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Dr. Marcus Erken
Founding Partner @ Sunfish Partners
Dr. Marcus Erken is a founding partner and managing director of Sunfish Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm based in Berlin, Germany.13 He specializes in investing in Polish and Central/Eastern European deep tech startups with global ambitions.14
Key points about Dr. Marcus Erken:
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Education: He holds a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Business & Management from WHU Vallendar, a Ph.D. in Entrepreneurship from RWTH Aachen University, and was a Visiting Research Fellow at Harvard University.13
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Investment focus: He invests in pre-seed and seed-stage startups, particularly in deep tech sectors.15
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Experience: Prior to Sunfish Partners, he worked with over 120 student startups at WHU's university incubator, which he co-built.13
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Teaching: He co-lectures an annual university course on new venture creation at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management.12
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Angel investing: Marcus has made angel investments globally, including in companies like Ramp Network, Locad, Minutia, and Reebelo.13
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Current role: At Sunfish Partners, he manages a fund of PLN65M, typically investing between $250K to $500K per startup.5
Dr. Erken describes himself as "happy and curious" and is passionate about early-stage startups and entrepreneurship.1
Highlights
NEW FUND: We are doubling down on Eastern Europe’s most talented founders. Our second fund with Sunfish Partners comes after 5 years, 17 investments, and countless learnings since the launch of our first fund in 2019. Max Moldenhauer, Paweł Lipkowski, and I could not be more excited.
Following our previous success, we continue to invest at the pre-seed and seed stages. We also remain true to our deep tech DNA, with a strong focus on startups in the health, data, and space & defense industries. This time, our reach extends beyond Poland. We plan to invest around 50% in other Central Eastern European countries. We will soon announce our first investment in the Czech Republic.
This region remains significantly underserved from a venture capital perspective, especially compared to Western Europe or the United States. Many brilliant technical founders still lack access to capital. From day one, our mission has been to help change that and foster stronger collaboration between the Western and Eastern European startup ecosystems. Our second fund continues this commitment.
This is just the first closing. If you are interested in learning more, reach out to us.
We are deeply grateful to already count many successful entrepreneurs, industry leaders, and investors among our backers. These include:
Nikolaos Baltsios, Marek Bardoński, Peter Baudrexl, Jens Begemann, Caroline Berger, Malte Brettel, Klaus-Gregor Hahn, Felix Harms, Christian Holländer, Marius Jeuck, Przemek Kowalczyk, Oliver Mickler, Alexander Moulakakis, Vincent Osterloh, Jakob Schoroth, Alessandro Solèr, Szymon Sypniewicz, Christian Wolf, Dr. Dennis Zeiler, Maximilian Ziegler.
How often in history have those advocating for intense censorship ended up on the right side of history?
The arrest of the Telegram founder in France sets another troubling precedent for freedom of speech in Europe.
It appears that communication platforms now face a stark choice: either enter into (covert) censorship agreements with the EU or risk arrest.
While there are many well-intentioned arguments supporting censorship in edge cases, history shows that broad measures just lead to more censorship, ultimately resulting in less free societies.
Europe deserves to remain free.
