How do you invest?

Our plan is to make five to seven investments per year. If we do that over a 5-year-timeframe, we will establish quite a portfolio. For the insurance industry, disruption is coming! It is an interesting industry but no one has cracked the code yet. Smart investors are ready to put a lot of money into companies that are disrupting insurance. So it is important for us to be part of the game.

Name three criteria for the startup you want to invest in.

As strategic investors, the first obvious criterion is a potential connection to Allianz, where we can generate some mutual value.

Then, we take a look at the management team. Great founders attract and retain great teams - and those teams are often successful. We ask: How experienced are they? Have they already established other startups in the market, and do they fit together with our strategy? We look at the market potential of the offering we are looking at. And, we evaluate the product itself and check respective intellectual property. So, there needs to be a great product, a clear product-market fit and a great team.

I would even add a fourth criterion: Who are the other investors in the startup and startups' partners? This is crucial, as you have to agree on and jointly develop a strategy for the new companies and provide the necessary financial backing.

How do you establish first contact to new startups?

There are different ways to generate deal flow. Sometimes we get connected through contacts within the Allianz organization. The second source is our network and intensive exchange with other venture capitalists. Various corporates have comparable entities like us. If they come across a startup with an idea relevant for the insurance sector, they reach out to us and vice versa, if relevant for their industry. But of course we intensively screen the market ourselves, check databases and monitor conferences for interesting candidates. Not to forget: If a startup has a demonstrable connection to insurance, asset management or assistance services business and is raising money, they can reach out to us via email.

What are the hotspots for investing at the moment, we hear a lot about Silicon Valley: What about London, Paris, Berlin?

Besides the US, Europe and Israel play an important role in this field. Berlin, Tel Aviv, the US West Coast are the hot spots at the moment. London is especially important for financial technology (FinTech). Being headquartered in Munich, we have a strong focus on Europe and the U.S. So our team is traveling a lot, meeting potential startups regularly in order to establish and maintain a connection. We also see great local startups in Munich: Allianz participates in the DLD conference at the highest levels of the organization. This week we'll participate alongside our COO at Bits and Pretzels.

5 years from now. Which kind of news would you like to read about your unit?

I want to see evidence that Allianz Digital Corporate Ventures has had a strong role in transforming in Allianz's business for the future.

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