David Nothacker

David Nothacker is the co-founder and CEO of sennder, the Berlin-based digital road freight forwarder founded in 2015 with Julius Köhler and Nicolaus Schefenacker. sennder describes itself as a leading European digital freight forwarder, connecting large shippers with a network of more than 40,000 trucks and a 1,000+ person team.

Before sennder, Nothacker was a senior strategy consultant and arrived at INSEAD in 2014 for his MBA. INSEAD says the idea for sennder began as a classroom project inspired by BlaBlaCar: the initial concept was using unused vehicle space for parcels, which later evolved from cars and buses into full-truckload freight.

The company’s early years were difficult. Nothacker has written that in March 2016, while waiting for angel funding, he had to delay salaries for a seven-person team and borrowed €10,000 from his father to bridge the gap. INSEAD later reported that a meeting with an angel investor led to a €500,000 investment and the arrival of Nicolaus Schefenacker in September 2016 and Julius Köhler in January 2017.

As sennder scaled, Nothacker led the company through multiple financings and acquisitions, including the acquisition of Uber Freight Europe and C.H. Robinson’s European Surface Transportation operations. He is also an active angel investor, particularly in Germany and in logistics/supply-chain startups.

• Invests as an operator angel with a strong logistics and supply-chain bias. EUVC summarized his two strategies as “investing early in logistics & supply chain startups” and “co-investing with VCs in opportunistic deals.”
• Appears stage-flexible across pre-seed, seed, and Series A, based on publicly reported investments in Timberhub, Degura, TradeLink, and simpleclub.
• Looks for founders attacking fragmented, manual, traditional markets with software, marketplace, and workflow automation models, consistent with sennder’s own thesis around digitizing road freight.
• Values investor-founder fit and useful strategic support. In his own fundraising lessons, he wrote: “Don’t always go for the highest valuation,” advising founders to choose the investor who adds the most value when valuations are close.
• Uses angel investing as a learning loop for operating. EUVC’s episode description says he discussed how angel investing makes him a “better, more experienced business leader.”