Michael Lohnert returns as a Rising Star for a second year. An investing director and a founding member of US-based aerospace firm Boeing’s open innovation vehicle HorizonX Ventures, Lohnert was a senior principal at Boeing for 13 years before his first CVC appointment, working on corporate strategy, M&A and partnerships and emerging business opportunities.
He also has experience as an angel investor at Pasadena Angels, a Forbes top-10 angel investor group, for several years.
Brian Schettler, managing director of HorizonX Ventures, said in his nomination of Lohnert: “Mike is an extraordinary venture deal professional. He has contributed significantly to HorizonX Ventures in the area of deal sourcing, deal execution and negotiation, and post-deal governance, and under him we are building a team of future deal professionals and leaders. Mike gets involved in all the deals we have done and has been critical to our success as a strategically-oriented corporate venture unit.”
HorizonX Ventures’ greatest success is its reputation in the market as a leading aerospace investor, according to Lohnert. He said the unit preferred to be as much a traditional VC as a corporate VC. “We like to come at deals with more of an entrepreneurial, versus a heavy-handed corporate, mindset.”
Since its establishment, the unit has made an investment per month on average, totalling about 20 deals. “We are leading deals, syndicating, taking governance responsibilities – as I said, we like to act more VC than CVC.”
