planblue
Oceans cover over 70% of the earth’s surface, yet 95% of its seafloors are unknown. However, oceans hold an estimated value of 80 Trillion Dollars. planblue makes these values visible.
planblue uses a hyperspectral camera and its own AI models to analyze the very rich hyperspectral data and make the hidden values visible.
Customer: Fugro, NASA, Beneath the Waves, CEFAS, Blusink, etc.
planblue received a grant of €2.5m from the Horizon Europe program.
Our role
- Supported building a scalable company and developing the strategy and business model.
- Exclusive financial advisor for the first financing round with Westtech Ventures and further angel investors
- Exclusive financial advisor for the Seed I & II round of €3.5m with LocalGlobe, Buildersvision, Silverstrand Capital, Ponderosa, Bremer Aufbaubank, Sustainable Ocean Alliance and Angel investors
- Angel investor.
Distribusion Technologies
- Global Distribution System for ground transportation (“Amadeus for ground transportation”).
- 2000+ operator in 70 Märkten integrated.
- 200+ retailers using the Distribusion platform, u.a. Google Maps, Expedia, Booking.com, Omio, etc.
- Series B Round of $31m closed June 20222, led by Lightrock.
- Series C Round of $80m closed September 2024, led by TQ Ventures.
Our role
- Initiation of and support for the strategy pivot from a B2C platform to a Global Distribution System.
- Exclusive financial and legal advisor for €1.3 million financing round with BfB Frühphasenfonds and HR Ventures.
- Advisor for the €6 million Series A round with Creandum, Northzone, HR Ventures and reputable angel investors.
- Angel investor.
Resourcify
- Resourcify is the digital platform for the circular economy and helps companies to optimise their waste management.
- Customers: McDonalds, Hornbach, Johnson&Johnson, Obi, RollsRoyce, Syntegon, Rewe, Frankfurter Flughafen uvm.
- In September 2023, Resourcify closed a Series A Round of €14m with Vorwerk Ventures, Revent, Ananda Impact Ventures, Speedinvest, BonVenture and WEPA Ventures.
Our role
- Support in building a scalable company, and in development of the strategy and business model.
- Exclusive financial advisor for a €1.2 Million financing round with HTGF, IFB Hamburg and high-caliber Business Angel, e.g. Dr. Ralf Struthoff (Sulo / Veolia / Blackstone), Gunnar Froh (Airbnb, Wunder) and Christian Springub (Jimdo).
- Angel investor
MOTIONTAG
MOTIONTAG offers the operating system for seamless, sustainable and smart mobility. MOTIONTAG infers insights from smartphone sensors about how, when and where people use transport services.
Customers (selection): Swiss Railway, Telefonica, Deutsche Bahn, Swisscom, BVG, ETH Zurich etc.
Our role
- Advisor in the corporate spinoff of InnoZ, the subsequent establishment of the new entity and strategy development thereof.
- Advisor for the €1.5 Million financing round with ILB, Swiss Post and six angel investors: Dr Michael Frenzel, former CEO TUI & Member of the Supervisory Board Deutsche Bahn, Dr Ralph Körfgen, former CEO Deutsche Bahn Sales, Dr Thomas Doering, former Member of the Management Board Thomas Cook, Petra Euler und Holger Taubmann, two former top manager Amadeus, and Marcus Otto, founder Nfon.
- Advisor for the Series A financing with Wayra, Road Ventures, ILB and Swiss Post.
- Advisor for the turnaround and bridge financing in December 2022.
- Angel investor.
Nüwiel
Package delivery market continues to grow, which leads to the problems in the last mile: increasing costs, congested streets, higher number of road accidents and emissions. NÜWIEL has the perfect solution: an electrically powered bicycle trailer which
- automatically accelerates and brakes (own patented technology),
- can be used as a handcart inside the buildings and pedestrian zones, and
- works with EUR1 exchangeable boxes and up to 200kg.
Current status
- Trailer is developed, and core sensor-technology is patented.
- Customers: IKEA, UPS, Airbus, Belgium Post, Messenger, Liefery (Hermes), Stadt Hamburg u.a.
- Funding of €2.1m through the EU Horizion2020 program.
Our role
- Company building, financial planing, sparring partner.
- Exclusive financial advisor for first and second financing round and commercial agreement with Freetrailer AS.
- Angel investor.
Zolar
Solar energy is cheaper than buying electricity from the grid – and on top home owners can become independent from the grid and generate their own green energy. With 127 Mio. residential houses in Europe, the market potential in Europe is around €1.4 trillion. However, the sales process is still manual, offline and locally fragmented. ZOLAR makes buying a solar system for residential home owners as simple as possible based.
- 2019, Zolar closed a Series B round of €35m with Energy Impact Partners, Inven Capital and others.
- 2023, Zolar closed a Series C round of €100m again with Energy Impact Partners and the other existing investors.
- 2024, Zolar has received a financing of €100m from BNP Paribas to offer his clients a financing option.
Our role
- Support in building a scalable company, and in development of the strategy and business model.
- Advisor for €4m Series A financing round with Heartcore, Statkraft Ventures, Partech Ventures and Tim Schumacher.
Watergenics
- Water is vital, but we hardly know anything about the quality of our water. Why is that? Analysing it is time-consuming, takes place in a laboratory, requires a different method for each pollutant, and can take hours or even days.
- With its sensor technology and AI, Watergenics analyses the quality of the water directly in the water in real time for a range of pollutants and sends the results to customers’ dashboards anywhere in the world.
- Customers: Veolia, AngloAmerican, SQM, LMBV, etc.
Our role
- Fractional CFO and exclusive advisor on the €2m seed financing with family offices, selected angels and Invesdor (in closing).
- Angel investor.
Family.cards
- Family.cards is digitising the 69 million European senior citizens and opening the Internet to them.
- However, Family.cards not only make the phone buttons bigger but has developed an entirely new device with the greatest possible usability.
- Family.cards focuses directly on the behaviour of senior citizens, uses the TV as the largest screen and centre of the household, and creates a new world of devices—similar to the Android world.
Our role
- Exclusive Advisor for the Seed round of €1,2m with ILB/Brandenburg Kapital, OHA, Antler, Birdhouse u.a.
- Angel investor.
Leaftech
- Today’s building management systems have a significant disadvantage: they look at buildings in isolation and forget about the environment, which, however, has a substantial influence on a building.
- Leaftech creates a digital twin of the building in its environment and combines it with geodata, such as weather data, solar radiation, etc.
- In just a few hours and without hardware, Leaftech uses its software and AI to generate the data that the building management system needs to control the building more efficiently and reduce energy consumption by over 20%. In addition, occupant comfort increases significantly, CO2 emissions decrease, and the value of the building rises.
Our role
Exclusive advisor on the six-figure seed financing with a high-caliber angel investor and IBB Ventures.
Fred & Felia
- The pet food market is over €30bn (Europe) and is dominated by Nestle and Mars, which produce the lowest-quality food. This makes dogs and cats sick and reduces a dog’s life expectancy by three years.
- The founders learned this from their Labrador, so they founded Fred & Felia and financed it by themselves with €7m. Fred & Felia is fully vertically integrated, from food development to production, packaging, and distribution.
- Fred & Felia has established itself very well, has a very loyal customer base and is growing at almost 100% per year.
Our role
Exclusive advisor for two growth financing rounds of in total €2,7m with BayBG, Sven Rittau (co-founder Zooplus and K5), KaBu Family Office and some Angel investors.
Haferkater
It was a small kebab shop; it became a small porridge café. Three founders, one vision: a well-known, simple dish made from just three ingredients has what it takes to become breakfast for the masses.
The tiny Berlin porridge café has since grown into stores all over Germany: Commuters, travellers, athletes and connoisseurs eat the Oatkaters on the way to work, together with friends or relaxed while waiting for the next train.
Our role
Advisor on the seven-figure growth financing with Zentis Ventures, the system gastronomy expert Alexander Eberl and existing investor Katjesgreenfood Ventures.
Querfeld
With the will to fight the problem of food waste, we founded Querfeld in 2016. Our vision is a fair and sustainable food supply for all!
We started by driving out to farmers with rented vans to load the first orders of crooked fruit and vegetables and deliver them to curious kitchens.
Today, we have numerous long-term relationships with producers, a great team and a nationwide network of logisticians with whom we supply kitchens from daycare centres to company restaurants. Since 2021, we have also been supplying your kitchen at home. Save with us!
Our role
Exclusive advisor for the first Seed-Round.
Diametos
Diametos is developing the world’s first and only medical device for diagnosing the causes of snoring based on artificial intelligence.
Our role
Advisor on the high six-figure seed financing with a consortium of top-class angel investors.
Uniwhere
Uniwhere offers students an app with which they can easily and conveniently access their personal university data, such as their grades, dates and much more. In addition, the app offers valuable career tips and job offers, and students can share their experiences about courses, internships, exchange semester etc. In short: Uniwhere is your companion through university life.
Uniwhere is already integrated over 70 universities, acquired 150,000 registered users with a zero marketing budget and achieves top ratings in the app stores.
Our role
- Support in building a scalable company, and in development of the strategy and business model.
- Exclusive financial advisor for an early stage round with Westtech Ventures, Boost Heroes, Rancilio Cube and further angel investors.
- Angel investor
bookingkit
Online booking solution and global distribution system for activity providers.
Our role
Exclusive financial advisor for the Series A financing round with Intermedia Ventures, High-Tech Gründerfonds and Robert Kabs.
Wunderflats
- Renting of furnished apartments from 1-12 months (“mid-term Airbnb”).
- Presence in 37 cities, e.g. Berlin, Munich, Dusseldorf, Stuttgart.
Our role
- Development of the pitch-deck.
- Preparation and coaching for the successful application to the Microsoft Accelerator and Hasso-Plattner-Institute.
Hoard
Hoard is cracking the last mile by building up a network of pick-points and providing them with an easy to use mobile app. The app enables nearly anyone to exchange anything in a safe and easy way – Hoard is pretty much like UBER without wheels.
- Hoard has built up a network of more than 200 pick-points in 15+ cities.
- First use case is the exchange of keys for Airbnb-appartments, supported by a close cooperation with Airbnb.
- Sold to Norwegian competitor Sharebox in 2018.
Our role
- Exclusive financial advisor for 300K financing round with MetroTechstars and Texas Atlantic Capital.
- Angel investor.
Clevver
Clevver is a platform for digital internationalization of SMEs.
With Clevver SMEs can within minutes open virtual locations nearly worldwide, including an exclusive address, mailbox, telephone number, legal entity, bank account etc. And via the Clevver app they are able to manage their locations literally out of their pocket.
In short: Clevver offers SMEs all the services they need to expand quickly, easily and at lowest cost internationally.
Our role
- Exclusive Advisor for an angel financing of €640,000 with Dr. Cornelius Börsch, Volker Rofalski, Andreas Perreiter and others.
- Angel investor.

Cashboard
Cashboard automatizes the tradition financial advisory role for retail investors, streamlining the investment process.
Cashboard offers retail investors the opportunity to invest in more than 6,500 financial products at the lowest costs, according to their investment profile.
Our role
- Provide support in €2.8 million Pre-Series A financing round with Earlybird, Redalpine, 500 Startups, Heilemann Ventures (now part of Earlybird) and Heiko Hubertz.
- Provide support in €3 million Series A financing round with Digital Space Ventures and the existing investors.
- Board member (representative of the founders in the board).
Climate-KIC Accelerator
- EU-Accelerator for cleantech start-up companies.
- Support with up to €95,000 in three stages about up to 18 months.
- Examples: Thermondo, Tado, emmy, MotionTag, Lilium, Volocopter, Resourcify, Zolar, Nüwiel, Enway, PlanBlue, Lumenaza, Wiferion
Our role
Lead-coach for company building, strategy development, financial planing and fundraising.
Lumenaza
Digital marketplace for local producers and consumers of electricity (“utility-in-a-box solution for distributed energy”).
Specific algorithms ensure a secure and balanced supply.
Our role
- Development of the pitch-deck.
- Sparring partner during the €1.3 million financing round with EnBW and IBB Venture Capital.

„After ages, I got to attend such an insightful & engaging session with no bs, and it was relevant to everyone irrespective of geographies. And the way you have integrated GIFs and formal info about the landscape was the highlight. Your session was full of insights and it will always remain one of my personal favorite of this program.“

“Marc and I worked together at Innotech. I particularly appreciated his judgement, his integrity, and his no-nonsense approach, even during difficult times. I look forward to receiving new investment proposals from him and can highly recommend him to every founder.”

“We came to Berlin to check out the start-up scene and see if the buzz was a myth or a reality! And the best person to call for intros was of course Marc, who knows everyone from start-up founders, to accelerators and investors.”

“I have known Marc for many years as a co-investor, fellow Board Member and friend. Over the years, I have learned and appreciated his high integrity, curiosity for new challenges and commitment to his investments, especially during difficult times. I can highly recommend Marc as a competent sparring partner and wish him and his Business Buddies all the best.”

“I’ve known Marc as an investor, founder and friend since 2007 and love to work with him. I appreciate his analytical skills, his reliability and high integrity. He is definitely a great, experienced, and highly recommendable partner for any founder.”

“I have had good experiences with the Buddies both professionally regarding investment funds and personally. They have been a valuable source of support for evaluating our business and financial plans, have extensive legal know-how and we also like to get their help for market and background research. And of course, we are always happy to receive new investment proposals from them.”

“Marc is always my valued sparring partner for fundraising. With his analytical, straightforward approach, he has always given us valuable input and his open-minded, positive character – he never minds his words – makes him stand out from the crowd.”

“Working with Marc/Business Buddies was a key decision we made for our business. Developing a detailed financial model was imperative for our raise and not only that, helped us better understand our own business.”

“Marc has helped us tremendously with the closing of our seed financing round. Furthermore, he is a sparring partner that adds significant value, is available 24×7 and has a broad network in the startup scene, both very unique.”

“The Buddies have the expertise that you, as a founder, highly appreciate. With a blend of entrepreneurial spirit and investor know-how, they give you detailed input and feedback. And when you go with them for lunch, you might find even a review about it afterwards on: http://mittagsinmitte.de“

“Marc has extensive experience as an investor as well as a founder. He is very result oriented and together with his team, delivers valuable strategic input and hands-on support when it comes to fundraising. Highly recommendable!”

“With his 10 years of experience in Venture Capital and Private Equity and 4 years of Startup experience, I have appreciate Marc’s counsel and insights very much. I value him as a good sparring partner, since he is always sincere and straightforward with his advice.”

„Hi Marc, it has been so great working with you through Climate KIC. You always knew how to improve what we already thought was good (but was definitely far from that :-). Learning from you, how to prepare, and receiving your feedback has been fabulous. It has been our honor!“

“We had received a lot of pressure from potential investors and hired Business Buddies on Friday night. By Sunday night, we had already received a correct state-of-the-art financial plan. The plan fulfills our requirements perfectly and the investor standards as well. Further, the plan enables us, to check sensitivities and run different scenarios. Great work! We would definitely hire them again.”