Dr. Fabian HeilemannFounder

Germany - Berlin Metropolitan Area

Summary: I'm an entrepreneur at heart, experienced VC investor and committed impact activist. My vision is to establish #ImpactCapitalism as the sustainable operating system for our society. My mission with AENU is to build a leading impact tech evergreen fund that forges long-term relationships with entrepreneurs, while driving systemic change in the VC ecosystem towards impact, accessibility and stakeholder alignment.

Long Version

I am Founder & CEO of evergreen impact fund AENU. We invest multi-stage in climate-tech and social impact companies in the EU & US with initial check sizes from €0.5 - 5 mn. Our portfolio includes e.g. Heirloom (carbon capture), Labster (VR-education), Monta (EV-charging), Next Gen Foods (alternative proteins) and XFuel (bio-fuels), with co-investors including Breakthrough Energy, Lowercarbon Capital, Temasek, Andreessen Horowitz, Northzone and Union Square Ventures.

My previous investment track record includes >60 early stage investments since 2012 in Enterprise and Consumer. During my time as General Partner at Earlybird (2016-2022), we scaled assets under management from €600 mn. to >€2 bn and took the portfolio from one to seven unicorns. Investments include category leaders like N26, UiPath, Aiven, Smava, Sennder, Hive, Inkitt, Isar Aerospace, OneFootball or Peak Games.

Being an entrepreneur at heart, I started my first business with my brother Ferry first as a teenager in 2000 and co-founded five more companies since, including the B2C couponing-platform DailyDeal (sold to Google Inc. in 2011 at >$100 mn, funded by Insight) and in 2016 the B2B logistics-tech company Forto (valued $2 bn, funded by Softbank).

Ferry and I started to address the climate crisis and social justice from 2016, realising we wanted to use our assets/skills to make a contribution towards addressing some of the major challenges humanity faces in the 21st century. In 2019 we co-founded non-profit LFCA (Leaders for Climate Action), which evolved into the largest entrepreneurial community combating climate change in the EU with 1,300 company pledges. I am also a pledger and ambassador at Founder's Pledge, which enables accomplished entrepreneurs to effectively donate financially to high-impact charities.

I have an academic background in law (LL.B. from Bucerius Law School, Dr. iur. in Corporate Law from Heidelberg Law School). My time as a visiting student in Silicon Valley (Santa Clara and Stanford) triggered my excitement for the tech industry.