Maschmeyer on three top investments – and his 300,000-euro wedding gift to Veronica Ferres
When Carsten Maschmeyer starts chatting, he not only reveals anecdotes from his life as an investor, but also gives insights into his marriage to Veronica Ferres.
Carsten Maschmeyer , once one of Germany's most successful founders with his not entirely uncontroversial financial services provider AWD, has established himself over the years not only as an investor but also as a media figure.
In the OMR podcast, Maschmeyer talks about three exciting top investments and reveals the extraordinary wedding gift he gave his wife.
In 2018, Maschmeyer invested in Modern Health, a platform that focuses on the mental and physical well-being of employees in innovative companies.
Maschmeyer was one of the first investors and backed founder Alyson Watson's startup at a valuation of $11 million.
"I was alone with Alyson at the closing dinner. I was the only investor who believed in her and gave her money," Maschmeyer says in the OMR podcast.
His courage was rewarded: just three years later, the company achieved unicorn status and was valued at $1.2 billion.
Presize.ai, a company that provides online shops with a digital size advisor, was also able to convince Maschmeyer of his vision.
In 2020, the company appeared on "The Lion's Den." Maschmeyer secured a 15 percent stake for 650,000 euros.
Two years later, the startup was acquired by Facebook parent company Meta – the first tech giant to swallow a startup from the show.
Meta has deep pockets. If they want to buy something, I just have to say, 'I can go to Google.' So you can have a little fun with the exit.
But the deal was initially on the rocks. Maschmeyer says that the founders of Presize.ai initially thought Meta's news was a joke:
"When a startup with 30 employees gets an email from Meta saying they want to talk about investment and strategy, they really think it's spam," the investor said.
Meta then contacted Maschmeyer, and the request turned out to be legitimate. Meta's exit became one of the greatest successes in the history of DHDL .
Another notable success was his investment in Finanzguru, now one of the largest bank-independent financial apps on the German market.
Maschmeyer invested one million euros in the startup, which was presented in DHDL in 2018 with a valuation of 6.6 million euros.
“This was the first company on ‘The Lion’s Den’ in which a DAX company was already involved,” says Maschmeyer.
Today, it is valued at approximately 200 million euros. Maschmeyer has not officially exited by selling his shares in the app.
But he was able to benefit significantly from the app's success through his early commitment and subsequent follow-up investments from partners like HDI.
The founders’ sales success is considered one of their greatest successes on DHDL.
The investor became engaged to actress Veronica Ferres in 2011. However, the two did not marry until 2014 in the South of France, as Maschmeyer artificially delayed the wedding.
The reason for this was that the wedding gift took more than three years to complete, as he reveals in the OMR podcast.
Ferres, who shot several films in Paris, had a special connection to the Rodin Museum, especially to Auguste Rodin's famous sculpture "The Kiss." Maschmeyer knew that only this sculpture could be the perfect wedding gift.
"Buying the sculpture from the Rodin Museum isn't possible; ten billion probably wouldn't have been enough. France won't give it away, and stealing it wouldn't work either," Maschmeyer jokes.
He therefore commissioned sculptors in Florence to create a duplicate. The cost was approximately 200,000 to 300,000 euros, and the construction time was three years.
Maschmeyer kept Ferres on board with vague excuses. For example, he claimed they couldn't get married because the World Cup was taking place in the summer or the hotel they had chosen was fully booked, he explains in the podcast. In the end, Ferres' patience apparently paid off.
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