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Christopher Steinau shared thisHuge congratulations to Benedikt Hochkirchen, Madjid Salimi, Nawid Salimi, Anna Schuster and Dr. Sievert Weiss and the entire AMBOSS team on ranking first (again!) in the independent Stanford–Harvard ARISE Lab benchmarking of clinical AI systems. Building trust in and enabling the continued rollout of clinical AI requires consistently high-quality performance paired with independent validation. AMBOSS has come first without the resources and scale of OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google, an incredible accomplishment. Pleased that Lightrock is supporting your growth and impact. Full study here: https://lnkd.in/earUQh_y
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Christopher Steinau shared thisWith more coverage coming out about the Slush Climate Summit panel, it’s a good moment to share a few thoughts. It was great to see a packed room at our panel — and the momentum makes sense: global climate-tech funding remains robust, with Q3 2025 equity deals totaling over US $11 bn, even as markets tighten. Investors are increasingly treating climate risk as systemic rather than optional, and being selective about backing solutions that can deliver both commercial returns and climate impact. Thanks again to my co-panelists Torben Schreiter from Extantia, Rebecka Löthman Rydå from Norrsken Evolve, and Danijel Višević from World Fund. And thanks to Akansha Dimri at Tech Funding News for steering the conversation, which was also covered by Impact Loop. More details in the comments 👇
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Christopher Steinau shared this📣 Thrilled to announce that Lightrock has co-led Makersite’s Series B round, backing their mission to accelerate manufacturers’ product development with AI product life cycle intelligence. 📦📋 Makersite’s innovative AI-driven product lifecycle intelligence platform seamlessly integrates data on cost, environmental impact, compliance, and risk. This enables leading manufacturers to make decisions that are not only resource-efficient and cost-effective but also more environmentally friendly. Their proprietary data foundation stands as one of the most comprehensive sources of supply chain information globally. 🚀 With Makersite, products are developed up to 50 times faster than traditional methods, meeting the industry's growing demand for more sustainable and economical solutions. Makersite is already trusted by industry giants like Microsoft, Schneider Electric, Cummins Inc., Barco and Daikin Comfort. I look forward to collaborate with Neil D'Souza and the Makernauts as they scale their technology and team, driving enhanced product design processes across various industries. Lightrock is proud to have co-led the €60 million round with Partech. SE Ventures also joined the round alongside all Series A investors, including Planet A Ventures, KOMPAS VC, Hitachi Ventures, and Translink Capital. 🔗 For more insights on Makersite and its Series B, check out the links in the comments below! 👇 Nick de la Forge, Sebastian Peck,Tobias Jahn, Varun Jain, Jon Hennessy, Arnaud Minvielle, Rémi Said, Toshiya O. https://lnkd.in/eQMZZ6cjLightrock, Partech pour €60m into startup greening Microsoft’s supply chainLightrock, Partech pour €60m into startup greening Microsoft’s supply chain
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Christopher Steinau shared thisI enjoyed speaking with Nadine Schimroszik at Handelsblatt for her recent piece on Lightrock’s newest portfolio company, AMBOSS. The article offers valuable insight into Amboss’s ambition and potential. Having rapidly become a leading resource for medical education in both the US and Germany, Amboss is now aiming to expand its support to allied healthcare professionals—including paramedics, nurses, dentists, and therapists. The article also features perspectives from Amboss’ other backers, Cherry Ventures and Partech as well as founders Benedikt Hochkirchen and Dr. Sievert Weiss. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/eYR22CVs Filip Felician Dames, Omri Benayoun 🟧 Madjid Salimi Nawid Salimi Anna SchusterGesundheit: Medizinische Wissensplattform Amboss auf WachstumskursGesundheit: Medizinische Wissensplattform Amboss auf Wachstumskurs
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Christopher Steinau shared this📢 I am thrilled to announce that Lightrock has co-led the latest funding round for AMBOSS, a pioneering medical content platform that is transforming healthcare education and practice. ⚕️ 🩺 🏥 AMBOSS’ platform caters to both students and practicing professionals with its comprehensive question bank and interactive library, enabling efficient patient care. With over 1 million healthcare professionals across 180+ countries relying on AMBOSS, its impact on global healthcare is profound and set to scale further! I look forward to working alongside Benedikt Hochkirchen, Madjid Salimi, Nawid Salimi, Anna Schuster and Dr. Sievert Weiss as they further develop their platform, invest in technology, and enter new markets. Lightrock invested in the round alongside M&G Investments, and KIRKBI A/S. We are also proud to collaborate with existing investors Partech, Cherry Ventures, Quadrille Capital, and Wellington Management as well as new investors Project A, and Burda Principal Investments. For more insights, check out Bloomberg's article linked in the comments 👇 Thanks as well to the Lightrock team: Martin Karschkes, Rory Glover, and Jorrit de Haan.
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Christopher Steinau reposted thisChristopher Steinau reposted this🎙��� Partner Christopher Steinau has featured on Mergermarket’s ION Influencer’s podcast! Joining Giovanni Amodeo in a fireside chat, some of the topics that Chris covers include: 💼 his career journey from entrepreneur to investor 💰 the growth of the Lightrock platform 🌳 the evolution of climate investing, and 🛤️ his investment in Distribusion Technologies and hopes for the future Thank you for the team at ION Analytics for the interview! If you’d like to hear Chris and Giovanni, check out the link in the comments.
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Christopher Steinau shared thisIt was a real pleasure to chat with Giovanni Amodeo in support of the Mergermarket's ION Influencers podcast. Despite being one of my first podcasts, Giovanni made it a thoroughly enjoyable experience in which I was able to talk about Lightrock, trends in climate investing, our investment in Distribusion Technologies, and what the future of impact investing might look like. Check it out via this link here: https://lnkd.in/eq7E8TX7 Thanks again to the super ION team for having me!Christopher Steinau, Partner at Lightrock, on trends in climate investingChristopher Steinau, Partner at Lightrock, on trends in climate investing
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Christopher Steinau reposted thisChristopher Steinau reposted thisI’m pleased to share that Lightrock has participated in the Series B funding round of SolarSquare Energy, a leading provider of residential solar solutions in India. Founded in 2015 by Neeraj Jain, Shreya Mishra, and Nikhil Nahar, SolarSquare has built an impressive business by streamlining residential solar installation. Their full-stack approach cuts out intermediaries while ensuring great quality and service, making home solar both more affordable and hassle-free for customers. The company’s execution speaks for itself: They’ve completed over 20,000 installations with excellent customer satisfaction ratings, and their efficient operational model and team of 700+ professionals have proven highly scalable, demonstrating strong unit economics and a clear pathway to further growth. This funding will support SolarSquare’s expansion to 50+ cities across India, while also strengthening their technology platform, team capabilities, and market presence. Congratulations to both the Lightrock and the SolarSquare teams. We look forward to being part of this journey. See a link to SolarSquare’s website and TechCrunch’s coverage in the comments.
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Christopher Steinau shared thisThanks to Stephen Murphy and the ClimateImpact team for having me at their Growth Retreat at Chatham House on Monday. I thoroughly enjoyed contributing to both the Advisory Board and a panel on 'How to achieve a unicorn valuation in climate tech'. Grateful to my fellow panellist Aruna Ramsamy (Just Climate), and our moderator Will Dufton of Giant Ventures for the excellent conversation. Rarely for these panels, we reached consensus on one thing: securing a unicorn valuation is not the most important thing – it's having a clear and executable path to strong and sustainable profitability. Thanks again to all involved. Looking forward to the next event!
Christopher Steinau commented on a post
1mo
Nice one, bro!
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Christopher Steinau liked thisChristopher Steinau liked thisJust published in Nature Medicine: a call for a rigorous, clinically relevant framework to test medical AI "superintelligence”. MAST puts this into practice – and AMBOSS currently ranks #1 on its leaderboard.
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Christopher Steinau liked thisChristopher Steinau liked thisKatherina Reiche today is proposing the German "Startup- und Scaleup-Strategie": 152 measures across 8 fields. Despite normally being very critical of our government's reform efforts, it feels like this is the first time the diagnosis and the instruments actually line up. The direction is right. Solvency II's capital charge for long-term equity is dropping from 49% to 22%, moving through the legislative process now, mandatory from 2027. One less barrier for insurers to finally underwrite venture risk at scale. The WIN-Initiative just doubled its private capital target to €25bn. Wachstumsfonds II adds another generation of institutional capital via KfW Capital, and ETCI 2.0 is opening up to private investors for the first time. Venture Capital will become part of the private pension planning, foundations will be allowed to invest in VC funds. On the deployment side: Zukunftsfonds II, HTGF V, and a new €300M FOAK vehicle explicitly earmark DeepTech, BioTech and DefenceTech - exactly where we play, with NEURA Robotics, Quantum Systems, Again, Ore Energy and others. Security and defense startups get equal access to funding instruments for the first time, a real shift. A national IP strategy aims to speed up university spin-outs, which are currently dismally slow (props to Laura Möller for engaging here). The exit side is finally getting attention too, and it's the part I care about most. Some of it is already law: the Standortfördergesetz lets companies issue shares with a nominal value under one euro, and lets IPO prospectuses run fully in English without the German summary. IPO-Ramp-On goes further, reviewing whether newly listed companies deserve additional temporary relief on prospectus requirements - and whether listing-specific obligations that only kick in once you're public are actually justified by investor protection or are just legacy friction. On the fund side, a pilot for an institutional secondary market in VC/PE fund interests would finally give LPs a route to liquidity before year ten of a fund's life, and the EIF's TrackVC, built with BlackRock, starts building the performance transparency European VC has always lacked as an asset class. On tax, the roll-over relief threshold quadrupled to €2M, and the six-year minimum holding period for reinvested proceeds is under review to drop to four. None of this fixes the core problem alone — 92% of German startup exits are still trade sales, IPOs remain rare — but this is the first strategy to name that number explicitly and attack it from multiple angles at once, not just fund the input side. Germany still invests roughly €90 per capita in venture capital, a fraction of the US and UK. That gap won't close overnight, and plenty of these measures still need to move from "wird geprüft" to law. But for the first time, the pieces — capital supply, institutional money, and exit infrastructure - are being addressed together, not in isolation. Worth watching closely, and worth building on.
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Christopher Steinau reacted on thisFor the second time, AMBOSS LiSA has been ranked #1 in the world in the independent Harvard-Stanford NOHARM study. NOHARM measures something that matters more than fluency or speed — whether an AI system keeps patients safe across real physician consultations drawn from EHRs. Ranking first, again, on that specific measure is not luck. It is the result of physicians and engineers at AMBOSS who sit next to each other every day and refuse to ship anything they wouldn't trust with their own patients. To the doctors, engineers, editors, and product teams who made this: thank you. You are the reason clinicians trust us, and trust is the only currency that counts here. This is not the finish line, it's the beginning.
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Christopher Steinau reacted on thisChristopher Steinau reacted on thisWhy would anyone NOT use the safest clinical AI? 🤔 This week, the Stanford-Harvard ARISE Lab benchmarked clinical AI systems (AMBOSS, Doximity, OpenEvidence, Glass Health) and frontier models (Claude Fable 5, GPT-5.6, Gemini 3.1pro) on real physician consultations from EHRs, with patient safety as the primary outcome. Not speed. Not fluency. Safety. AMBOSS LiSA ranked #1. Again. 😳 In medicine, we don't prescribe a drug because it's popular. We prescribe it because the evidence says it's safe. Clinical AI deserves the same standard. And thanks to independent benchmarking like this, physicians can finally choose based on evidence. So: if the data shows which clinical AI is safest, why would you use anything else? Thank you to the ARISE researchers for raising the bar, and to the entire AMBOSS team for years of relentless focus on patient safety. And it's only day 1. credit to Ethan Goh, MD Vishnu Ravi, MD David Wu, MD, PhD #AMBOSS #hungryforimpact #ClinicalAI #ARISE
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Christopher Steinau liked thisChristopher Steinau liked thisWhat happens when you bring together 90 of the most committed, influential, and experienced leaders in nature into one room to build systemic and planetary solutions? 🌍 ⭐ Following the launch of Mission 1 "The Shield", Capacity.eco officially launched Moonshot Mission 2: "Closing the Gap" last week. At the Enea Tree Museum outside of Zürich, we convened some of the world's foremost nature scientists, financiers, technologists, philanthropists, entrepreneurs, Indigenous leaders, and government decision-makers — united around one goal: designing rapid Moonshot Prototypes that move the needle on nature protection across 4 critical gap areas of Finance, Enforcement, Indigenous, and Narrative. We are honoured to have our supporter Prince Max von Liechtenstein open the stage for what proved to be two days of ambition and collaboration. The ambition was to build Conservation 2.0 with the speed and urgency the planet actually demands, before tipping points become irreversible. A conviction powerfully embodied by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Prof. Carlos A. Nobre, who was also in attendance. Having spent the last 40 years of his life fighting for greater protection of the Amazon, his reminder of what is truly at stake left the room deeply moved. 🚀 Over weeks of remote knowledge sharing and two facilitated days, we challenged the room to design moonshots from the ground up. What emerged were 8 moonshots now in motion, each owned by the working groups that shaped them: from dismantling the $280B environmental crime economy, to putting financing directly in the hands of Indigenous communities, to rebuilding humanity’s relationship with the natural world. And throughout it all, one of the biggest innovations was that the frontline Indigenous leaders who didn't just participate, but set the direction for these solutions. We are deeply grateful to every participant for their engagement and dedication across the Summit. We realised that we also closed the gaps between us. A special thanks to the participating donors whose generosity unlocked six figures in direct commitments over these two days - and to those already in conversation about taking us to seven ⚡. This gathering was made possible through the support of our sponsors: LGT Private Banking, Ecosia, Oak Foundation, Viessmann Generations Group Foundation, and Earthbanc. This is just the beginning of a new form of collaboration. We look forward to continuing to Close the Gap together. Pieter Van Midwoud Oliver Karius Alix Chambris Rishabh Khanna Robert Muggah Nicole Schwab Dr. Frauke Fischer Peter Hammarstedt Rhett Ayers Butler Xenia zu Hohenlohe Friederike Von Waldenfels Anna Alex Andrea Crosta
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Christopher Steinau reacted on this🙏 Thank you, Pavel Mucha, for the incredibly kind words. This announcement has been in the works for quite some time, and it's exciting to finally be able to publicly share what we've been quietly building over the last 10 months. When Pavel and I first started talking a little over a year ago, what immediately resonated with me wasn't just the investment strategy—it was the mission. The opportunity to unlock European pension capital and connect it with the world's most ambitious technology companies felt like one of those rare ideas that can genuinely reshape an ecosystem and create lasting prosperity for millions of pension beneficiaries. 🚀 Since then, we've spent far less time talking about it than doing it. We've been heads down building Aspire11, meeting founders and investors around the world, earning the trust of our partners, and assembling a portfolio I'm incredibly proud of. 🔥 I lead our Eternals strategy, which represents approximately 80% of Aspire11's committed capital and focuses on direct investments of $10–50 million into category-defining late-stage growth technology companies. Today, our portfolio includes companies such as Databricks, Revolut, VAST Data, Vinted, ElevenLabs and Baseten, alongside exceptional venture fund partnerships. This is only the beginning of what we set out to build. 🤝 None of this would have been possible without the people I'm fortunate enough to call my partners. ⭐ Pavel Mucha — thank you for being an extraordinary, mission-driven leader. You have a rare ability to bring people together around a vision that is bigger than any one individual and then relentlessly turn that vision into reality. Aspire11 reflects your ambition, conviction and leadership, and I'm incredibly proud to be building it alongside you. ⭐ Borkovec Petr — thank you for believing in this vision from the very beginning. Your conviction that European pension capital can—and should—play a far greater role in backing the world's most important technology companies is what made Aspire11 possible. ⭐ Tülin Tokatli, CFA — you're simply a rock star. Your energy, judgement and relentless commitment make Aspire11 stronger every single day. 🌍 I genuinely couldn't ask for a better team. Together, we're building the kind of firm we would have wanted to partner with ourselves—one that thinks in decades, earns trust through actions rather than words, and exists to create lasting value for founders, investors and European pension beneficiaries alike. We're just getting started, and I couldn't be more excited for what's ahead! https://lnkd.in/eieJK36nChristopher Steinau reacted on thisA little over a year ago, Zaya and I started talking. What began as conversations about a massive unmet opportunity—how to channel European pension capital into the future economy, into venture growth, and into the generational companies shaping private markets—gradually evolved into something much bigger. Over the past year, those discussions turned into strategy sessions, investment decisions, and, ultimately, the foundations of Aspire11 itself. We've intentionally kept a somewhat low profile over the past months while rolling up our sleeves and building. So today's post is really two announcements in one. First, I am incredibly excited to officially announce that Zaya Kadyrova joined Aspire11 earlier this year as co-founder, bringing world-class experience from one of the global benchmarks in pension systems, the Canadian Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan. Zaya has been a co-founder alongside Tülin, Petr and me from the beginning. Together, we share a relentless commitment to our mission, and I couldn't be prouder of the entire team and the foundations we are building. Zaya leads our Eternals strategy as Managing Partner - spearheading our investments into the generational growth companies shaping the new economy. She will be anchoring our presence in London while keeping an active overseas commute. Second, we're excited to unveil the Eternals portfolio we've been quietly building together. Innovators like Databricks, Revolut, VAST Data and Vinted, alongside pioneering newcomers like ElevenLabs and Baseten, now form part of the Aspire11 portfolio and represent exactly the kind of generational companies we set out to back. Since joining Aspire11, Zaya has led a number of these flagship investments. This milestone is another important step in our mission to transform Europe's under-allocated pension capital into a powerful engine for innovation, long-term prosperity, and the next generation of globally significant technology companies. Welcome aboard, Zaya. We've already done quite a bit, and we’re just getting started. #Aspire11 #GrowingForGenerations #PensionCapital #VentureGrowth #StrongerReturns #GoEurope
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Parminder Singh
Deep tech is no longer a niche corner of the market; it now accounts for 28% of all VC funding in Europe, more than any other sector (Dealroom 2025). This includes areas like AI, clean energy, semiconductors, and quantum — but the bigger lesson is how investor appetite has shifted towards technologies and business models that can fundamentally transform industries. At Rex Capital, this resonates strongly. We back companies working in advanced areas like AI and biotech, but also those developing innovations that might seem simple yet have the power to disrupt entire industries. For us, it’s not about complexity for its own sake — it’s about the ability to change markets and scale impact. https://lnkd.in/eFfjFukF
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