Wanted: Investors for KfW Capital Awards for “Best Female Investor” and “Best Impact Investor”

• Deadline for applications begins 2 April 2024

• Prizes will be awarded to personalities in the categories “Best Female Investor” and “Best Impact Investor”

• New: Special prize for “Best Emerging Manager”

• Awards ceremony to be held in Berlin on 7 November 2024

The KfW Capital Awards will be presented for the third time this year. Investors will be able to apply in the categories of “Best Female Investor” and “Best Impact Investor” from 2 April to 1 July 2024. The KfW Capital Award for “Best Female Investor” recognises female venture capital (VC) investors who invest successfully in start-ups and innovative tech companies in Germany. The “Best Impact Investor” award focuses on investors and/or their VC funds who have defined impact as an integral part of their investment strategy and invest in start-ups and innovative tech companies in Germany.

For the first time this year, KfW Capital will also be awarding a special prize in the category of “Best Emerging Manager”. No separate application is required. The jury members will select the winner (an individual or VC fund) from all applications received for the regular categories of “Best Female Investor” and “Best Impact Investor”. The prize money in each of the three categories is EUR 5,000.

The KfW Capital Awards will complement the KfW Entrepreneurs’ Award for business founders by again adding the investor perspective, as they did in the past years. The awards will be presented at an awards ceremony in Berlin on 7 November 2024. The TV channel n-tv will broadcast a special report on the prizewinners.

“Things are moving – slowly. In 2023, the share of capital invested by venture companies headed by women nearly doubled around the world. But that was only three per cent of the total capital invested. This is reason enough for us to draw attention to the topic of women and diversity with the KfW Capital Award of ‘Best Female Investor’ in the third year as well”,

said Dr Jörg Goschin, Senior Managing Director at KfW Capital.

“We see progress in the field of impact investing as well, although the need for ‘big’ solutions remains high. This is another issue we want to raise awareness about once again – with the category of ‘Best Impact Investor’. We will also be awarding the special prize for ‘Best Emerging Manager’ for the first time to shine a spotlight on emerging VC funds and fund managers, who are so important for expanding the VC ecosystem”,

said Alexander Thees, the second Senior Managing Director at KfW Capital.

For each category there will be a five-member jury to choose the winners from among the applications submitted. For the special prize, the members of the juries will select the “Best Emerging Manager” from all entries received.

The members of the jury for the KfW Capital Award “Best Female Investor” will be Alex von Frankenberg (Managing Director of High-Tech Gründerfonds), Ulrike Hinrichs (Managing Director of the German Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVK), Prof Heike Hölzner (Professor for Entrepreneurship and SME Management at the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin and Co-Chair of encourageventures e.V.) and Dr Eva Wimmer (Head of the Directorate-General for Financial Market Policy at the Federal Ministry of Finance). The jurors for the KfW Capital Award for “Best Impact Investor” will be Dr Sabine Hepperle (Head of the SME Policy Department at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action), Verena Kempe (Head of Investment Management at KENFO – German Nuclear Waste Management Fund), Felix Oldenburg (CEO of project bcause and Board Spokesman of gut.org gAG) and Dr Andreas Rickert (Chief Executive Officer of PHINEO, Co-CEO of Nixdorf Kapital and Chairman of the Federal Initiative on Impact Investing). For KfW Capital, each of the two Managing Directors will be on one jury, with Dr Jörg Goschin for the category of “Best Female Investor” and Alexander Thees for “Best Impact Investor”. Theresa Bardubitzki, KfW Capital’s Sustainability Manager, will round off KfW Capital’s presence on the two juries.

Note for applicants:

Investors will find the online application form and details about the application process at KfW-Capital-Award-2024. There you can also view past awards. You can also nominate investors for the award. In that case, proposers send an email about their proposed nominee to info-kfw-capital@kfw.de.

About KfW Capital

As a wholly-owned venture capital subsidiary of KfW Group, KfW Capital invests in European venture capital funds with support from the ERP Special Fund and the Future Fund. The aim of KfW Capital is to sustainably bolster the VC fund landscape so as to give innovative technology companies in Germany better access to growth capital. The VC funds for their part commit to investing at least the amount of capital brought in by KfW Capital into German high-growth enterprises. In addition to sector agnostic programmes, KfW Capital also invests via two facilities with a specific focus: in climate funds through the Climate Transition Facility and in young, diverse teams through the Emerging Manager Facility. KfW Capital applies the Sustainability Policy and Exclusion List of KfW Capital in its investments. Further information on KfW Capital, the programmes and KfW Capital’s VC fund portfolio is available at www.kfw-capital.de.