PAWAO recently attended the EMOTION x OMR 5050 Gründer:innen Networking Dinner. This dinner forms part of the founders pitch organized by the EMOTION Verlag and OMR 5050 planned for the OMR festival. The competition focuses on impact startups with female founders or diverse founding teams.

The evening began with an inspiring introduction by Julia Möhn, Isabelle Gardt and Kira Schubert about why it is so important to obtain more gender equality in the start-up and venture capital ecosystem. Afterwords, each startup had a few minutes to present their business idea to the audience.

We then had the opportunity to network and connect with one another over dinner and drinks. The PAWAO team was able to meet with a number of promising startups and discuss potential investment opportunities. We met truly inspiring founders that want to create a positive impact with their businesses.

At PAWAO we are convinced that diverse founder teams are important for the success of a start-up. Different perspectives on a challenge usually lead to more holistic solutions. Events like the OMR 5050 Gründer:innen Pitch are an important step towards a more diverse venture capital ecosystem.

The PAWAO team recently attended the START Summit, a leading startup conference held annually in Switzerland. The event brings together entrepreneurs, investors, and thought leaders from around the world to discuss the latest trends and opportunities in the startup ecosystem.

We attended a variety of panel discussions and keynote speeches, learning from some of the brightest minds in the industry. One of our key takeaways was how AI will change VC by providing data-driven insights for investment decisions, automating due diligence and improving portfolio management.

Of course, we have also taken the chance to get to know inspiring founders and some fellow investors and reconnected with familiar faces. All in all, the START Summit was exceptionally well-organized and truly enjoyed our time in St. Gallen.

Attending events like the START Summit and connecting within the start-up and venture capital ecosystem is an important part of our investment philosophy, as it allows us to stay at the forefront of industry trends and innovations. We are looking forward to meeting again in 2024!

PAWAO has recently advised Bayard Consulting, a leading provider of product content services, on the sell-side of a major transaction. In January 2023 Markant, the largest service provider for suppliers, retailers and wholesalers in Europe, has acquired a majority stake in Bayard Consulting.

Markant already supports 15,000 suppliers and more than 200 retailers with product information management services. The combination of this network with BAYARD’s specialists and the use of the technical assets of its BYRD platform, will take Markant’s product content services to a new level.

PAWAO regularly provides consulting services for mergers and acquisitions, both on the sell- and buy-side. Our experienced team accompanies our clients through the whole transaction process. We are proud to have been part of this transaction!

We proudly announce PAWAO’s investment in Kickbite, a B2B SaaS solution that enables more intelligent marketing spend. Kickbite is the latest of our portfolio companies in the field of RetailTech disrupting marketing processes in digital commerce.

The Kickbite team has recognized that marketing teams oftentimes chase after the “wrong goals” (optimizing sales only), but neglect return rates, discounts, handling, shipping costs, COGS, stock reach, etc. Thus, they have developed a solution to optimize MROI through a more holistic approach.

The Kickbite SaaS allows for profit-based marketing by matching marketing with financial and operations data to build “ROCE-marketing”. It also includes tracking of the whole customer journey and a respective attribution model based on these touchpoints.

The Berlin-based company has been founded by Juan Garzon (co-founder and CEO) and Vince Wagenknecht (co-founder and CCO) in 2020. Its typical target clients are SMEs in various industries, including some well-known brands like Ankerkraut and Joolz.

PAWAO invests into Zezam

We recognize the value that Zezam’s platform brings to the creator community and see potential for significant growth in this space. By providing an easy-to-use platform, Zezam empowers creators to focus on their content creation while optimizing the monetization of their audience.

Zezam is easy and quick to use as the page is created automatically according to creators’ social media accounts (e.g., most liked pictures as background, automatically integrating information) and provides detailed analytics. Some of Zezam’s well-known clients are Carmushka and Christian Lindner.

The Berlin-based company has been founded by Niklas Schwake and Jürgen Burkhart, with previous experience at Global Savings GmbH (Rocket Internet Venture), Hello Fresh and Earlybird Venture Capital. We are looking forward to see the Zezam platform developing.