Supporting translation of outstandinginnovations

PVP Advisors provides financial, business management and strategic advice and support to research institutions and companies. We mainly work with start-ups in the healthcare sector, but also offer our service to international corporate clients interested in the German innovation and start-up ecosystem.

Our service includes external assessment of projects, the provision of management resources as well as support in the strategic development of business ideas from creation to realisation. Due to our strong networks in the healthcare and the investment community, we selectively offer business development, fundraising and M&A resources to our clients.

Our Mission

Supporting outstanding scientists and entrepreneurs in validating their product ideas and solutions for successful commercialization and/or forming partnerships where we help them connect with corporate partners.

Our Vision

Translating outstanding science into commercial meaningful solutions.

Our Values

We strongly believe in the potential of innovations and partnerships to solve relevant problems in society.

Our Approach

By leveraging our long-standing venture capital expertise from PVP Advisors and its sister company Peppermint Venture Partners, we can help our partners to bring their innovations to market.

Team

Dr. Joachim Rautter

Managing Partner

Dr. Joachim Rautter

Managing Partner

Dr. Joachim Rautter is a co-founder and Managing Director of Peppermint VenturePartners GmbH and Managing Partner of the Peppermint Charité Biomedical Fund.

Prior to the launch of Peppermint VenturePartners, he was Investment Director at Peppermint Holding GmbH. There he was responsible for the investment activities of the Peppermint Venture Capital Fund (VC 1). He has more than 20 years of experience in the venture capital industry and was Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Scienion AG, as well as Chairman of the Advisory Board of JADO Technologies GmbH and Innolume GmbH and also served on the Board of CAP-CMV GmbH. He is currently Chairman of the Board of CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH, CellAct Pharma GmbH and Labforward GmbH as well as a Board Member of CryoTherapeutics SA.

Prior to joining Peppermint, he guided innovative start-ups in the field of start-up financing and entrepreneurial development. In addition, he was involved in key functions in the design and implementation of regional innovation strategies such as BioTOP Berlin-Brandenburg and the innovation concept of the German state of Brandenburg.

Joachim Rautter has a degree in physics and completed his PhD at the Max Volmer Institute for Biophysical Chemistry at the Technical University of Berlin.

Portfolio CBF-1

  • CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH
  • CryoTherapeutics SA
  • Labforward GmbH

Past Investments

Trade Sales
  • Scienion AG
  • CellAct Pharma GmbH

Dr. Klaus Stöckemann

Managing Partner

Dr. Klaus Stöckemann

Managing Partner

Klaus Stöckemann is co-founder and Managing Partner of Peppermint VenturePartners GmbH (PVP).

Prior to launching PVP, Klaus Stöckemann was general partner in the international healthcare venture team of 3i plc, an international Private Equity firm based in London. During his time at 3i he was responsible for more than 12 investments in Europe and the US. His track record includes not only the IPOs of Epigenomics, Jerini and Santhera, but also successful trade sales of Amaxa, Elbion and Evotec Neuroscience.

Before his tenure at 3i, he held leading positions in research and business development at Schering AG (now Bayer) and Asta Medica (a former Degussa-Hüls group subsidiary).

Klaus Stöckemann has been a member of the supervisory boards of Combinature, Epigenomics, Jerini, Amaxa, and Immatics, as well as IntelliDx and Zonare in the US. He is currently chairman of the boards of Emperra and Caterna as well as vice-Chairman of Implandata and board member at Humedics.

He has been an experienced venture capital investor for more than 20 years and was on the board of the German Venture Capital association (BVK from 2015-2020) working with politicians to improve the Venture Capital environment in Germany.

He holds a Ph.D in biology and pharmacology from the University of Mainz, as well as an MBA from WHU/Kellogg, Northwestern University in the United States.

Portfolio CBF-1

  • Emperra GmbH E-Health Technologies
  • Implandata Ophtalmic Products GmbH
  • Caterna Vision GmbH
  • Humedics GmbH

Past Investments

IPOs
  • Epigenomics
  • Jerini
  • Santhera
Trade Sales
  • Elbion
  • Amaxa
  • Evotec Neuroscience
  • Imtec
  • Zonare
M&A
  • Combinature

Stephanie Schlappa

Project Manager

Stephanie Schlappa

Project Manager

Stephanie Schlappa is working as a project manager for Peppermint VenturePartners since 2022.

She is currently finishing her PhD at the University of Potsdam. She is working on the inline monitoring of emulsion polymerization processes regarding absorption and scattering properties and particle characteristics for industrially relevant processes.

Prior to her PhD Stephanie graduated in Applied Chemistry from TH Cologne in 2018.

Projects

PVP Advisors is working with start-ups, research organisations and economic development agencies. For example PVP Advisors supports companies like Finda and others in their strategic considerations and development processes, e.g. investor and M&A readiness or business development.

https://www.linkedin.com/company/finda-rx/                                                                                 https://kiceurope.eu/

Many companies can profit from the sounding of their growth plans. PVP Advisors can provide an unbiased view on the business plan, the timelines and financial plan, as well as can make introductions to all relevant stakeholders.

Furthermore, PVP Advisors is a long-standing partner of the Helmholtz Association to provide the external management for the Helmholtz Validation Fund. PVP Advisors fulfils the role of project manager and controller, supporting the project owner on issues such as milestone planning, tech-transfer activities and spinning off projects from the research organisation.

Validation is one of the most critical phases in technology transfer. In this step, new technologies are transferred into applicable products and services. This involves identifying the most promising areas of application and developing working demonstrators, accelerating production outside the laboratory and, in the case of medical products, conducting pre- and early clinical studies.

With the establishment of the Helmholtz Validation Fund (HVF) in 2011, the Helmholtz Association introduced a new, cross-institutional funding instrument that taps resources from the Initiative and Networking Fund. The aim of the HVF is to close the existing gap between research results and their marketable applications and between public research and private institutions. The funding amounts from the Helmholtz Validation Fund are between 0.25 and 1 million euros per year. The aim is to evaluate new technologies in terms of their technical feasibility and to achieve a functioning prototype or an initial positive preclinical validation. In order to ensure professional guidance according to industry and venture capital standards, a network of industry experts and project managers assists the project owners.

50 projects were selected by the HVF and supervised by PVPA from 2011 to 2021, 33 of which focused on life sciences. The total funding of the projects amounted to €53 million. 6 of these projects were successfully spun off and 2 are currently part of the Helmholtz Enterprise Initiative (HE), which supports the first steps towards establishing a spin-off.  10 of the completed HVF projects have already generated returns from licensing income. Members of the PVP Advisors team serve on the jury of Helmholtz Enterprise.

The spin-off Priavoid (a former HVF project of Forschungszentrum Jülich) is developing a new compound against Alzheimer's disease, which has already been successfully tested in a phase I clinical trial that was part of the HVF funding. While this already represents a significant translational step from the research organisation, the phase II clinical trial is being conducted with the support of the Bundesagentur für Sprunginnovationen (“Federal Agency for Leap Innovations”), SPRIN-D.

Osteolabs GmbH, a spin-off from GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, offers tests for the early detection of osteoporosis and has already closed its 2nd round of financing, another example of the value of HVF and HE bridging a valuation gap to create a start-up and early commercialisation.