Cusp Capital announces €300m debut fund

The team is headed by four general partners; Christian Winter, Jan Sessenhausen, Helmut Klawitter and Wilken Engelbracht previously held roles as partners or managing directors at investment holding company Tengelmann Group in its Tengelmann Ventures division. However, the new firm and its fund operate separately from Tengelmann.

The VC is headquartered in Essen and has an additional office in Berlin. The Cusp team has previously invested in European startups including Klarna, Zalando and Delivery Hero.

Investors
Cusp said in a statement that the fund's LP base includes the European Investment Fund, KfW Capital, RAG Stiftung and NRW Bank. The fund is also backed by a number of family offices and entrepreneurs.

Investments
The fund intends to invest in young technology companies developing software with the potential to lead in global markets, the firm said in a statement. Cusp has developed investment hypotheses to identify the kinds of companies in which it intends to invest, focusing on topics including sustainability and broadening digital offerings to lower-income customers.

The vehicle intends to make five or six investments this year and 25-30 investments in total. The fund will write equity tickets of less than €10m per investment.

Update (22/04/21): the headline of this article was amended to reflect the fact that the fund has not yet held a final close.

People
Cusp Capital – Christian Winter, Jan Sessenhausen, Helmut Klawitter, Wilken Engelbracht (general partners).

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