Thomas Grota

Thomas Grota is a German venture capitalist who spent the bulk of his career inside Deutsche Telekom's investment organization. He served as Investment Director at T-Venture Holding GmbH, the corporate venture capital arm of Deutsche Telekom AG, where he sourced and managed early-stage technology investments. By his own account he has worked in venture capital and the converging IT and telecommunications industries for more than fifteen years, helping portfolio companies sharpen their go-to-market strategy and product development.

After T-Venture was folded into the broader Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners (DTCP) structure — DTCP was founded in 2015 and has since raised more than $1 billion and backed 60+ companies — Grota's role evolved into a Senior Expert position focused on innovation, strategy, and technology investments at Deutsche Telekom Strategic Investments. He also describes himself as an angel investor, startup advisor, and advisory board member, operating beyond his corporate mandate.

Grota is an active public voice on corporate venture capital. He blogs at thomasgr.tumblr.com and publishes on Medium ("A personal view on Venture Capital"), and is a frequent conference speaker — for example at the "Pirates on Shore" event in Riga, where he spoke to founders about how VCs think in "a unicorn world" of high valuations and IPO metrics. His SlideShare presentations cover topics such as why VCs invest in the app economy and how startups should approach financing.

• Invests at the early stage (seed / Series A) in technology companies, historically across mobile internet, fintech/insurtech, big data, cloud platforms, and mobile security.
• Favors B2B technology players and platforms over feature-focused B2C startups, particularly within fintech and insurtech ecosystems.
• Advocates building a "long-term advantage" and durable, profitable business models rather than chasing short-term "disruption" narratives or pure customer-acquisition-driven scaling.
• Openly skeptical of unicorn valuations driven by funding momentum rather than fundamentals (a recurring theme in his talks and writing).
• In recent years has championed sustainability as an investment theme — his post argues "sustainability will eat the world," citing reusable consumer products, plastic-free retail, and mobility as opportunity areas.