KfW Capital to present awards: “Best Female Investor” and “Best Impact Investor” wanted!

• KfW Capital Award: applications open from 1 April 2022
• Prizes will be awarded to personalities in the categories “Best Female Investor” and “Best Impact Investor”
• Awards ceremony to be held in Berlin on 19 October 2022

Investors will be able to apply for the KfW Capital Award “Best Female Investor” and “Best Impact Investor” from tomorrow until 1 July 2022. The KfW Capital Award “Best Female Investor” recognises female venture capital (VC) investors who invest successfully in start-ups and innovative tech companies in Germany, among other things. The KfW Capital Award “Best Impact Investor” focuses on investors – both male and female – who have defined impact as an integral part of their investment strategy and invest in start-ups and innovative tech companies in Germany, among other things. Each of this year’s awards is endowed with EUR 5,000 as a special prize of the KfW Entrepreneurs’ Award, which has recognised outstanding entrepreneurs for the past 25 years. Now, in the anniversary year 2022, KfW Capital is expanding the award to include the investor perspective. The TV channel n-tv will broadcast a special report on the prizewinners. The awards ceremony will be held in Berlin on 19 October 2022. “Women remain underrepresented as investors in the VC ecosystem, and there are still relatively few impact funds. The aim of the KfW Capital Award is to recognise successful male and female investors while raising awareness about these two important issues. In order to be successful in the long term, the VC market of the future will have to be more diverse – in both staffing and content”, said Dr Jörg Goschin, Senior Managing Director of KfW Capital.

A high-ranking five-member jury will choose the winners from among the entries received. KfW Capital was able to win the following jurors for the KfW Capital Award “Best Female Investor”: Alex von Frankenberg (Managing Director of High-Tech Gründerfonds), Ulrike Hinrichs, Managing Director of the German Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVK), Prof Heike Hölzner (Professor for Entrepreneurship and SME Management at the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin) and Dr Eva Wimmer (Head of the Directorate-General for Financial Market Policy at the Federal Ministry of Finance). The jurors for the KfW Capital Award “Best Impact Investor” will be Prof Christina E. Bannier (Professor for Banking and Finance at Justus Liebig University Giessen), Dr Sabine Hepperle (Head of the SME Policy Department at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action), Anja Mikus (Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer at KENFO – German Nuclear Waste Management Fund) and Dr Andreas Rickert (Chief Executive Officer of PHINEO, Co-CEO of Nixdorf Kapital, Chairman of the Federal Initiative on Impact Investing). The two Managing Directors of KfW Capital will each be on a jury, with Dr Jörg Goschin for the category of Best Female Investor and Alexander Thees for Best Impact Investor. KfW Capital Sustainability Manager Theresa Bardubitzki will round off KfW Capital’s membership on the two juries.

Note for applicants:

Investors can find information about the application on www.kfw-capital.de/en/award. The relevant criteria can also be viewed there. It is also possible to nominate investors for the award. In that case please send an email to info-kfw-capital@kfw.de.

About KfW Capital

KfW Capital is KfW’s wholly-owned venture capital subsidiary and invests in European venture capital funds. The aim of KfW Capital is to sustainably bolster the VC fund landscape so as to give innovative technology companies in Germany better access to growth capital. To this end KfW Capital invests on the same terms as private investors under both the ‘ERP VC Fund Investments Programme’ and the ‘ERP/Future Fund Growth Facility’. The VC funds for their part commit to investing at least the amount of capital brought in by KfW Capital into German high-growth enterprises. In its investments KfW Capital applies the Sustainability Policy and the exclusion list of KfW Capital. The fund investor sets great store by the target funds’ observance of ESG criteria. Further information on KfW Capital, the programmes and KfW Capital’s VC portfolio is available at www.kfw-capital.de.