Ode to the Founders

This news­let­ter will be the last that I write as CEO of bm|t. After a ful­fil­ling and pro­duc­tive seven and a half years of inves­t­ing in Thüringen´s highly inno­va­tive com­pa­nies there are still many topics that I could write about. Howe­ver, it became crys­tal clear over my time at bm|t that all of the inte­res­t­ing topics con­cer­ning the nuan­ces of ven­ture inves­t­ing are not as important com­pared to where the real magic hap­pens: at our ama­zing Inves­tee-Part­ners. Thus, my last news­let­ter focu­ses on the truly inspi­ring foun­ders who take signi­fi­cant risks to create some­thing new in the world, to make a dent in the uni­verse. You have taught us so much and we have immense respect for you!

The grea­test reward for us as inves­tors is see­ing the tre­men­dous pro­gress that our Inves­tee-Part­ners have demons­tra­ted and will con­ti­nue to demons­trate in the coming years. One of my last trips for bm|t was to an Inves­tee-Part­ner that star­ted seven years ago with two peo­ple and a highly ambi­tious idea to pro­duce some­thing that no other com­pany in the world can pro­duce. Along the way, there were many set­backs and times when it see­med impos­si­ble to achieve the mis­sion. Howe­ver, the foun­ders per­se­vered and did not waver in their belief that it was indeed pos­si­ble and that achie­ving the goal would create tre­men­dous value. This impres­sive deter­mi­na­tion con­vin­ced us and other inves­tors to con­ti­nue on the jour­ney. After this last visit, upon see­ing the fast-gro­wing pro­duc­tion floor, the team of nearly 20 enga­ged employees and the unde­niable pro­gress toward achie­ving this bold goal, we were fil­led with joy, pride, and mostly respect for what the foun­ders and team accomplished.

Taking on extre­mely chal­len­ging endea­vors has a cri­ti­cally important para­dox that foun­ders and ven­ture inves­tors alike need to deeply app­re­ciate: the more trans­for­ma­tio­nal your goal is the more it will feel like you are fai­ling to reach the goal along the way. Howe­ver, if all par­ties can keep their eyes on the prize, and avoid the tempt­a­tion to dial down the dif­fi­culty level and create easier-to-reach ersatz goals, once the hard-to-reach goal is attai­ned the rewards are mul­ti­ple times grea­ter. This reward is the essence of the log-rule of start­ups and ven­ture investing.

This rare ability to seek out chal­len­ging goals and to endure the pain of set­backs and not be deter­red in pur­suing the goal is what sets the truly great entre­pre­neurs apart from the rest. Of course, even the most excep­tio­nal foun­ders need sup­port from many stake­hol­ders, inclu­ding inves­tors, to achieve their goals. We at bm|t are extre­mely for­t­u­nate to have the fund struc­ture, the man­date, and now the expe­ri­ence and inves­t­ing track record to be stead­fast in our sup­port of extra­or­di­nary entre­pre­neurs pur­suing meaningful breakthroughs.

After seven and a half years lea­ding bm|t, I can say wit­hout hesi­ta­tion that we sup­port the ama­zing foun­ders in Thü­rin­gen to the best of our ability. And, I am cer­tain that sup­port will con­ti­nue to be strong and relia­ble in the future, because the bm|t team is fully com­mit­ted to our work enab­ling excep­tio­nal foun­ders to pur­sue and achieve bold visions.

Thank you all for ever­y­thing you taught me and all that you shared with me; I lear­ned so much from you.  Most importantly, I am lea­ving with tre­men­dous respect for the brave foun­ders who push the limits of what is pos­si­ble and am loo­king for­ward to fol­lo­wing your cou­ra­ge­ous lead.

Kevin and your bm|t Team

2024 Review

In 2024, bm|t’s Inves­tee-Part­ners secu­red over EUR 76,5 mil­lion in equity and mez­za­nine capi­tal despite the con­ti­nuing tra­gic geo­po­li­ti­cal and incre­asingly chal­len­ging macroe­co­no­mic envi­ron­ment. The invest­ments were dis­tri­bu­ted among 30 com­pa­nies in 47 invest­ment rounds. Funds mana­ged by bm|t com­mit­ted EUR 21,9 mil­lion and co-inves­tors com­mit­ted EUR 54,6 million.

“In light of the mas­sive decline in the over­all figu­res for ven­ture capi­tal fun­ding in Ger­many and most regi­ons of the world, we are extre­mely plea­sed to have achie­ved a sub­stan­tial increase in the amount of capi­tal rai­sed by our Inves­tee-Part­ners. The fact that 18 of our Inves­tee-Part­ners rai­sed seven-or-eight figure sums demons­tra­tes the strength and breadth of our port­fo­lio, which has deve­lo­ped well over the last years,” com­men­ted Katja Butz­mann, CEO of bm|t.

Welcome to the Family

DeepEn GmbH, a spin-off from the Leib­niz Insti­tute of Pho­to­nic Tech­no­logy, deve­lops world thin­nest endo­sco­pic devices. Foun­ded in 2024, the company’s solu­tion enable mini­mally inva­sive deep brain ima­ging with cel­lu­lar and sub­cel­lu­lar reso­lu­tion. These devices are alre­ady acce­le­ra­ting neu­ro­sci­ence, allo­wing rese­ar­ches to study brain func­tion and neu­ro­de­ge­nera­tive dise­a­ses with unpar­al­le­led precision.

DeepEn’s mis­sion extends to enab­ling access to other hard-to-reach or deli­cate body regi­ons for broa­der bio­me­di­cal appli­ca­ti­ons. bm|t, MBG Thü­rin­gen and Spar­kasse Jena-Saale-Holz­land inves­ted a seven-figure sum in DeepEn GmbH in this seed finan­cing round. The capi­tal is to be used in par­ti­cu­lar to com­plete the deve­lo­p­ment of the Neu­ro­Deep 1.0 sys­tem and launch it on the market.

Investor DaysThüringen 2025 – Save The Date

10 years of Inves­tor Days Thüringen…

a reason for us to cele­brate and we hope that you will be there too.

On 4 June 2025, Inves­tor Days Thü­rin­gen will bring inves­tors tog­e­ther with start-ups and scale-ups in Erfurt for the 10^th time! You can look for­ward to a day full of inno­va­tive live pit­ches, great net­wor­king oppor­tu­ni­ties and exci­ting highlights.