Our Team
equation was founded in 2020 by Mark Schmitz and Prof. Dr. Reiner Braun who had met in the context of research and policy advisory exploring how to facilitate innovation and technological advancement in Europe.
Mark Schmitz
Co-Founder, CEO & Managing Partner
Mark Schmitz is a technology investor with over a decade of experience in venture capital. Prior to co-founding equation, he was a Partner and member of the founding team at leading European VC firm Lakestar. He established the firm’s Berlin office and invested in startups across a wide range of industries and technologies. Mark currently serves as Vice-Chairman of Germany’s Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVK), is a member of Founders Pledge and contributes to Ashoka’s Carry for Good initiative. He holds both law and business degrees (Bucerius Law School, TU Munich) and pursued post graduate studies at Stanford University before following his passion for entrepreneurship and Venture Capital.
Prof. Dr. Reiner Braun
Co-Founder, Partner & Chairman of the Supervisory Board
Prof. Dr. Reiner Braun leads the Chair of Entrepreneurial Finance at TU Munich, is a board member at the Center for Digital Technology and Management (CDTM) and has conducted academic research on private capital markets for over a decade. His projects have resulted in research stays at the University of Oxford and Harvard University. He has served as a strategic advisor to a Munich-based VC firm and is co-author of a study mandated by the National Academy Of Science and Engineering (acatech), in which the authors provided recommendations to enhance innovation in Germany by strengthening the growth finance ecosystem. One of those recommendations was to create improved financial products and platforms to bring together private investment groups and strengthen the European ecosystem - a starting point to what should later become equation.
Team
We believe that new solutions are best developed with an interdisciplinary team. We therefore work in an environment that accommodates different view points, interests and skills and have assembled a team hailing from five different countries with backgrounds in computer science, neuroscience, business and finance, law, economics and philosophy.
Neha Tanna, M.D
Investment Team
Neha holds degrees in medicine from Imperial College as well as King’s College and an MBA from London Business School. She has gathered investment experience as an Investment Partner atJoycane Partners, an early-stage fund focussed on investing in start-ups in Digital Health, Neuroscience, Diagnostics, Food technology, Synthetic Biology and Sustainability. Neha also gathered extensive experience investing in Venture Funds as Head of Health and Life Science at a Swiss Family Office. She serves as Venture Partner to the equation investment team.
Dr. Alexander Jürgens
Head of Finance & Operations
Alexander holds a PhD in Quantitative Finance from TU Munich and has conducted cutting edge research around cyclicality and heterogeneity in Private Equity. Complementing his academic accomplishments, Alexander has gathered comprehensive practical experience in previous positions as M&A Analyst at LNP Corporate Finance as well as Investment Manager working for Tiburon, a Munich-based family office, as well as Mountain Alliance, a stock-listed investment firm. He serves as Head of Finance & Operations.
Matthias Walter
Product Manager
Matthias joined equation upon inception after gathering experience in consulting at the Boston Consulting Group and Senacor Technologies. He holds degrees in business and entrepreneurship from HEC Paris, École Polytechnique as well as UC Berkeley. As Product Manager, he is responsible for the development as well as implementation of proprietary analytics software into daily investment operations.
Tetyana Pavlishevska
Executive Assistant
Tetyana holds degrees in Applied Linguistics and Translation Studies. Previously, she held positions in the healthcare industry and at a Munich-based law firm. She serves as Executive Assistant.
Victor Prüfer
Engineering Team
Victor holds Bachelor and Master’s degrees in Informatics from TU Munich. As Software Engineer, he is responsible for the software development of the equation analytics suite, most notably the equation software platform used to allocate capital in a data-driven and systematic manner.
Max Sina Knicker
Data Science Team
Max has a background in Physics. During his studies, he was a member of the CDTM at TU Munich and spent time at Princeton University and MIT, before pursuing a PhD at the Chair of Econophysics and Complex Systems at École Polytechnique. He serves as a Research Fellow as part of the equation data science team.
Stefan Weik
Data Scientist
Stefan is finalizing his PhD in Economics at TU Munich and holds degrees in Business and Engineering. His research has been cited by the European Commission and German Federal Government and was featured in prominent German publications such as the Handelsblatt and WirtschaftsWoche. He serves as Advisor to the equation data science team.
Christian Kiess
Visiting Analyst
Christian holds a degree in Management & Technology from TU Munich with a specialization in Informatics. With previous experiences in banking, start-ups, M&A as well as VC, Christian has already covered important aspects of the innovation ecosystem and continues to enable new entrepreneurial ideas through capital allocation as part of the equation investment team.
Andrea Casasco
Senior Investment Advisor
Andrea holds degrees in Law from Bocconi University and Harvard Law School and after serving as first employee in the equation investment team, now works as General Partner of a newly established VC fund while continuing to advise equation as Senior Investment Advisor.
Sebastian Erhardt
Senior Advisor
Sebastian holds degrees from LMU and TU Munich and was part of the CDTM honors program with a stint abroad at Stanford University before entering into a PhD program at the Max Planck Institute. With more than 15 years of experience as developer, consultant and CTO, he serves as Senior Advisor to the equation engineering team.