EnBW New Ventures invests in Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund

Bettine Schmitz: Early-stage venture consistently underfunds female-led and mixed founding teams - even though data shows that diverse teams perform better in most aspects of business life, that female founded team are more capital efficient. That mismatch between performance and access to capital is an economic opportunity. Our thesis is simple: invest where potential is clear, but capital is missing, and let the results speak for themselves.

Gesa Miczaika: We back female-led and mixed teams where women hold a meaningful ownership stake - at least around 20 percent. We intentionally exclude all-male founding teams to raise women’s share in cap tables. We invest alongside leading VCs, connect founders with tier-one investors early, and stay hands-on post-investment. The fund has raised about €28.5 million so far, with over 50% female LPs on board, and we’re deeply embedded in communities like the Evangelistas and European Women in VC to curate high-quality dealflow.

Bettine Schmitz: Ubimaster, founded by Jana Krotsch, has developed a scalable and economically viable model that gives students access to real-life tutors exactly when traditional resources and AI are not enough. The company secured seed investment from Owl Capital (San Francisco), which has closely supported the founder in her transition from a corporate career to entrepreneurship. Ubimaster is currently on a path to becoming accessible to all students across Germany at no cost to the families. We love the impact - and the rapid growth of the company.

Gesa Miczaika: Corporate LPs open doors to domain expertise, pilots, and scaled distribution. With EnBW New Ventures, founders get insight into energy and infrastructure markets plus practical feedback on compliance and scaling.

Anke Gratz: At EnBW New Ventures, our core focus is on energy tech, which is still a very male‑dominated field. In Germany, for example, only about 18.8% of startup founders are women, and across Europe the share of female‑founded startups accounts for just 12% of total VC funding. Given those numbers, we feel a responsibility and a strategic opportunity to actively broaden the diversity of our portfolio. Diversity isn’t just a KPI for us; it’s been shown time and again to correlate with stronger business performance. Partnering with Auxxo is one of the most effective ways for us to gain access to work with often overlooked female talents.

Melanie Bild: At the same time, Auxxo operates at stages earlier than where we typically invest. They see companies, particularly in enterprise SaaS and digital operational tooling, long before these founders would appear on our radar. For us, that creates real strategic value. Their vertical networks are broad and often adjacent to our own focus areas, so we gain early insights into emerging themes and high‑potential teams that complement our pipeline.