The core message of this investor panel was that founders earn investor conviction less through polished fundraising theater and more through honest clarity: a credible personal motivation, a transparent account of traction and bottlenecks, and evidence that the team can carry a difficult company-building journey. The session opened by positioning the panel as a “reverse pitch” where investors would not pitch their funds but explain what actually makes the difference when they choose a founder. Katja Ruhnke, chair of Business Angels Germany and co-founder of CK Ventures Capital, introduced her perspective as an angel investor investing with her sister Connie. She described their thesis as impact-oriented: they look for companies “who make the world a bit better,” using Hays Circle, a reusable packaging startup, as an example rooted in her own frustration with single-use packaging from online shopping.

Katja then shifted from the business idea to the founding team. She said she normally has already reviewed the pitch deck before a conversation, so the meeting is about understanding the founders: whether they can handle the toughness of the startup journey, whether they have passion, and whether someone in the team can be a “people catcher” who can convince customers, employees, partners, and investors despite having little to offer at the start. Her clearest red flag was lying. She accepted that founders may present their company in a brighter light, but said any discovered lie leads to an immediate no. She also argued that founders do not overrate fundraising; instead, they underestimate it, especially the time needed to close a round and the time required to build real relationships with investors.

Laura Keilhofer of Alstin Capital explained the Series A perspective for B2B software companies. She said Alstin typically comes in after founders have figured out founder-led sales and need to scale a sales organization. Because Alstin has in-house PR, marketing, and sales experts who help with hiring, CRM playbooks, SDR and AE training, Laura needs to understand not only why the product matters, but who is buying it and why. Her red flag mirrored Katja’s: fluffy answers and lack of transparency. If a founder has pilots but no hard traction numbers, she would rather hear that clearly than hear vague claims that customers love the product. She also advised founders to spend less time polishing a huge market-sizing slide and more time proving they know their ICP and the next customers they should pursue.

Gregor Haidl of HTGF framed deep tech investing around the need for new European champions in areas such as robotics, climate tech, and AI. He described HTGF as a multistage platform with over 800 investments, 200 exits, and more than $10 billion attracted for its portfolio, with early-stage first checks of $1 million to $2 million and up to $5 million per company. He also described the integrated DTCF as a public Series A to B fund that can invest up to $10 million in the first round and follow on with up to $50 million per company. For him, the key criteria are ambitious teams combining technical excellence and business acumen, disruptive technologies, and market or first-customer proof points that can become venture cases. His red flag was casted founding teams with no shared history or deep internal motivation, because deep tech can take more than a decade. The discussion closed in the available transcript with the panel probing how investors distinguish gut feeling from observable grit, especially in technically driven founders who spend years committed to highly specialized work.