Marco Knauf

Marco Knauf is best known as a co-founder and managing director (CEO) of true fruits GmbH, the Bonn-based smoothie and juice company that became Germany's market leader in the chilled smoothie segment. The idea originated in 2005, when Knauf and his co-founders Inga Koster and Nicolas Lecloux encountered smoothies during a semester abroad in Aberdeen, Scotland. They developed the concept into a research/diploma project at the Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg (Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences), which placed second in a business-plan competition.

The three founders formally established true fruits GmbH in June 2006, raising roughly €250,000 in startup capital from a Bonn entrepreneur, a further investor, and a KfW loan. Within the founding team, Knauf has been responsible for strategic product development and sales, while Koster handled products/finance and Lecloux led marketing. The brand became widely known for its provocative, deliberately un-"politically-correct" marketing under the tagline "true fruits – no tricks." By 2022 the company reported roughly €62 million in sales with about 35 employees. In 2020, beverage group Eckes-Granini (Granini, Hohes C) acquired a ~35% stake in the company.

Beyond the operating business, Knauf invests personally and holds other entities — company registries list him as managing director of K1 Invest GmbH and a similarly-named holding vehicle — reflecting private investment and holding activity separate from true fruits.

• Stage: Angel / seed-stage investing, consistent with the profile's "Seed Round" designation.
• Sectors: His verifiable investing centers on FinTech / InsurTech; aggregators (Tracxn) additionally tag Auto Tech and FinTech as focus areas.
• Geography: Germany-focused (his known deal is a Berlin startup).
• Style: As an operator-turned-angel, he typically co-invests alongside institutional funds rather than leading rounds — his known deal placed him beside top-tier VCs.
• *No publicly stated check size or formal written thesis could be verified; these are omitted rather than guessed.*