Georg Ried

Dr. Georg Ried is a qualified biochemist (Biochemiker) by training who spent a decade as one of the two managing directors of Bayern Kapital, the venture capital company of the Free State of Bavaria. He joined the firm's management in 2013 and served until the end of April 2023, when he retired at age 62. During his tenure he was part of a leadership team credited with helping build Bayern Kapital into what Bavaria's Economics Minister Hubert Aiwanger called "an internationally relevant location factor" for the state's start-up ecosystem.

Bayern Kapital, founded in 1995 and headquartered in Landshut, is a wholly owned subsidiary of LfA Förderbank Bayern (Bavaria's development bank). Under Ried's co-leadership the firm managed a portfolio of investment funds that grew to roughly €700 million in assets and, over nearly 30 years, invested on the order of €400 million into more than 300 technology-focused Bavarian start-ups from seed to growth stage. Given his biochemistry background, Ried was closely associated with the firm's strong MedTech and life-sciences dealmaking.

His management partnership evolved over time: he served alongside Roman Huber, then formed a new dual leadership ("Doppelspitze") with Monika Steger in April 2022. In March 2023 Lars Möreke was appointed co-managing director, and Ried departed for retirement at the end of April 2023. Bayern Kapital is today led by Steger and Möreke — meaning Ried is no longer an active decision-maker at the firm as of 2026.

• Backed innovative, high-tech Bavarian start-ups across the full early-to-growth lifecycle — seed, Series A/B, and later scale-up rounds — through Bayern Kapital's family of funds.
• Strong tilt toward MedTech, medical devices, biotech, digital health and life sciences, consistent with his biochemistry training; also active in deep tech and industrial/enterprise software.
• Operated a co-investment model: Bayern Kapital provides equity "in partnership with private investors" and business angels rather than investing alone, which lowers single-source risk and aligns founders with additional capital and networks.
• Typical checks in the ~€100K–€5M range (sweet spot ~€1.5M), scalable through follow-on rounds via growth vehicles such as the Bavarian Growth Fund and the Scaleup Fund Bavaria.
• Valued defensible technology solving a concrete industry problem — e.g., on the Goodly Innovations deal he stressed that the company "has developed a product that uses augmented reality to solve a fundamental problem in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries."