Managing Partner
Matthias Engel
Energy Efficiency, Industrial Electrification
Matthias is an active business angel and partner at Vireo Ventures, investing in pre-seed and seed companies. He also advises start-ups in their fundraising and M&A efforts and supports companies as a mentor and senior advisor in the areas of open innovation and corporate venture capital.
Over the past 15 years, Matthias has gained extensive transaction experience in building and managing a portfolio of venture capital investments as well as executing large scale M&A projects.
Prior to founding Vireo Ventures, Matthias was Managing Director at innogy Ventures, where he led the venture capital investment activities for innogy SE (formerly RWE AG), one of Europe’s largest listed utility groups. He was instrumental in setting up innogy Ventures, recruiting a high-caliber team and defining the overall investment strategy and processes. As an active investor, he sat on various boards of portfolio companies in Europe, Israel and the US. Investment areas included Future Energy (e.g. Distributed Energy, Smart Grids, Storage), Future of Cities (e.g. Mobility, Smart Cities, PropTech), and Emerging Technologies (e.g. IoT, AR/VR, AI), with a focus on early to growth stage investments. As Managing Director, Matthias was responsible for innogy’s entire innovation portfolio, which included more than 60 investments (€162 million under management).
Previously, Matthias was Senior Manager for Groupwide M&A at RWE AG since 2006 and was responsible for the execution of national and international M&A transactions along the entire value chain of the energy industry. Transactions included sell-side, buy-side, joint ventures and public takeovers with a total transaction volume of €7 billion.
Previously, he was an investment banker at Metzler Corporate Financing where he advised corporate clients and private equity funds on M&A transactions. Sectors covered included real estate, consumer goods and media. Matthias holds a Diploma in Business Administration from the Leipzig Graduate School of Management.
The Vireo Team
Felix Krause
Managing Partner
Lou Arzur
Investment Manager
Matthias Engel
Managing Partner
Mischa Wetzel
Managing Partner
Sandro Michelmann
Associate
Sven Heiligtag
Partner
Thomas Labryga
Partner
Advisors Council
Dr. Carl-Peter Forster
Advisory Board
Louise Hahn
Advisory Board
Dr. Marie-Theres Thiell
Advisory Board
Samuel Leupold
Advisory Board
Christopher Burghardt
Advisory Board