Stefan Knoll

Dr. Stefan M. Knoll (born 26 December 1957 in Augsburg) is a German entrepreneur, lawyer, publicist, artist, and reserve officer (Colonel/Oberst of the Reserve in the Bundeswehr). He studied law at the University of Augsburg, passing his second state examination in 1986, and earned his doctorate (Dr. iur.) in 1989 with a dissertation in shipping-insurance law, having previously worked as a research assistant to Prof. Dr. Herbert Buchner. He began his commercial career at Allianz Versicherungs-AG, where he served as a branch/director from 1988 to 1994, primarily in sales.

In 1994 Knoll left Allianz to become a serial founder. Together with his long-time business partner Philipp J. N. Vogel he built DIATEL DIREKT (an insurance call-center/marketing venture), which merged with the Dutch listed group SNT NV in 2000 to form SNT Deutschland AG. As CEO from 2000 to 2005, Knoll grew SNT into a leading German communications-services provider with roughly 16 locations, around 3,500 employees, and service revenue of nearly €200 million before he sold his remaining shares in 2005.

With the proceeds, Knoll and Vogel co-founded DFV Deutsche Familienversicherung AG in 2006 (BaFin insurance license effective 1 January 2007), self-financing the launch as the two sole shareholders and board members. After Vogel's death in 2015, Knoll became Chairman of the Management Board and the company's controlling majority shareholder. He positioned DFV as a digital, direct insurer offering supplemental health, care ("Pflege"), and property products, and is widely regarded in the German insurance industry as a digitalisation thought leader and product-development pioneer. DFV listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange's Prime Standard in 2018 — billed as Europe's first InsurTech IPO — raising roughly €80 million through the IPO and a later capital increase.

Beyond DFV, Knoll is an active publicist and public figure: he has authored books on leadership and digitalisation (e.g., *Preußen. Ein Beispiel für Führung und Verantwortung*, 2010; *Denken und Führen in Zeiten der Digitalisierung*, 2019), hosts a podcast/column, co-founded the "Montagsgesellschaft," served as Vice President of the German reservists' association (2011–2017), and holds the Ehrenkreuz der Bundeswehr in Gold (2004).

• Important caveat: Public sources document Knoll overwhelmingly as a *serial founder and operating CEO*, not as a prolific external angel. His signature "investments" have been his own companies — DIATEL DIREKT, SNT Deutschland, and DFV — which he and Philipp Vogel largely self-financed. No public record was found of a broad personal angel/seed portfolio; the "Angel Investors / Seed Round" label appears to come from investor-database classification rather than a documented deal history.
• Where he does deploy capital, it is founder-led and conviction-driven: he and Vogel bootstrapped DFV entirely themselves ("the founding financing of Deutsche Familienversicherung was provided exclusively by the two founders"), reflecting a preference for taking full ownership rather than syndicating early rounds.
• Sector conviction is insurance + digitalisation: he built DFV around simple, mobile-first, transparent "everyone understands it" insurance products and championed direct-to-consumer distribution — the themes he'd most credibly back in another company.
• He values operational discipline and profitability: DFV returned to the profit zone with ~€10.4M pre-tax profit and ~563,000 contracts in its record 2025 results, and planned its first-ever dividend — signaling a build-to-durable-earnings mindset over growth-at-all-costs.