Raakwark Kaptaal

All five named principals — Christoph Birkel, Matthias Fricke, Manfred Garz, Matthias Grychta and Torsten Holst — participate in investment decisions. The group emphasizes short decision paths, which aligns with a structure where every partner has a voice and no decisions are delegated to junior staff or investment committees.

The firm relies heavily on the personal networks of its five principals, built through years of operating their own businesses and supporting young startups through to exit. They also actively expand their network to include co-investors and advisors from fields such as HR, legal, M&A and finance, creating a broad funnel for deal flow.

Raakwark Kaptaal focuses on very early-stage investments, which they describe as pre-seed and seed. Their commitment is to back founders at the initial stages of building hardware and software companies, as long as the team is coachable and the product demonstrates clear market need.

The firm prefers to co-invest alongside other business angels and co-investors. This posture allows them to leverage complementary expertise and networks while managing check sizes in the low-six-figure euro range, which is typically not sufficient to anchor a round alone.

The firm concentrates its investment activity almost exclusively on northern Germany and Berlin. This regional focus enables the principals to maintain close, in-person relationships with portfolio companies and provide intensive hands-on coaching.