KfW Capital Award 2022: Awards for Best Female Investor and Best Impact Investor presented in Berlin yesterday

• Outstanding contributions to the VC ecosystem
• Best Female Investor: Dr Manon Sarah Littek
• Best Impact Investor: Extantia Capital

The winners of the first KfW Capital Award have been chosen: Dr Manon Sarah Littek has won in the category of Best Female Investor, and the venture capital (VC) fund Extantia Capital with its team has won in the category Best Impact Investor. The awards, each of which is worth EUR 5,000, were presented by the two co-managing directors of KfW Capital, Dr Jörg Goschin and Alexander Thees, at the KfW Entrepreneurs’ Award presentation ceremony, which took place at the “Bar jeder Vernunft” theatre in Berlin yesterday. This year the KfW Entrepreneurs’ Award, which has now been presented 25 times, was expanded by adding the investor perspective (KfW Award Gründen | KfW). “We selected these two categories to shine a light on the topics of diversity and gender, which are still underrepresented in the VC ecosystem. With Dr Manon Sarah Littek and the VC fund Extantia Capital and its team, we are very pleased to have two outstanding award winners who stand as a beacon”, said Dr Jörg Goschin. “The panel of judges were spoilt for choice in both categories because we had many outstanding candidates for our first KfW Capital Award”, said Alexander Thees. “Even though we still need more women in the VC ecosystem and significantly more impact funds, not least because of the urgency of finding solutions to climate change, we see a great deal of development, which makes us optimistic”, said Alexander Thees.

The panel that selected the KfW Capital Award in the category Best Female Investor was composed of the following judges: 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), Dr Jörg Goschin, Co-managing Director of KfW Capital)/ Theresa Bardubitzki (Sustainability Manager at KfW Capital). The panel made the following statement on Dr Manon Sarah Littek, co-founder of the VC fund Green Generation Funds: “Dr Manon Sarah Littek brings extensive investment and portfolio management experience to the role and has demonstrated over many years that she is a very successful investor who is consistently able to identify outstanding business ideas and entrepreneur personalities. For more than six years she has primarily invested in food tech companies who focus primarily on more sustainable and healthier nutrition and thereby positively transform consumer behaviour.”

The panel of judges for the KfW Capital Award Best Impact Investor was composed of 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 of the German Nuclear Waste Management Fund KENFO) and Dr Andreas Rickert (Chief Executive Officer of PHINEO, Co-CEO of Nixdorf Kapital, Chairman of the Federal Initiative on Impact Investing), along with Co-managing Director Alexander Thees and Sustainability Manager Theresa Bardubitzki on behalf of KfW Capital. The panel commented on their selection of Extantia Capital as follows: “The team of Extantia is fully behind the mission to push forward decarbonisation to contain climate change. The team’s personal and professional experience in the areas of investing, company building and portfolio management, its focus on climate tech and Extantia Capital’s engagement in the VC ecosystem show that impact is an integral part of their strategy. Extantia Capital has demonstrated in an exemplary manner that commitment to sustainability and market orientation are not mutually exclusive but harmonise well and are increasingly co-dependent in the long run.”

Note:
You can find further information on Dr Manon Sarah Littek at www.greengenerationfund.comand on Extantia Capital at https://extantia.com.
Brief portraits of the award winners are available at www.kfw-capital.de/award.
Information on the KfW Entrepreneurs’ Award and the KfW Capital Award can be found at KfW Award Gründen (available in German only).