Empowering the pioneers of today to solve the hard problems of tomorrow_
Why do hard problems matter the most?
{Solving problems that matter the most} Hard problems matter the most because they push the boundaries of human knowledge and capability, driving innovation and progress. It’s exactly when we collectively solve these challenges that we can build a better version of the future in which we live and work. This is why we invest into core infrastructure for biotech, robotics, enterprise infrastructure, AI & data, and cybersecurity.
01. Companies
See Our
Companies
Picus Capital is an early-stage technology investment firm with a long-term investment philosophy. We work together with daring technology founders to build successful, global companies.
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- Robotics
- Enterprise Infrastructure
- AI & Data
- Cybersecurity
- Biotechnology
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02. Tech Pioneers
Meet Our Investors
Sebastian joined Picus in 2018 and was promoted to Partner in 2023. His focus lies on our pre-seed investments, where he supports early-stage founders regarding growth and operations-related topics. Prior to Picus, he gathered pratical experience in strategy consulting and private equity.
The best part of thinking about hard problems and the frontier technology needed to solve them is the constant journey of discovery. There’s always something new to learn, a new challenge to tackle. And the most rewarding part? Being able to help the world’s most ambitious teams rise to the occasion, refining their craft, and becoming the next generation of tech pioneers
Sebastian graduated from the London School of Economics with a master’s degree in Economic Sociology.
Orca, Stealth – Cyber
Robin joined Picus as a Founding Partner in 2016 and started growing our team as Managing Director. Prior to that, he worked for McKinsey & Company in Munich where he was in particular involved in marketing & sales, digital customer experience and lean services topics. Before, he gathered practical experience in financial markets & equity sales, asset management and the industrial sector.
Robin graduated from WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management with a master’s degree in Finance and Economics.
Oliver joined Picus in 2017 and is responsible for our pre-seed stage portfolio companies. Prior to that, he worked for McKinsey & Company in Munich where he was in particular involved in marketing & sales, business building for retailers and organizational design. Before, he gathered practical experience in research consulting, portfolio management at an investment holding and in the automotive sector.
Oliver graduated from the University of St. Gallen with a master’s degree in Banking and Finance.
Naman joined Picus in 2023 as Partner and Head of India & South East Asia and covers our investments in India, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. He is based in our Singapore office.
Before joining Picus, Naman was Senior Vice President in Strategy & Operations at India’s largest eSports and mobile gaming platform Mobile Premier League’s (MPL).
Naman was also active as an angel investor and worked as a Consultant at McKinsey & Company.
He holds a graduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.
Julian joined Picus Americas as a Partner in 2020 and manages our Americas operations out of the Picus office in New York. Prior to joining Picus, he worked for Credit Suisse in the Investment Banking and Capital Markets division in New York and London. At Credit Suisse Julian advised Financial Services and FinTech clients on M&A as well as private and public financing transactions. Prior to that, Julian gathered practical experience in Private Capital, Investing and Consulting and obtained an IHK Bankkaufmann degree.
Julian graduated from WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management with a bachelor’s degree in Finance and General Management.
Florian grew Picus together with the team as Partner and as Managing Director since 2017 and was in particular responsible for building out our emerging markets next to our core markets in Europe and North America. Amongst others, his focus lies on sparring and working with founders in the Cybersecurity, Data & AI sector from day 0 and being one of their closest partners up until IPO and beyond. Before getting active in the VC industry, Florian worked for the Boston Consulting Group in Zurich focusing on corporate and innovation strategy, as well as digitalization topics. He further gathered practical experience in investment banking, private banking/wealth management, and the automotive sector.
“I strongly believe that frontier technology will ultimately solve most of the biggest challenges we are facing and hence will be the dominant driver of impact. While having a non-technical background this led me to dig into more complex technical challenges and solve them together with founders. I won’t be the investor advising you on your architecture – I leave that to the rest of our team – but the investor supporting you on all other fronts like company building, strategic sparring, hiring etc.”
At the moment, Florian is working with Picus Capital’s frontier tech investments in Cyble, Hawk:AI, SydeLabs, Sei and multiple stealth cybersecurity and data infrastructure ventures.
Florian graduated with a Master’s degree in Banking and Finance from the University of St.Gallen.
In 2021 Alexander joined Picus in Beijing as partner and head of China to manage all operations in the greater China region. His focus lays on all topics technical from pre-seed to series A. Prior to joining Picus Captial, he was active as a Director at the leading technology company JD.com, and worked at AI-unicorn Mobvoi, McKinsey & Company (Digital affiliation) as well as IBM.
“Having witnessed the unprecedented surge in data generation over the past decade and the growing difficulty in making sense of it all, I am particularly excited about ventures that help enterprises build more robust data infrastructures and empower them to make use of data-driven methods. These solutions must enable enterprise customer to not only to streamline operations but also unlock insights that drive innovation and competitive advantages.”
Currently, Alexander is working with Picus’ frontier tech investments in Edgenisis, Greptime, Maptable, Naturobot, and Tensorchord.
Alexander graduated from the Schwarman Scholars program at Tsinghua University and was named 30 under 30 by Forbes China in the past.
Alex joined Picus in 2022 to strengthen our presence across all tech & deeptech topics with a global and multi-stage focus. He works with founders across enterprise infrastructure, cybersecurity, data & AI, and robotics. Prior to joining Picus, Alex worked at robotic & tech ventures like RobCo & MonitorFish supporting on both hardware and software product development. He is also a tinkerer at heart – and amongst many personal projects – also prototyped and explored the use of bio-inspired robots at the Chair of Robotics, AI & Real-Time Systems at TU Munich.
“The best part of thinking about hard problems and the frontier technology needed to solve them is the constant journey of discovery. There’s always something new to learn, a new challenge to tackle. And the most rewarding part? Being able to help the world’s most ambitious teams rise to the occasion, refining their craft, and becoming the next generation of tech pioneers.”
Currently, Alex is working with Picus’ frontier tech investments in Orca, Reflex, Coboworx, Formant, and several stealth cybersecurity & infrastructure teams Alex graduated from TUM with a Master’s in Robotics & Computer Science.
He also attended the CDTM and holds a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from KIT.
Abhijay joined Picus in 2021 to build out our presence in the India and SEA region, with a multi- sector and multi-stage focus. He predominantly works with founders across enterprise infrastructure, cybersecurity, devtooling, and enterprise software industries from pre-seed to series A. Prior to joining Picus, Abhijay advised late stage companies during his stint with Citi’s investment banking team covering emerging technology, financial services, industrial, and infrastructure. Moreover, he was active with BOB Capital’s equity research team covering financial services.
“What excites me the most about frontier tech investing are the shifting sands of the problem statement itself, with founders identifying unimaginable solutions to problems which would have themselves been unimaginable decades or even mere years ago. I love to engage with such entrepreneurs who are at the cutting edge of innovation, right from day -1, even before the formal inception of a company, to identify daring problem statements and co-create category redefining businesses on a decadal timeframe.”
Currently, Abhijay is working with Picus’ frontier tech investments in SydeLabs, Stealth – mobile infrastructure, and others.
Abhijay graduated from NMIMS with a Bachelors degree in economics, followed by an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA).
02. Tech Pioneers
Meet Our Experts
Alex Smola, CEO and co-founder of Boson AI, earned his physics degree from the University of Technology in Munich and his PhD from the University of Technology in Berlin. He held positions at various institutions including AT&T Research, the Institute of Software Engineering and Computer Architecture in Berlin, Australian National University, NICTA, Yahoo Research, Google Strategic Technologies, Marianas Labs, UC Berkeley, Stanford, and Carnegie Mellon University.
Additionally, he spent 7 years at Amazon Web Services as VP and Distinguished Scientist before founding Boson AI. He has published over 250 papers and authored multiple books.
In his role as Chief Security Officer Central Europe at Palo Alto Networks, Sergej develops the regional cybersecurity strategy and is overseeing cybersecurity operations and threat intelligence across the region. Prior to this, he worked at Deutsche Bank for over nine years, where he built and led international cyber defense & investigations teams focusing on cybercrime, malware, supply chain, data loss, insider threat, and fraud.
Sergej studied at the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, where he is now an executive lecturer for cybersecurity.
Uwe has 34 years of experience in the automotive and
technology sector, including 15 years in various executive
positions (Division-CEO, -/CFO, -/CSO)
Uwe focuses on alternative drives, mobility and sustainability
concepts, as well as the digitization of industrial and
commercial processes, and the aftermarket.
He has many years of experience in sales, marketing,
portfolio-management, controlling and finance, procurement,
logistics, IT, compliance, and performance-management.
As the co-founder and CTO of construction tech start-up Alasco and e-commerce company Stylight, Sebastian has a proven track record in building tech ventures. He is an expert when it comes to software product development and tech engineering. In addition to his position at Alasco, Sebastian is chairman at deep-learning startup Luminovo and a former board member at HR-tech start-up Personio.
Sebastian graduated from Stanford University with a Master of Science in Computer Science, with a Diploma in Electrical Engineering from the Technical University of Munich, and with an Honours Degree in Technology Management from the CDTM.
As the CTO of mobility start-up FINN, Andreas is an expert when it comes to building massive tech ventures in a mission-based manner. With his e-commerce experience from Westwing, he brings significant experience in software product development and engineering for Web and Native.
Andreas graduated from KIT with a Master of Science in Computer Science and has a strong background in Physics and Distributed Data Structures from IBM R&D.
As the CEO and cofounder of Prometa.AI, Gorkem helps companies in leveraging analytics capabilities for realizing impactful, sustainable business model transformations. Prometa solutions include hyperpersonalized marketing, optimizing marketing spend effectiveness, improving transactional fraud management, and use of virtual agents in Human resources management. Prior to Prometa, Gorkem was the Group CTO at ING, and the first Chief Analytics Officer of ING between 2017 and 2020. Gorkem also acted as the member of European Commissions advisory committee for EU AI Act, representing the banking sector. Prior to ING, Gorkem worked for 12 years at McKinsey, leading large digital transformations across Europe and the Middle East
Gorkem has a degree in Computer Engineering from Bogazici University, and in Management from TSM Business School in University of Twente.
Ron has in-depth experience at high-growth tech companies in SaaS, social networking, ecommerce, and fintech. He led pre-IPO engineering teams at Twitter, Salesforce, Carta, and BigCommerce. Most recently he was SVP of Engineering at Trustly.
Ron has a Master of Science from the University of Texas at Arlington, a Bachelor of Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is also an advisor and investor in early-stage startups.
A global tech executive whose career spans advisory work for HSBC, Tesla and News Corp, Jean-Marie is a former founder, who sold his business in 2010 before taking on various roles as CTO and Managing Director of various entities such as Facebook/Meta.
Today, Jean-Marie is a VP of engineering at Trainline, and helps Picus on areas such as cloud infrastructure, devOps, and data products.
Dr. Ignacio Pérez Hallerbach is the Global Head of Partners & Platform at NavVis, where he is globally responsible for strategic partnerships and the partner and platform ecosystem. Ignacio is also a Digital Strategy Advisor for Ashoka, working on the concept of the “Impact Brain”, and a Cambridge Digital Innovation Fellow, focusing on Digital Twins & AI. Previously, he worked at McKinsey & Company where he led digital transformation projects for large global corporations and strategy studies in the high-tech sector.
Ignacio holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge, and Masters degrees from the University of Cambridge, the University of Warwick and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany.
Olaf has more than 25 years of C-level experience in the Automation Industry (industrial robots, CNC controls, production machinery), including FANUC (Japan & Europe) and MIDEA / KUKA (China) where he was responsible for driving industrial, logistics, mobile and collaborative robotics business by organic growth, strategic alliances, and M&A.
In 2019, Olaf co-founded Coboworx, set out to disrupt the market by providing affordable “Do-It-Yourself” robot technology for every SME fuelled by a unique digital and E2E customer experience.
Damian undertook medical training at Cambridge & Oxford, specialising in neurology. He combined clinical work with academic leadership of a dementia-focused research group at Cambridge. With increasing focus on therapeutic application, he joined AstraZeneca Neuroscience and worked for six years developing small molecule, biologic and new modality therapies for dementias. Having caught the entrepreneurial bug at AZ, he has worked as Entrepreneur in Residence at Oxford Science Enterprises, Cambridge Innovation Capital & the Dementia Discovery Fund. Damian’s scientific passion is to understand and then exploit for therapeutic benefit, the science of protein aggregation as it pertains to inflammation and neurodegeneration. Whether it be working for big biopharma or helping to launch ambitious new life-science and biotech start-ups, the goals are always the same: benefits for patients and returns for founders and investors.
03. Stories
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