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RainerMärkle

General Partner

Venture | Fundraising | Munich

15+

Years with HV

9

Fund generations shaped at HV

3

Generational tech shifts — internet, mobile, AI

Daybreak TV with Tom Mckenzie

Bloomberg

14 May 2025Watch more

HV Raises Record Fund

4 May 2023Read more

Gothaer Invests €20 Million in HV

20 Oct 2023Read more

I'm excited by companies building global leaders from Europe

I've now been at this for almost two decades, and the pattern I keep coming back to is deceptively simple: the best European companies are built by founders who take a genuine structural advantage and scale it before the rest of the world notices. Zalando did it with European fashion supply chains. HelloFresh did it with fresh food logistics. Scalable did it with regulated fintech infrastructure. Today, I see that same pattern in energy, in mobility, in deep tech. Europe has the engineering talent, the regulatory sophistication, and increasingly the capital to produce global winners. The founders I want to back are the ones who see that clearly and are already building toward it.

"Building a company is an endurance game. You know setbacks will come, you just never know when. Ultra running taught me that giving up is never the answer. There is always a finish line. You commit, adapt, and pull through. That's what the founders we back do. And that's what I do alongside them." 

I lookout for founders shaping our future

The most compelling founders aren’t reacting to trends, they’re shaping them. They have a clear, specific view of how the world will change over the next five to ten years, and they’re already operating as if that future is inevitable. Conviction, before validation, is often the earliest signal.

The opportunities that excite me most

Market size is a prerequisite, but transformation is what creates opportunity. I look for sectors where structural shifts, technological, regulatory, or behavioral, open a window for new category leaders to emerge. The best companies are built when that window is just starting to open, not after it’s widely recognized.

Teams that are built to last

Enduring companies are built by teams that stay the course. You can often see that early, in how founders think, how they make decisions, and how they respond to pressure. The strongest teams combine ambition with resilience, and continue to push forward long after the initial excitement fades.

Rainer is one of HV's longest-serving team members, backing founders from first check to IPO across consumer, fintech, climate, mobility, and an expanding frontier tech portfolio. An engineer by training and an endurance athlete by discipline, he worked on four continents before joining HV in 2008, bringing analytical precision from Siemens and commercial instinct sharpened at 3i and INSEAD. 

Three weeks into the job, HV invested in Zalando. It was an early signal of a career defined by conviction at formative moments, but far from the only one. HV was the first institutional investor in HelloFresh, staying with the company through the long arc from ambition to scale. HV has backed Scalable Capital, FINN, and Quandoo from early stages into category-defining positions, and more recently widened his focus to include European frontier tech in deep tech, robotics, and advanced manufacturing.

Beyond individual investments, Rainer has helped shape HV into one of Europe's enduring venture platforms and driving the firm's generational transition. His focus has been consistent: build through cycles, stay grounded in fundamentals, and ensure HV is designed to outlast any single market environment. An Ironman World Championships finisher in Hawaii, he brings that same endurance to everything he does.

Companies Backed11

Current portfolio

  • ai-enterprise-softwaregrowth

    Founders: Anselm Bauer Benjamin Günther Sebastian Schuon

    Founded: 2018

    HV Entry: 2018

    Funding: Fund VII

    HQ: Munich, Germany

    Investors:
    Rainer Märkle
  • consumergrowth

    Founders: Max-Josef Meier Nikolai Schröder Andreas Wixler Max Beyer Hans-Peter Ringer Max-Josef Meier

    Founded: 2019

    HV Entry: 2019

    Funding: Fund VII

    HQ: Munich, Germany

    Investors:
    Rainer Märkle
  • consumergrowth

    Founders: Julia Bösch Anna Alex

    Founded: 2012

    HV Entry: 2012

    Funding: Fund V, Fund Coco

    HQ: Berlin, Germany

    Investors:
    Rainer Märkle

    Website: http://www.outfittery.de/

  • fintechconsumergrowth

    Founders: Erik Podzuweit Florian Prucker Patrick Pöschl Prof. Dr. Stefan Mittnik Adam French

    Founded: 2014

    HV Entry: 2015

    Funding: Fund VI, Fund IX Growth

    HQ: Munich, Germany

    Investors:
    Rainer Märkle
    Christian Saller
    Read the full story
  • consumerearly

    Founders: Harrison Fugman Alexander Kost Tim Marbach

    Founded: 2018

    HV Entry: 2018

    Funding: Fund VII

    HQ: San Francisco, United States of America

    Investors:
    Rainer Märkle

    Website: https://www.thenakedmarket.com/

Enduring portfolio

  • consumergrowth

    Founders: Alexander Ljung Eric Quidenus-Wahlforss Christian Springub

    Founded: 2020

    HV Entry: 2020

    Funding: Fund VIII

    HQ: Berlin, Germany

    Investors:
    Rainer Märkle

    Website: https://www.dance.co/

  • consumeripo

    Founders: Dominik Richter Thomas Griesel Jessica Nilsson

    Founded: 2011

    HV Entry: 2011

    Funding: Fund IV

    HQ: Berlin, Germany

    Investors:
    Rainer Märkle
  • consumeracquired

    Founders: Dr. Philipp Kreibohm Felix Jahn

    Founded: 2009

    HV Entry: 2009

    Funding: Fund III

    HQ: Berlin, Germany

    Investors:
    Rainer Märkle

    Website: https://www.home24.de/

  • consumermarketplaceacquired

    Founders: Philipp Magin Daniel Glasner Ronny Lange Tim-Hendrik Meyer Sebastian Moser

    Founded: 2013

    HV Entry: 2013

    Funding: Fund V

    HQ: Berlin, Germany

    Investors:
    Rainer Märkle

    Website: https://www.quandoo.com/

  • consumeracquired

    Founders: Anselm Bauer Benjamin Günther Max-Josef Meier Sebastian Schuon

    Founded: 2008

    HV Entry: 2008

    Funding: Fund III

    HQ: Munich, Germany

    Investors:
    Rainer Märkle

    Website: https://www.stylight.de/

  • consumeripo

    Founders: David Schneider Robert Gentz

    Founded: 2008

    HV Entry: 2008

    Funding: Fund II

    HQ: Berlin, Germany

    Investors:
    Rainer Märkle
    Read the full story
See all portfolio