Frederic Hanika

Frederic Hanika is a German-born enterprise-software executive who has spent roughly two decades running corporate development and M&A for large software companies while investing personally as an angel in early-stage B2B startups. He studied at the University of Lüneburg (Germany) and Preston, UK, and early in his career co-founded a venture-backed startup — experience he cites as the root of his hands-on, "roll up your sleeves" approach to investing.

From 2006 he led M&A at Software AG, ultimately serving as Senior Vice President & Head of M&A and Corporate Ventures. Over that period he ran more than 20 transactions that helped roughly double the company to about $1.4bn in annual revenue, and he took board seats on Software AG's portfolio and venture investments — including supply-chain-finance provider Traxpay, visual-analytics company iCharts, and predictive-analytics developer Predixion Software. He also championed Software AG's corporate-venture investment into The Hive, the Palo Alto AI co-creation studio, where he remains an advisor.

In 2019 Hanika moved to Silicon Valley industrial-IoT company Wind River as SVP of Corporate Development, and in May 2020 he became SVP, Head of Corporate Development at Quest Software (a Francisco Partners–owned portfolio that includes One Identity), where he leads global M&A strategy. Alongside these corporate roles he mentors founders at the Alchemist Accelerator and Desafia and advises startups at The Hive.

As an angel, Hanika describes himself as an investor in more than 15 companies, almost all B2B software, and says he has evaluated "hundreds of startups." He remains an active board director — Chairman/board member and investor at Timeseer.AI, board member and investor at Automation Hero, board member at Hazelcast, and investor in Amper Technologies.

• Invests almost exclusively in B2B / enterprise software startups, reflecting his career in enterprise M&A.
• Backs companies at the early stage, explicitly focused on helping founders "through the difficult phase of early product-market-fit" and helping them "build a repeatable sales model and first-rate team."
• Advocates a hands-on, "entrepreneur-centric 'new school' investment style: roll up your sleeves and help create value" — he typically pairs a check with a board seat and operational involvement.
• Strong conviction on AI as an enterprise imperative: "Businesses have a clear choice: Invest in AI and disrupt the competition or be disrupted by faster-moving enterprises."
• Thematically drawn to areas he calls "hyper relevant… AI, IoT and Blockchain — all for the enterprise," valuing early visibility into "technology trends, business models, use cases and real-life adoption… years before the average person even reads about them."