Carsten Maschmeyer

Carsten Jens Maschmeyer (born 8 May 1959) is a German billionaire businessman, investor, and panel member of the German investment television series Die Höhle der Löwen ("The Lions' Den").

He is the founder and owner of the Maschmeyer Group which combines all of his current business activities.

Through ALSTIN (Alternative Strategic Investments) he invests growth capital in emerging industries and future markets with outstanding innovations in sectors like the Internet, technology, and life sciences.

Through Paladin Asset Management, his team undertakes value investments in publicly listed companies.

Through Seed & Speed, Maschmeyer provides seed investments to very early-stage companies.

Born in Bremen, Germany, Maschmeyer grew up in Hildesheim (Lower Saxony) and had a deprived childhood.

He never saw his father and lived in an orphanage.

He has one half-brother, whom he first met at the age of 40.

As a teenager, he was a successful athlete (middle-distance-runner).

In 1978, he completed his Abitur (higher-education entrance qualification) and joined the German Armed Forces for two years.

To fund his university courses in medicine in Hanover, he worked part time in the sales department of a financial advisory firm (OVB Vermögensberatung) before becoming a full-time financial consultant in 1982, leaving the university without a degree.

He became director of the Lower Saxony division at a very young age, responsible for approximately 3,000 people.

He worked at OVB until 1987.

Carsten Maschmeyer is a reserve officer of the Joint Medical Service of the Bundeswehr.

In 1988, Carsten Maschmeyer established an independent financial advisory for individuals by founding the AWD (Allgemeiner Wirtschaftsdienst) financial group.

His company grew rapidly and became Europe's largest independent financial advisory.

It went public in 2000, rising in the M-DAX (member of the 100 listed companies) as well as expanding into 11 countries employing approximately 11,000 people.

It managed €15 billion (US$22 billion) for 2 million customers in 2007.

In 2007, Swiss Life, the largest Swiss Life Insurance provider, bought all shares in the company for CHF 1,9 billion (approx. US$2.1 billion).

Maschmeyer presently maintains significant holdings in a variety of companies.

In a recent study about the fastest growing startups in Germany, his private equity fund is the only one invested in two companies that were ranked in the top 10.

Maschmeyer is number 112 in the list of the 500 richest Germans.

His assets are estimated at €1.2 billion (approx. US$1.3 billion).

HMNC Brain Health (HMNC) specializes in developing diagnoses of and therapies for depression and anxiety disorders.

Together with partners from academia, the company uses prominent research results to generate groundbreaking and marketable concepts.

The company was founded by Professor Florian Holsboer and Maschmeyer in December 2010 and is based in Munich, Bavaria.

Both founders want to improve the treatment of depression and anxiety disorders.

Syntellix AG is a medical technology company based in Hanover.

The company specializes in the research, development and marketing of bio-absorbable metal implants, i.e. second surgery to remove implants would no longer be required.

The devices have all the properties and stability of metal, however, they are fully absorbed by the body and replaced by the body's own bone tissue.

The company is currently active in 16 countries worldwide and has approval for the whole European Union and Singapore.

Patients have already been fitted with Syntellix devices in more than 3,500 operations, and it was awarded with the German Award for innovation (Deutscher Innovationspreis).

Maschmeyer also founded papagei.com, a video language learning platform.

Orderbird is the provider of a cash register system used by restaurants.

The system is based on iPad technology and used by more than 5,000 eateries in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

Orderbird received accolades from the Financial Times in 2012.

Maschmeyer first invested in Blacklane, a worldwide booking platform for chauffeur-driven limousines with taxi-like pricing, in January 2013.

In the 4th quarter of 2014 Concardis (MasterCard) joined as new strategic investor.

Blacklane was recognized as Germany's fastest growing tech startup in March 2015.

Maschmeyer's investment company, ALSTIN, invested in Blacklane again in August 2016, in Blacklane's biggest funding round to date, along with previous investors Daimler, RI Digital Ventures and b-to-v.