliris, where he was responsible for corporate & business development and partnerships with special focus on Asia. Previously he was in senior positions at T-Venture, the VC arm of Deutsche Telekom, and most recently as the managing director of its San Francisco office where he drove investments in mobile start-ups throughout Europe and the US. Blum will expand Active’s representation in Berlin and other German-speaking startup hubs.
“There had to be a compelling reason for me to return from the US to Europe, and I found it in Active,” said Blum. “This is such an exciting opportunity; to work with a phenomenal and passionate team of entrepreneurially-minded professionals dedicated to helping other entrepreneurs succeed. I fully embrace the enlightened, fresh and disruptive approach that Active brings to venture capital in Europe, with a true focus on the people inside startups supporting them to realise their ambitions.”
Georg Stockinger brings experience in helping large-scale digital businesses in Europe and Latin America to grow their operations and internationalisation efforts. He was managing director at Rocket Internet LatAm, which has helped to launch and support companies such as Groupon, eDarling and Zalando. Previously, he gained experience in management consulting with McKinsey & Company and was part of the founding team of the German e-commerce start-up Casacanda, which was successfully exited. Stockinger has collected significant investment experience by being active as a private investor in digital businesses based in Germany, Spain, the UK, Mexico and Colombia.
Commenting on his new role at Active, Stockinger, said: “Active has strongly held values relating to the long-term development of people and naturally diverse teams, and I share these. It is offering much more to its portfolio companies than simply capital and to enable this, it employs experts who can advise on a wide range of skills from marketing and strategy through to internationalisation and operational excellence. We are developing a unique support platform and my role is to ensure it is successfully used across our portfolio.”
Like all team members at Active, both Blum and Stockinger bring many additional skills to their roles. They both have international business experience and networks and speak a variety of different languages.
“Sebastian and Georg add immensely to the rich diversity of the Active team that is now composed of seven nationalities and speaks 10 languages,” said Christopher Pommerening, founding partner at Active Venture Partners.
“They are committed to helping us to challenge and change our traditional sector through our new approach to venture capital. They bring their experience and networks from the US, Latin America and Asia to our portfolio entrepreneurs and can add great value through their operational start-up expertise. Sebastian and Georg will greatly enhance our support and partnership with the entrepreneurial teams that work with us.”
