Marco Winzer
Partner
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- Full Name
- Marco Winzer
- Title
- Partner, Life Sciences & Chemistry
- Firm
- High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF)
- Firm Type
- Venture capital; public-private early-stage seed fund
- Investment Stage
- Pre-seed and seed; follow-on participation
- Check Size
- HTGF stated in 2020 that it typically invested EUR 500,000-700,000 in the first round and up to EUR 3 million across rounds.
- Target Company Profile
- R&D-based, technology-driven startups with growth potential, proof-of-concept or early lab-to-market path, and a need for early financing plus business/network support.
- Sector Focus
- Life sciences and chemistry, including pharma, biotech, R&D tools, diagnostics, medtech, digital health, industrial biotech, and related high-tech fields.
- Geographic Focus
- Primarily Germany; also Europe.
- Location
- Bonn, Germany
Background
Marco Winzer has been with High-Tech Gründerfonds since its founding in 2005 and helped build the fund. HTGF describes him as a Partner in its Life Sciences & Chemistry team, based in Bonn.
He is a Diplom-Volkswirt, with economics studies at Universität Trier from 1992 to 1998 listed on his LinkedIn profile. Before joining HTGF, he worked in startup advisory and held roles at Business Innovation Center Kaiserslautern, Technologie-Beteiligungsgesellschaft, and KfW.
At HTGF, Winzer has long focused on financing life-science startups and has repeatedly accompanied portfolio companies across the venture-capital value chain from seed financing through exits. In a 2025 VC Magazin article on HTGF’s 20th anniversary, he was described as part of the working group that helped set up HTGF as a public-private partnership rather than a classic grant program.
Investment Thesis & Focus
- Invests through HTGF at the pre-seed and seed stage, with capacity to participate meaningfully in later rounds.
- Focuses on high-tech, especially life sciences and chemistry. HTGF’s Life Sciences & Chemistry page names pharma, biotech, R&D tools, diagnostics, medtech, digital health, and chemistry as focus areas.
- Looks for disruptive technologies and founders who can take research into market-relevant companies. HTGF’s Life Sciences & Chemistry positioning: “We invest in people.”
- Values early dialogue with founders, often before a company is fully formed, to understand the people behind the idea and help make the business plan investor-ready.
- In life sciences, pays close attention to regulated-market issues: clinical and preclinical development, certification, reimbursement strategy, capital intensity, and follow-on financing milestones.
- Prefers honest, transparent founders. In his Munich Startup interview, he said pitch red flags include untruths, over-selling, arrogance, founder disputes, and not knowing unit economics.
- Does not back pure “me-too” or copycat models, and HTGF excludes sectors it views as ethically or sustainability-incompatible, including defense, alcohol, tobacco, and gambling.
Notable Investments
- Preventicus - Digital-health company developing smartphone-based vital-parameter screening; HTGF profile lists Winzer’s success story with investment year 2014.
- Zedira - Biotech company focused on transglutaminases and celiac-disease drug development; HTGF lists Winzer’s involvement from 2007.
- CorTec - Freiburg neurotechnology and neuromodulation company developing the CorTec Brain Interchange implant platform; HTGF invested in 2011.
- AdvanceCOR - Cardiovascular biotech developing personalized medicine approaches for cardiovascular disease; HTGF lists it as a Winzer portfolio success story from 2012.
- Reactive Robotics - Munich medtech company developing robotic assistance for early mobilization of intensive-care patients; a 2024 financing added EUR 5 million for growth.
- c-LEcta - Leipzig industrial-biotech company; HTGF backed it from 2006 and exited when Kerry acquired the company in 2022.
- SIRION Biotech - Viral-vector technology provider for cell and gene therapy, vaccines, and RNAi tools; acquired by PerkinElmer in 2021.
- m2p-labs - Microbioreactor and automated bioprocess development company; HTGF invested in 2006 and exited via sale to Beckman Coulter Life Sciences.
- Corimmun - Cardiovascular drug-development company; HTGF lists a successful exit in June 2012.
- UROTEC - Tissue-engineering company for urological organs; HTGF lists a successful exit in August 2010.
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