Markus Kainz is the founder and CEO of Gateway Ventures. He leads the management and corporate strategy and is himself a passionate business angel and start-up mentor. Markus has been active as an entrepreneur and startup investor for more than 15 years and is eager to share his knowledge and experience with other investors.

In addition, of promoting sustainable innovations in particular, one of Svenja’s biggest goals is informing more women about startup investments, getting them excited about this form of economic influence and lowering the inhibition threshold for entering startup investing. Also, because more female investors will increase the number of female founders and impact investments. For this reason, Svenja launched the Female Investors Network (FIN) at primeCROWD in 2020 and initiated the Mission #25to25 with the goal of 25% women in the startup-scene until 2025. Furthermore, she started to offer the FIN Academy in 2022 to share the basic knowledge for Female Business Angels to be.

After graduating from WU Vienna, Andreas worked for several VC and PE funds in the DACH region and gained experience in all pre-IPO equity investment cycles. He has carried out numerous transactions and was a member of various advisory boards and supervisory boards of his portfolio companies. During his time as an independent M&A/corporate finance consultant, he advised on several buy- and sell-side transactions as well as various investment vehicles in Germany and abroad. Andreas is a member of the board of AVCO, the branch representative of the Austrian venture capital industry, and has a doctorate in Entrepreneurship & Small Business Management with a thesis on the value added of venture capital funds (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Växjö University, Vienna University of Economics and Business). Andreas is a university lecturer for financing topics and has published books and articles on VC and PE topics.

Short Description of yourself: Marketing All Rounder with more than 6 years of Startup and Corporate experience. With my strong technical background and my creativity, I am capable of having the perfect hybrid role in Marketing. Before primeCROWD I founded Creative Eagles, a digital agency based in Vienna, and expanded it to Egypt. Other than that I worked as a Digital Marketing Specialist & Growth Hacker in Eversports and as a Digital Customer Experience and Digital Marketing Consultant at Deloitte. Additionaly I am a certified SCRUM Master, Project Manager, Google Suite Manager, and Salesforce Admin.

B2B & B2C Marketing expert with a proactive and positive mindset. She has more than 6 years experience in different fields of Marketing and gained a lot of experience, especially in Digital Marketing and Social Media. Chiara spent the past two years in Hamburg working for one of our portfolio companies as Marketing Team Lead. Chiara’s academic background lies in Art History, which encourages her to see things through a different perspective.

HR-, Culture- & Eventmanager with over 16 years of experience and passion in various fields. I hold degrees in tourism management, finance, accounting & tax law and pedagogics. Currently, I am starting my training as a NLP & Life Coach to contribute my expertise in communication and behavior to the company and team. Fun fact: I was a ballet dancer for 10 years for the Wiener Staatsoper as well as a vocalist for many years. I love psychology, nature and continuously educating myself in different fields and topics. But mostly support others to become a greater version of themselves.

“Jack of all trades, master of some” Probably describes me the best. Even though I was trained as an engineer, my natural curiosity has led me to experience all kinds of places and disciplines – from engineering to finance to Sinology and startups. I really enjoy nerding out on specific topics, but I could never see myself sticking to only one topic. This also translates to my current position as Investment Manager at Gateway Ventures. Not only am I taking care of the entire deal cycle, but also all of our internal investment processes and the development of our investing platform.

Always up for interesting conversations, open-minded and science driven. Stefano personally loves to have conversation with individuals about their journey, be it how they founded their start-up, or what drives them forward in their everyday life. Being raised in a multilingual environment, with mixed roots from different countries, there are no boundaries. Passionate about technology and science since a very young age, he defines himself as the geeky detail-oriented guy: power to the nerds! Taking on the role of Portfolio Manager at Gateway Ventures allows him to engage with incredible founders on a daily basis and interact with expert investors – value can be created and knowledge can be transferred – the perfect storm!

As the COO, Georg’s responsibility lies in helping the team execute the strategy to make startup investment accessible to everyone. In the Viennese start-up ecosystem, he’s engaging as a mentor at different accelerators, and is sometimes asked to lecture at the Vienna University for Economics and Business. Prior to Gateway Ventures, he was the first employee at leanogy, a start-up tasked with bringing process excellence eLearning online. Other than that, he had a short stint in with Accenture and worked at the institute of entrepreneurship & innovation. In my studies in Austria and the US, I focused on entrepreneurship and innovation, where I also researched the effects startup ecosystems had on 18,000 startups across the US and the DACH region. Privately, he’s been selected by the US Embassy as one of 20 participants for a start-up ecosystem exchange to Austin, Texas.

Currently finishing his studies at the Vienna University of Business and Economics, Simon has a strong international upbringing and is a passionate learner. Considering himself as someone, who enjoys pushing himself, the Start-up environment provides exactly that.