KfW Capital Award 2024: Best Female Investor, Best Impact Investor and Best Emerging Manager

• Best Female Investor: Juliane Hahn (Signature Ventures)
• Best Impact Investor: Xavier Sarras (4P CAPITAL)
• Best Emerging Manager: Nucleus Capital (Dr Isabella Fandrych and Maximilian Schwarz)
• All prizes have a purse of EUR 5,000

The winners of the KfW Capital Awards 2024 have been chosen: Juliane Hahn, Founding Partner and Managing Partner at Signature Ventures, is “Best Female Investor 2024”, and Xavier Sarras, Founding Partner at 4P CAPITAL, is “Best Impact Investor 2024”. For the first time this year, a special prize has also been awarded in the category of “Best Emerging Manager” – to Nucleus Capital (Dr Isabella Fandrych and Maximilian Schwarz). The award recipients had been selected by the juries in a multi-stage procedure.

On behalf of the panels of judges, the award recipients were presented with the KfW Capital Award in their respective categories by Dr Sabine Hepperle, Head of the SME Policy department at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, Prof. Heike Hölzner (Professor for Entrepreneurship and SME Management at the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin and Co-Chair of encourageventures e.V.), Dr Alex von Frankenberg (Managing Director of HTGF), and the Managing Directors of KfW Capital, Dr Jörg Goschin and Alexander Thees, as well as Theresa Bardubitzki, KfW Capital’s Sustainability Manager, at the presentation ceremony in Berlin yesterday evening. The awards carry a prize money of 5,000 euros each. The KfW Capital Awards were presented for the third time this year, complementing the KfW Entrepreneurs’ Award for successful business founders by adding the investor perspective, as was the case last year, too.

“The VC ecosystem continues to address the core topics of ‘gender’ and ‘impact’. The aim of the KfW Capital Awards is to honour exceptional work in these areas and underscore the relevance of ‘more diversity’ and ‘more sustainability’ to strengthen the VC ecosystem”,

said Dr Jörg Goschin, who manages KfW Capital in partnership with Alexander Thees.

“We also need new, young fund teams that want to enter the market and support innovative start-ups as funding partners. This holds a great deal of potential for further developing the VC ecosystem. The jury has therefore also selected a ‘Best Emerging Manager’ from all applications received",

said Alexander Thees.

Why the winners were chosen:

What the jury for Best Female Investor said about Juliane Hahn:

"The legal expert Juliane Hahn has been active in the VC ecosystem throughout her entire professional career, first as a lawyer and consultant, later as a tech investor: She is the Founding Partner, GP and Managing Director at the VC fund Signature Ventures, which was founded in 2019 and through which she and her team invest in early-stage-start-ups in the areas of blockchain, distributed ledger and Web3 technologies. Juliane Hahn is convinced that diverse teams offer added value. She has therefore put together not only a diverse team in a deep-tech sector, but also a diverse portfolio. The success proves her right – her track record is outstanding. Her commitment to the ecosystem is also impressive. Juliane Hahn is a member of the Management Board of the German Private Equity and Venture Capital Association and a mentor of numerous start-ups. She regularly shares her expertise in lectures at Munich Technical University and actively advocates for the promotion of female business angels, among others at the encourageventures Academy."

What the jury for Best Impact Investor said about Xavier Sarras:

"Ever since he successfully sold his marketing agency with more than 200 employees in 2017, Xavier Sarras has focused exclusively on impact investing with the motivation of creating value added for society. Today, Xavier Sarras is an experienced investor and angel investor in this field. As a Founding Partner at 4P Capital, he invests in start-ups and growth enterprises that offer sustainable and transformative solutions. Economic growth and social benefits are always his top priority. He has built up a strong portfolio and actively works as a mentor for up-and-coming entrepreneurs. Sarras is known for his extensive network in the European, particularly the Franco-German, impact start up and investor scene. He also regularly attends conferences in order to share his insights into sustainable investment strategies."

What the juries said about Nucleus Capital (selected for Best Emerging Manager from all applications received):

"Young, diverse and specialised – attributes that describe a promising emerging manager fund, all of which apply to Nucleus Capital. With its founding partners Dr Isabella Fandrych and Maximilian Schwarz, Nucleus Capital invests in the fields of programmable biology, ‘food technology and green industrials as a highly specialised fund manager. In the deep-tech niche, it creates genuine value added for young VC funds that wish to invest in its start-ups. The way it is positioned and its expertise make the founding duo – as well as the entire team –particularly well-suited to accompany start-ups in their early stage."

Note:

The jurors for the KfW Capital Award “Best Female Investor” were Dr Tanja Emmerling (Partner at HTGF/Head of HTGF Berlin), 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 Co-Chair of encourageventures e.V.) 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” were Dr Sabine Hepperle (Head of the SME Policy Department at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action), Verena Kempe (Head of Investment Management at KENFO – German Nuclear Waste Management Fund), Felix Oldenburg (CEO of bcause and Board Spokesman of gut.org gAG) and Dr Andreas Rickert (Chief Executive Officer of PHINEO, Co-CEO of Nixdorf Kapital and Chair of the Federal Initiative on Impact Investing). The Managing Directors of KfW Capital represented KfW Capital on the juries with Dr Jörg Goschin for the category of “Best Female Investor” and Alexander Thees for “Best Impact Investor”. Theresa Bardubitzki, KfW Capital’s Sustainability Manager, was on the juries for both categories.

Find more information here: KfW Capital Award 2024 and here: KfW Award Gründen 2024