For Christian Patze, investment director at M Ventures one of the most rewarding experiences in his professional life has been “helping companies to turn exciting technology into a successful business”.
Coming from a consulting background, Patze joined M Ventures, the corporate VC of MSD Group, in 2016, when it was expanding from a pure biotech VC into a €450m evergreen fund covering all three business sectors of the firm: healthcare, life sciences and electronics.
Since January 2022, Patze has been the investment director with a team of 25 people, operating from a €600m allocation to be invested across five years.
“I love the creativity one can apply when it comes to finding a compromise that ideally creates more value for all parties.”
He believes what makes being a venture capitalist so interesting is “being at the forefront of technology with exactly the right amount of depth: not as deep as a PhD thesis, but certainly more deep than in consulting”. Unexpectedly, he says, he also enjoys deal negotiation and legals. “I love the creativity one can apply when it comes to finding a compromise that ideally creates more value for all parties involved,” says Patze.
Patze recently gave a lecture at Invest Europe on CVC, where he tried to dispel what he sees as the biggest challenge in this sector: negative perceptions that still exist about CVCs. Patze says that “CVCs are a very heterogenous bunch and one should not extrapolate from one experience to all other funds in the space”.
His main advice for anyone looking to get into VC is to always “look for funds where you can actually do deals yourself, rather than exclusively focusing on diligence work for others”. He highlights that while diligence is undoubtedly a crucial aspect at the beginning, there should be a clear path to deal independence, which is the essence of VC. He recommends looking for funds that have smaller tickets so you can gain hands-on experience.
See the full list of GCV Emerging Leaders for 2024 here.