Allianz Venture Partners targets early-stage opportunities

Allianz AG has expanded its commitment in the area of private equity with the foundation of Allianz Venture Partners (AVP), which will specializes in direct venture capital investments. Over the coming three to five years EUR 300m has been earmarked for investments worldwide, both to support business ideas developed in-house at Allianz as well as in external projects. It is the third private equity company within Allianz and complements Allianz Capital Partners, which is led by Thomas Pütter and is primarily active in buyouts as well as growth and mezzanine financing, and Allianz Private Equity Partners, which operates as a fund-of-funds.

Investors

Funds will be sourced entirely from the Allianz balance sheet; no external commitments are being sought at this stage.

Investments

AVP will focus its venture capital investments on new business ideas in the financial services sector as well as on technologies relevant to financial service providers. The companies targeted for investment must be in strong growth phases of their development. AVP aims to be the ‘partner of choice’ for innovative, young companies offering solutions within the financial services industry. The first AVP investments have been completed with Berlin-based alfabet meta-modeling AG and Swissrisk AG from Zurich. Swissrisk writes complex software to provide support for financial advisors in the private client area. This software is based on risk analyses and is geared toward optimizing asset and portfolio management. alfabet is a provider of company-wide software solutions dedicated to strategic IT management. It aims to bring transparency to the complex, dynamic information structures of financial service providers.

People

Former Deutsche Bank executive Andreas Ritter is managing director of Allianz Venture Partners. Ritter is supported in the unit’s executive management by Marc Zügel, former head of German operations at Softbank Europe Ventures.

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Send to  

• Topics
• GPs
• DACH