Diversity first: emma Ventures finalises first investments

Former seasoned Private Equity Executives Christian Diller and Katja Baur have, with their proprietary capital, founded emma Ventures to provide funding to passionate and mission-driven founders with diverse backgrounds – this includes gender, race, ethnic background and professional education and careers. The firm focuses on sustainable and impact-driven business models primarily in Healthcare, Software/SAAS, Fintech/Insurtech, Edtech, and Consumer. emma acts as lead investor, co-lead or co-investor in Pre-Seed, Seed and Series A rounds.

The founding duo previously worked together at Montana Capital Partners, a leading European Private Equity Secondaries firm. Co-founded by Christian in 2011, the company was successfully sold to PGIM, the asset management arm of US insurance giant Prudential in 2021. They structured and executed several deals in the Venture Capital and Buyout space during their careers. They now bring their broad experience and network to support founders on their journey to success.

“Our objective is to partner with mission-driven founding teams and support them as an active investor to build up and scale their businesses to future game changers. We know exactly how challenging the journey from founding a business to a successful exit to a global player is and are highly motivated to bring in our expertise, network and skills”, said Christian Diller. “Supporting diverse founder teams and especially women on their entrepreneurial journey is not only a matter close to my heart but an extremely attractive business case I strongly believe in. We are very excited to partner with exceptional founding teams and help them build sustainable businesses for a better tomorrow,” adds Katja.

Aiming to invest in 5-7 startups yearly, emma Ventures has already made the first investments. Its portfolio includes investments in startups such as Berlin-based edtech startup Cleverly and footwear and accessories brand Aeyde. In addition, emma led a EUR 2 million seed round for a digital healthcare company developing an innovative baby monitoring device coming to the market very soon.

First Swiss investment
In Switzerland, the firm has invested in the preventive healthcare company CARE, partnering with one of the most successful Swiss serial entrepreneurs in healthcare. The startup’s team met the criteria due to their “various and non-academic backgrounds”, as Katja mentioned. By leveraging scientific advancements, proprietary technology and ongoing in-person coaching, CARE unlocks critical insights for members to help improve the quality of their daily lives and delay the impact of aging. With the proprietary CARE App, members are empowered in the planning and tracking of their CARE Score and more than 50 biomarkers to achieve their goals. The startup is already experiencing rapid growth: it has generated post-annual recurring revenue of one million US Dollars six months after its launch in Switzerland. Building on this success, the startup plans to open its first U.S. store in Miami in January 2024. In pursuit of its ambitious growth targets, the company plans to increase the number of employees to 100 by the end of next year.

(Press release/RAN)