Dr. Walter Grassl

Walter Grassl was a Partner with Carmel Ventures, a leading international Venture Capital firm, specializing in software investments in the US, Israel and Europe. He built up Carmel’s European activities and was responsible for the Carmel office in Munich.

Prior to Carmel, Mr. Grassl was a member of the Management Board of Siemens IT Service, a $2.5 Billion subsidiary of Siemens AG, providing technical IT services for Fortune 100 companies worldwide. Mr. Grassl was responsible for the Corporate Strategy of Siemens IT Service.

Mr. Grassl is an industry veteran with 20 years in-depth experience in software, hardware, and IT Services. He holds a M.Sc. and a Ph.D. in Computer Science, and a Master in Management of Technology from the MIT Sloan School of Management. In 1987, he received the Wacker Research Award for his work on Integrity Constraints in Relational Databases.

Dr. Martin Kröner

Martin Kröner was co-founder and CEO of agnion Energy Inc., a supplier of distributed energy plants to convert woody biomass into electrical power and natural gas. He built up the company to one of the leaders in this space and successfully completed several financing rounds with renowned investors, such as Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, Wellington Partners and Waste Management Inc..
Prior to agnion, Mr. Kröner worked at Linde Engineering, world’s leading  supplier of technical gases and is one of the most profitable engineering companies. Amongst other projects he was member of the R&D  team developing green hydrogen production using the biodiesel byproduct Glycerine.
Prior to Linde, Martin Kröner built up Thermotec Engineering Services, a spin off from the Technical University of Munich.
Martin Kröner holds a M.Sc. in mechanical engineering and a Ph.D. in combustion engineering from the Technical University in Munich. During his industry career he  made several inventions reflected in 10 international patent applications.

Dr. Sönke Mehrgardt

Soenke Mehrgardt was Executive Board Member and CTO of Infineon Technologies for five years responsible for more than 5000 engineers and an R&D budget exceeding one Billion Euro.

Prior to Infineon, Mr. Mehrgardt served as President for Signal Processing and Control at Siemens Semiconductors. In this position he restructured several business units in communication and entertainment, making them profitable and initiating a fast growth path.

Prior to Siemens, Mr. Mehrgardt served for 10 years at ITT Semiconductors as Director for R&D and as Director for Production.

Mr. Mehrgardt has studied Physics and received his Ph.D at the University of Göttingen with a thesis in advanced audio algorithms and technologies. During his industry career, he made several important innovations in the field of consumer and communication electronics which are reflected in his more than 50 worldwide patents.

Dr. Rolf Nagel

Rolf Nagel was Partner and Investment Manager at Star Ventures, a leading international Venture Capital firm, for more than ten years. In this position, he was instrumental in numerous success stories, such as Capstone Microturbines, Ciena, Floware (now Alvarion), Medigene, RF Micro Devices and Sequenom.

Prior to Star Ventures, Mr. Nagel was Investment Manager at the Deutsche Bank investment arm DBG.

Prior to Deutsche Bank Group, he served as the CEO of Vialog Visual Inspection Systems, Hanover, Germany. After repositioning it successfully, Vialog was acquired by Walter AG, Tübingen, a leading German engineering firm.

Mr. Nagel holds an MBA from WHU Koblenz and a Ph.D. in Business Economics from the University of Cologne, Germany, and he completed a scholarship at the MIT Sloan School of Management in Cambridge, USA.

Michael Sailer (CFO)

Michael Sailer was Partner and Investment Controller at Star Ventures since 2001.

Prior to Star Ventures, Mr. Sailer was Financial Manager at T-Online International AG responsible for T-Online’s financials, US GAAP Accounting and Consolidation, Accounting Quality Management, and Corporate Finance

Prior to T-Online, Michael Sailer was Senior Accountant at Ernst & Young AG, Munich, responsible for numerous large international clients and for transaction support in corporate finance projects.

Michael Sailer holds a Diploma in Economics from the University of Augsburg