Work
VC
I’m a partner at b2venture (fka btov Partners), a European venture capital firm based in St.Gallen, Switzerland and Berlin, Germany. My investment focus is digital technology, particularly SaaS, AI, devops, and cloud software infrastructure.
Most recent investments and board memberships:
Ledgy, Neptune.ai, Chattermill, Decentriq, Demoboost, Kubermatic, LatticeFlow, TextCortex
CTO
From 2010-2018 I was the Chief Technology and Strategy Officer of Pixability, Inc., a video advertising and marketing software company that helps brands and agencies leverage the power of big video platforms (YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, OTT) with big data analytics and AI. I was responsible for product, technology strategy and data science.
I was also the Chief Technology Officer (and co-founder) of Buzzient, Inc., a software company based in Cambridge, MA. Buzzient provided enterprise-class social media analytics and CRM integration.
I received four U.S. patents in my CTO roles, with three more pending.
CEO/Co-Founder
I was co-founder of e-business consultancy Namics AG (formerly delta Consulting Group AG, now Merkle). Namics had 600+ employees before it was acquired by Merkle and worked for major customers such as Nestlé, Microsoft, European Central Bank, and Mercedes Benz.
From 2002 to 2004 I was the CEO of Namics AG. Before that, I was Head of Consulting and CTO. Between 2004 and 2008, I was a member of the board of directors. Namics was acquired by PubliGroupe in 2000, bought back by its management team in 2012 and acquired again by Merkle (part of Dentsu Aegis) in 2018.
Angel Investor
I’ve invested in promising startups as an angel investor since 2000. Some highlights:
- I was the first angel investor and board member in speech technology company SVOX, which sold in 2011 to Nuance Communications for $125M. SVOX is the speech technology in Android and most luxury cars.
- I was also an investor and board member of Blogwerk AG, a Web 2.0 startup focusing on blog content for the German-speaking region of Europe. It was acquired by WEKA Media in 2012.
- My most recent investment is WePlayed, a Boston-based startup in the sports video space.
Researcher
From 1993-1996 I was a research assistant at the Institute for Information Management at the University of St.Gallen, Switzerland (HSG). Research projects in the fields of electronic markets, e-banking, groupware, and e-learning.
After my time at MIT I also co-wrote an article about Internet business models with MIT professor Michael Cusumano. It appeared in the Oxford Handbook of Internet Studies.
Corporate Innovator
From Fall 2004 to November 2005, I was the founding CEO for the creation of new business unit Publiconnect at Swiss media company PubliGroupe. Publiconnect provided a technology platform for cross-media classified advertising.