Frank Motte as speaker for start-up finan­cing as guest at the HfG

Frank Motte Vortrag Start Up Finanzierung
Frank Motte, Geschäfts­führer bei INVES­TORIA GmbH und Vorstand der Motte Consult AG (Photograph by Frank Motte)

In a presen­ta­tion on Start-up Finan­cing“ on May 11, Frank Motte reported on his more than 20 years of expe­ri­ence as an investor. The Grün­dungs­of­fen­sive goHfG had invited the expe­ri­enced investor to give students inte­rested in foun­ding a look behind the scenes of start-up financing.

How can expe­ri­enced entre­pre­neur inves­tors support and finance start-ups in their foun­ding and later growth? How do you distin­guish busi­ness angels from busi­ness devils?

Based on his expe­ri­ence from scree­ning more than 5,000 busi­ness ideas, he showed parti­ci­pants how busi­ness angels analyze startups and how to get in touch with them. During the subse­quent discus­sion, the students and guests were able to ask ques­tions about the topic of finan­cing start-ups and foun­ding projects.

Rock­stars & Angels

What does a start-up need? Frank Motte iden­ti­fies three factors that make up a poten­ti­ally successful start-up: 

  • A solid busi­ness model
  • A rock star team
  • A suitable financing

In an envi­ron­ment where, accor­ding to Mr. Motte, about 70% of univer­sity start-ups fail and 50% of start-ups go bust in the first 5 years,“ he believes the team is central to the company’s success. The refe­rence unders­cores this with his obser­va­tion, Over 60% of startups fail because of team breakdown!“


The long-time compa­nion of count­less start-ups, some of which have already been featured in the successful TV format Die Höhle der Löwen“, also explored the ques­tion of what busi­ness angels actually are and what they do for start-ups.

Inves­tors play an important role for start-ups in three areas: they bring capital, know-how, and their respec­tive networks to the start-up. This is exactly why it is wort­hwhile for start-up teams to take a close look at poten­tial inves­tors to see how their respec­tive networks can be of benefit to their own company.

A busi­ness angel, as Frank Motte explained, is a private investor or a private invest­ment company that takes a finan­cial stake in the company and supports the foun­ders without any further benefit of their own.
If you’re not on fire for your idea, you should leave it be.“
Frank Motte
Business Angel

About Frank Motte

Frank Motte is a long-time expe­ri­enced investor, busi­ness angel, and curr­ently mana­ging director of INVES­TORIA GmbH and board member of Motte Consult AG. His profes­sional expe­ri­ence includes working as a banker for a major American bank, a partner in a manage­ment consul­tancy, partner in a large German invest­ment company as well as mana­ging director in indus­trial compa­nies. Most recently, he was a substi­tute professor for company forma­tion and HR at Aalen Univer­sity for five years. Since 1999, he has been active as a busi­ness angel in young and medium-sized compa­nies and was elected to the Heaven of Fame“ of German busi­ness angels in 2010.

Today, his focus is on invest­ments as a co-entre­pre­neur in tech­no­logy compa­nies and guiding several compa­nies as an advi­sory board, such as SDZ-Verlag in Aalen. He is also a partner of Matu­schek Design & Manage­ment, a leading indus­trial design company in Ostwürt­tem­berg. In addi­tion, he is on the board of Busi­ness Angel Region Stutt­gart, where he heads the scree­ning committee. He co-founded the Impact Hub Stutt­gart and the M. Tech Acce­le­rator and has also been a jury member of the Cybe­rOne Awards for many years.

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