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Susanne Fromm

GP at Vanagon VC | climate x frontier tech | INSEAD MBA | LinkedIn Top Voice

Susanne Fromm is a prominent figure in the venture capital and climate technology sectors. Here's a comprehensive overview of her professional background and current role:

Current Position

Susanne Fromm is the General Partner and Co-Founder of Vanagon Ventures, a Munich-based venture capital firm.13 Vanagon Ventures focuses on investing in planet-positive frontier technologies, particularly in the areas of NatureTech and Digital Industrial.5

Professional Background

Before co-founding Vanagon Ventures, Susanne Fromm had a diverse career spanning various industries:

  1. Management Consulting: She started her career as a management consultant at Roland Berger, where she worked for 6 years.1

  2. Corporate Experience: After her consulting role, Fromm moved to Allianz, where she was responsible for designing and globally rolling out digitization strategies. She also made corporate venture capital investments and formed partnerships with BigTech companies.1

  3. CEO Experience: Fromm served as the CEO of a publicly listed investment company that managed over 40 portfolio companies.1

  4. Entrepreneurship: She co-founded a digital assets consultancy.1

Education

Susanne Fromm holds an MBA from INSEAD (Class of 09D).1

Focus Areas

At Vanagon Ventures, Fromm specializes in:

  • Climate-tech investments
  • Digital deep tech
  • FinTech innovations for sustainable investment
  • Technologies enabling the transition to a resilient economy24

Notable Initiatives

  1. ReFi Talents Program: In collaboration with the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, Fromm initiated an 18-week global education program focused on frontier technology-enabled green transition.1

  2. Investment Portfolio: Vanagon Ventures has invested in companies such as senken.io (a marketplace for digitalized carbon certificates) and The Landbanking Group (infrastructure for nature as an asset class).12

Investment Philosophy

Fromm and Vanagon Ventures focus on:

  • Pre-Seed to Seed stage investments
  • B2B Tech sectors, including FinTech and Climate & Digital Industrial
  • Initial investments ranging from €100,000 to €300,000
  • Primarily targeting the DACH region, with a focus on Germany and opportunistic investments in the US2

Susanne Fromm's expertise in digital transformation, climate technology, and venture capital makes her a significant figure in the intersection of technology and sustainability.

Highlights

Sep 4 · linkedin

📣 'Renewing the voluntary carbon market' and 'nature as an asset class' were topics of the latest session of ReFi Talents (an 18-week free online course to learn how technology can accelerate the green transition) 📚

🗣️ Once again, our talents shared their insights:

🌱 In my breakout room, Benedict Witte (The Landbanking Group) discussed "nature as an asset class." He emphasized that nature is our most important infrastructure and requires investment and maintenance, just like any other infrastructure. The Landbanking Group enables nature restoration on a planetary scale using remote sensing and sophisticated AI models. Benedict also highlighted their collaboration with African Parks Network, measuring ecosystem disturbance with camera traps.

Afterwards, several talents presented their findings in the main room, e.g.: 🇵🇭 Marinellie Gulapa provided a comprehensive overview of the carbon market.  🇫🇷 Tatiana Martin-Fenouillet talked about ReFi leaders who inspired her.  🇩🇪 Konstanze L. explored different dimensions of personal impact, including voice, career influence, investment choices, and carbon footprint.  🇵🇹 Kathleen Olstedt introduced the Cleanblocks rating of the environmental impact of blockchains, from "True Green" (e.g., Celo) to "Brown" (Bitcoin).  🇬🇧 Daniel Aprea shared his findings on creating a DeFi Ecosystem overview, covering Lending Platforms, DEXes, Stablecoins, Insurances, and Derivatives.

🎤 Our guest speaker for this session was William ten Zijthoff, Co-Founder of Carbify, UNFCCC expert, and one of the initiators of the Global Carbon Standard. He explained how the carbon market is still very opaque. William then introduced Carbify's solution to tackle this issue: 🌳 Carbify plants agroforestry systems in Brazil and Angola, with over 3 million trees already planted. Their diverse plants and trees are all meticulously geotagged. 🔗 CO2 absorption is tracked by ecologists and recorded on the blockchain via NFTs. Each kilogram of CO2 absorbed is linked to the responsible tree’s ID, allowing precise identification for each certificate. ♻️ Carbon debits are only sold after the absorption has occurred, ensuring credibility and effectiveness.

📚 About ReFi Talents: Together with the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management and movers & shakers in the NatureFintech space, Vanagon.vc has co-initiated and co-designed a global online education program, which is now in its 2nd cohort with 200 admitted participants from across the globe. The free 18-week program helps professionals from various backgrounds and career stages learn about regenerative finance, the regenerative economy, and enabling technologies such as blockchain. The goal is to inspire new changemakers to get active.

🙏 A special thanks to all who make the program possible! Abdullah, Daniel, William, Donny, Dr. Oliver, Afina, Sabrina, Alex, Diana, Sunny, Alison, Christian, Timm & all other mentors, speakers & sponsors.

Aug 11 · linkedin

🌍 𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 ⏱️ - Here is a 1-hour time investment that I highly recommend. Not only for beginners but also for advanced learners and experts in climate change to test your knowledge and get inspiration on how to spread the word.

On 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗮𝘆, 𝗔𝘂𝗴𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝟭𝟮, 𝗮𝘁 𝟱:𝟯𝟬𝗽𝗺 𝗖𝗘𝗧, we offer a free and open session of our ReFi Talents program to anyone interested in attending an 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗖𝗟𝗜𝗠𝗔𝗧𝗘 𝗣𝗜𝗧𝗖𝗛 session - expertly moderated by Barbara Zitzmann-Tengelmann MRICS and Martina Weinberger.

💡 WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻!

With the recent heat records globally, the increase in fires, droughts and flash floods, it is important to understand why these phenomena are linked to climate change.

Join this interactive and entertaining workshop to learn more about the challenge we face, why we are talking about net/low zero carbon or a state of emergency, and how we as individuals (and in our businesses) can make a difference and contribute to the solution.

❔WHAT IS THE CLIMATE PITCH?

An interactive, informative and entertaining talk covering the following topics:

  1. Key facts about climate change and why we are talking about a state of emergency
  2. How we can all act now and make a difference (individually and collectively)

No fake news! The content is based on the IPCC report (recognized by the global scientific community).

🔎 HOW DOES IT WORK?

Participants are guided through visuals and explanations and continuously engaged through a quiz format with different questions/exercises. Divided into 3 phases:

  1. Intro & warm-up phase
  2. Guided tour & quiz
  3. Debriefing & solutions

👉 SIGN UP HERE https://lu.ma/dxhn8g7d

Abdullah Melik Yildiz Daniel Holk Axel Roitzsch Sandro Stark Vanagon.vc

Related Questions

What inspired Susanne Fromm to co-found Vanagon Ventures?
How did Susanne Fromm's experience at Allianz influence her approach at Vanagon Ventures?
What are some of the key challenges Susanne Fromm has faced in the climate-tech sector?
How does Vanagon Ventures support its portfolio companies beyond initial investment?
What makes Vanagon Ventures unique compared to other climate-tech VC funds?
Susanne Fromm
Susanne Fromm, photo 1
Susanne Fromm, photo 2
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Location

Greater Munich Metropolitan Area