About Us

German Ventures was founded in 2013 by Thomas Bernik, Serial Entrepreneur and Investor, and Jens Klein, experienced Manager and Investor. It focuses on investments into early stage US and German technology start-ups in media, internet, and mobile segments. Both partner have a strong international network, especially in the U.S.

Thomas Bernik

Managing Partner
Thomas is currently the Managing Director of audio media vertrieb, a company he founded 2012 as a subsidiary of his publishing company audio media verlag. He sold the company in 2016 to Lekkerland and the publishing company 2015 to Westermann. Prior, he founded or co-founded several media, technology and internet companies. He started his professional career in Corporate Finance with HypoVereinsbank/UniCredit. Thomas studied Economics at the University of Konstanz and the Claremont McKenna College in California, USA.
Over the last 16 years Thomas founded or co-founded and sold the following companies:
audio media vertrieb GmbH - sold to Lekkerland AG (8/16)
audio media Verlag GmbH - sold to Verlagsgruppe Westermann (12/15)
adOne media GmbH - sold to MuP GmbH (12/14)
cooledeals GmbH - sold to Qype/Yelp (3/11)
inge AG - now part of BASF
GoingPublicMedia AG (Munich) - stocklisted
snapload GmbH

Jens Klein

Managing Partner
Jens currently serves as CEO of an industrial biotechnology company. Before he worked for Evonik Industries AG. In 2011, Evonik acquired nanoresins AG and Hanse Chemie AG. Jens being one of the shareholders served as a member of the Managing Board of both companies since 2006. Prior, he was a member of the Managing Board and shareholder of the holding company Mulligan BioCapital AG where he played a key role in two initial public offerings of portfolio companies at NASDAQ, one initial public offering at Prime Standard in Frankfurt as well as trade sales to strategic investors. Before joining Mulligan, he was with Fresenius AG, Bad Homburg, where he headed subsidiaries as CEO or CFO. Jens is a graduate of the University of Mannheim and has an MBA of the Zicklin School of Business, City University of New York.

Yannik Büche

Investment Analyst
Yannik joined German Ventures as Investment Analyst in 2018. Prior, he worked for Allianz Automotive in Controlling and managed Vendor & Supply Chain topics at Amazon. In addition, he gained experience in Market Analysis at Kinexon, a Munich based IoT start-up. Yannik has graduated at the Technical University in Munich in Management & Technology with a major in VC/PE.