Ricardo Sommer

Ricardo Sommer is a career private-equity investor with more than 15–20 years of experience in mid-market buyouts and strategy consulting, focused on the German-speaking (DACH) region. He holds a degree in industrial/mechanical engineering and management from the Technische Universität Berlin and an MBA from INSEAD (with business studies also at the University of Texas at Austin). He began his career at The Boston Consulting Group, where he advised clients in the private equity and industrial-goods sectors.

Sommer moved into principal investing as an Investment Manager at Syntegra Capital, a pan-European PE fund, and then spent several years at Quadriga Capital, a DACH mid-cap fund, where he rose to Director and led buyouts of industrial companies and business-services providers across the region. In February 2019 he joined Silverfleet Capital as a Principal in its Munich office, tasked with building the pan-European firm's lower-mid-market franchise in the DACH region, targeting companies valued between €25 million and €75 million. He was promoted to Partner at Silverfleet in April 2021.

In March 2022, Sommer left Silverfleet to become Head of Private Equity Germany at Tikehau Capital, based in Frankfurt, where he launched the firm's local private-equity franchise focused on growth equity and energy-transition / decarbonisation strategies. He has since moved to THI Investments, where he is Partner and Head of Private Equity DACH, investing across Western-European mid-market companies with sector interests spanning education, industrial goods, technology/software, and impact/energy-transition themes. Outside work he is a cyclist and kitesurfer and a father of two.

• Invests in established, profitable mid-market companies — not early-stage startups. His track record is control/buyout and growth-equity deals, primarily in the DACH region.
• At Silverfleet he focused on lower-mid-market businesses with enterprise values of ~€25–75 million, backing industrial and business-services companies in German-speaking markets.
• At Tikehau he shifted emphasis toward growth equity and energy-transition / decarbonisation strategies for the German market.
• At THI Investments his stated sector interests are education, industrial goods, technology / IT-software, and energy transition / impact investing across Western-European mid-market companies.
• He has said he was drawn to THI by the "family office's strong values combined with a growing pan-European investment platform and a highly professional team" — signaling a preference for patient, values-aligned, platform-building capital rather than quick-flip deals.
• Sector DNA reflects his engineering background and BCG/industrial-goods roots: he gravitates to companies with real operations, defensible market positions, and buy-and-build potential.