Jan Christoph Rickers
Managing Director
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- Full Name
- Dr. Jan-Christoph Rickers
- Title
- Managing Director & Co-Founder
- Firm
- MobilityFund (Mobilityfund GmbH & Co. KG / MobilityFund Management GmbH)
- Firm Type
- Venture capital fund (BaFin-registered), operating as a founder-and-funder partnership; also active as an angel investor
- Investment Stage
- Seed (often the first institutional check); some pre-seed and Series A
- Check Size
- Not publicly disclosed
- Target Company Profile
- B2B, software-driven startups with a working product, early revenue, and global scaling ambition
- Sector Focus
- Mobility transition — electrification (EVs, charging, energy management), automation/autonomous vehicles, logistics & supply chain, and connected/multi-modal transport across road, rail, air, and sea
- Geographic Focus
- Primarily Europe (with a concentration in Germany), plus select opportunities in the US and Israel
- Location
- Hamburg, Germany (fund offices in Hamburg and Southern California)
Background
Dr. Jan-Christoph Rickers is a Managing Director and co-founder of MobilityFund, a Hamburg-based, BaFin-registered venture capital fund dedicated to the mobility transition. He is listed alongside Andrés Ebhardt as a managing director of MobilityFund Management GmbH (registered at Osakaallee 4, 20457 Hamburg; Hamburg HRB 153452). The firm was established around 2017–2019 and positions itself as "a global partnership of founders & funders with deep experience transforming the mobility sectors."
Before venture capital, Rickers built a career in corporate finance and renewable-energy investment. His prior roles include positions at CEG Corporate Finance AG / Capital Efficiency Group AG (PREPS) and at the Windpool entities (WINDPOOL II GmbH & Co. KG and Windpool GmbH & Co. KG), reflecting a background in structured finance and asset-backed / energy investment vehicles.
Academically, he holds a Ph.D. earned at Universität Koblenz-Landau (roughly 2009–2015), which is why he is often cited as "Dr. Jan-Christoph Rickers."
At MobilityFund he leads seed-stage investing across the electrification and automation of transport, typically coming in as the first institutional partner to founders with a working product and early revenue. He has been a hands-on, long-term backer of companies such as ChargeEuropa, which he has supported since its 2021 seed round.
Investment Thesis & Focus
- Invests in "technologies transforming how the world moves — from electric vehicles to self-driving robotaxis and automated logistics systems," concentrating on electrification and automation.
- Focuses on B2B, software-driven businesses spanning both passenger and goods mobility across road, rail, air, and sea.
- Enters primarily at seed, "often the first institutional partner, backing founders with working products, early revenue, and the ambition to scale globally."
- Says yes to founders "who shape and innovate within these domains" — the emphasis is on the founding team plus demonstrated early traction, not just an idea.
- On the ChargeEuropa thesis, in his own words: *"We believe that ChargeEuropa has the potential to become the EV charging champion for CEE. By combining advertising with EV charging, the team can successfully deploy profitable stations in early-stage markets, ahead of the EV adoption curve."*
Notable Investments
- ChargeEuropa — EV charging network for Central & Eastern Europe; MobilityFund has backed it since its 2021 seed and participated in the follow-on round led by Shift4Good (Aug 2024).
- MOTOR Ai — Berlin-based Level 4 autonomous-driving software (explainable, "active inference" cognitive architecture); part of a ~$20M / €17.1M round announced July 2025.
- FlowFox — participated in a ~$7.3M Seed round (Jan 2025).
- QRaGo — logistics/mobility startup; ~$2.83M Seed round (Feb 2025).
- k2 mobility — Seed round (Sept 2025).
- Wunder Mobility — Hamburg mobility software / shared-mobility platform.
- Truckoo — digital used-truck trading platform.
- Pionix — open-source EV charging software (EVerest).
- Comodule — IoT connectivity for light electric vehicles.
- Vesputi, Pulpo WMS, DeepScenario, Skyflow, Mansio, Eclara, Check and Rent — additional portfolio companies across public-transit software, warehouse management, autonomous-driving data, and shared/connected mobility.
- The fund also cites broader mobility outcomes among its partners' track record (e.g., Transporeon, GreenMobility, Autonomy) with reported exits including one IPO and several acquisitions.
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