Unternehmertum Venture Capital

Helmut Schoenenberger serves as Managing Partner and leads the investment committee, with Partners Susanne Traugott and Benjamin Erhart also holding decision-making authority. The team operates from Garching, Germany, and draws investment professionals from engineering, physics, and management backgrounds. The firm's governance sits within UnternehmerTUM, though investment decisions are made independently of the parent organization.

Unternehmertum Venture Capital is the dedicated investment fund of UnternehmerTUM, the Technical University of Munich's entrepreneurship and innovation center. UVC Partners operates as a for-profit venture entity embedded within the broader non-profit ecosystem, which includes startup incubation, corporate innovation programs, and a maker space. This structure gives UVC preferential early access to TUM spinouts while the fund itself manages outside limited partner capital.

UVC Partners targets pre-seed, seed, and early Series A rounds, with initial investments typically ranging from €500,000 to €5 million. The firm reserves capital for follow-on participation through later rounds when portfolio companies require bridge or growth-stage financing. It does not participate in growth equity or buyout transactions.

Roughly half of UVC Partners' deal flow originates from the UnternehmerTUM incubation pipeline, which processes over 50 technology startups annually arising from TUM's research groups and student founders. The remainder comes through TUM's corporate partner network, which includes industrial firms such as BMW, Siemens, and Airbus, all of which maintain research collaborations with the university. Co-investor referrals and outbound sourcing by the investment team supplement this university-corporate funnel.

The firm concentrates its investment activity in the DACH region, with a strong bias toward Bavarian and southern German startups given the proximity to TUM's Munich and Garching campuses. UVC selectively evaluates startups in Austria and Switzerland where technical founder ties to the TUM ecosystem exist, but does not invest outside Europe.

UVC Partners does not invest in consumer internet, social media, e-commerce, or pure software-as-a-service models without an underlying hardware or deep-tech component. The firm also avoids life sciences and biotech, focusing instead on engineering-led verticals such as industrial automation, aerospace, energy, and enterprise AI.

UVC Partners manages commingled blind-pool venture funds raised from institutional limited partners. While specific investor identities are not publicly disclosed by the firm, typical LPs for university-affiliated European venture funds include the European Investment Fund, German family offices, pension funds, and corporate strategic investors. The firm does not operate on an evergreened balance-sheet model and raises discrete fund vintages.