
Benjamin Erhart
Partner
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- Full Name
- Benjamin Erhart
- Title
- General Partner
- Firm
- UVC Partners (Unternehmertum Venture Capital Partners)
- Firm Type
- Early-stage / multi-stage venture capital firm
- Investment Stage
- Seed and Series A (early-stage lead), with follow-on through a newer growth fund
- Target Company Profile
- European B2B startups with deep technical / engineering foundations
- Sector Focus
- Deep tech and B2B/industrial software — robotics, IoT, mobility, industrial technologies, quantum technologies, fusion/energy, and climate tech
- Geographic Focus
- Europe (firm invests throughout Europe)
- Location
- Munich, Germany (UVC operates from both Munich and Berlin)
Background
Benjamin Erhart is a General Partner at UVC Partners, the Munich- and Berlin-based venture capital firm affiliated with UnternehmerTUM, the entrepreneurship center of the Technical University of Munich. He holds a degree in Industrial Engineering from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), a background that underpins his focus on hard-tech and engineering-driven companies.
Before joining UVC, Erhart spent roughly eight years at High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), one of Germany's most active seed investors. He was among the fund's early employees and rose to Investment Director, personally leading more than 50 venture transactions and helping HTGF scale its portfolio from roughly 50 to nearly 500 investments. During that period he sat on the boards of several industrial-technology companies, including Cumulocity (an IoT platform later acquired by Software AG), Synapticon, Compositence (sold to Qingdao GON Holdings), Till (sold to Krones AG), and ZIM Plant Technology (sold to Yara). He has also served on HTGF's Investment Board.
Erhart joined UVC Partners as a Partner in 2017, becoming part of the leadership team alongside partners such as Ingo Potthof, Johannes von Borries, Helmut Schönenberger, and Andreas Unseld. Since then he has become a central figure in the firm's deep tech and engineering-software practice, leading early-stage bets in some of Europe's most ambitious technology ventures. He has been recognized within the German startup ecosystem, including a nomination for Investor of the Year at the German Startup Awards.
Investment Thesis & Focus
- Leads early-stage (seed / Series A) investments in European B2B and deep tech companies, typically as an early or first institutional investor, then supporting them through follow-on rounds.
- Core sectors: robotics, IoT, mobility, industrial software, quantum technologies, fusion/energy, and climate tech — areas where a strong engineering or scientific moat matters.
- Backs companies where deep technical understanding is the differentiator, reflecting his own engineering training and UVC's team of "rocket scientists, engineers, AI researchers, and economists."
- Values being in from day one and building conviction on hard-tech science — UVC was, for example, the first investor in Proxima Fusion.
- In his own words, what drives him is "supporting tomorrow's market leaders and helping entrepreneurs to have a significant impact in industrial technologies."
Notable Investments
- Proxima Fusion — Munich-based stellarator fusion company; UVC was the first investor and Erhart has backed it "since day one." Closed a €130M Series A in June 2025, described as Europe's largest private fusion round.
- planqc — Neutral-atom quantum computing startup; part of Erhart's quantum-technology focus.
- Tacto — B2B procurement / supply-chain software startup.
- TWAICE — Battery analytics software for electric mobility and energy storage.
- FAZUA — E-bike drive systems / electric mobility hardware.
- Cumulocity (via HTGF) — IoT platform, exited to Software AG.
- Compositence (via HTGF) — Composite-materials manufacturing tech, sold to Qingdao GON Holdings.
- Till (via HTGF) — Sold to Krones AG.
- ZIM Plant Technology (via HTGF) — Sold to Yara ASA.
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