Commerzbank founds CommerzVentures as corporate venture capital entity with focus on FinTech

With the foundation of CommerzVentures GmbH, Commerzbank has established a corporate venture capital entity with focus on financial services. In future the wholly-owned subsidiary of Commerzbank will be investing in young companies which specialise in innovative products, services, and technologies in the field of financial services (FinTech). The regional investment focus of CommerzVentures is on Europe, whereby trends on the global level are considered. The fund, which is domiciled in Frankfurt/Main, commenced its business operations on 1 October 2014.

Commerzbank is improving its access to innovations and trends in the financial sector with the foundation of CommerzVentures. In future, CommerzVentures will invest in young companies which are mainly in the market maturity phase. The future portfolio companies are to be accompanied with follow-on financing also in the further growth phase.

Thus the business model of CommerzVentures differs from the business model of Commerzbank’s subsidiary main incubator GmbH, which was founded in March 2014. The latter conducts strategic investments in start-ups in the seed stage, which is the phase between the foundation and the market launch of products, with a strategic link to Commerbank’s business with corporate customers.

The managing directors of CommerzVentures are the venture capital managers Patrick Meisberger and Stefan Tirtey. As the managing director of T-Venture Holding GmbH, Meisberger (43) was previously responsible for the entire T-Venture portfolio. Further career milestones were Allianz Venture Partners GmbH, Deutsche Bank, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Tirtey (45) comes from the international venture capital entity Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures, where he last held the post of principal responsible for investments in internet and mobile start-ups.