Meet our team

It's all about trust - especially in a trustless architecture

Wolfgang Männel
Managing Partner

German, English, French

Frankfurt

Wolfgang worked in consulting, PE/VC, and startups in industries ranging from telco, construction, retail, and consumer goods in functions like IT, supply chain, sales & marketing, and strategy across Europe, the US, China, and India. Having witnessed many economic and technological hype cycles in his 35-year career, he has a good grasp on the sometimes long path to mass adoption and the critical triggers required to get there. He has made the experience that women and migrants often make the toughest founders.

European Business School

Mars Group

Capgemini invent

3i

Munich Innovation Group

Ben Horvath
Partner

German, English

Berlin

Ben, a lifelong gamer and sci-fi enthusiast, knows what it's like to be founder. His former startup, matching people based on their character, may not have achieved unicorn status. Still, it taught him valuable psychometrics skills that we use to support and benefit our founder teams every day. He is committed to both grand innovation and constantly improving the small details of our work with startups on a daily basis. He is also building lots of AI into our tech stack to become even better at deal sourcing and evaluating.

WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management

Rocket Internet

Frankfurt School Blockchain Center

ITSA

Blockrocket

Sagar Barvaliya
Partner

Gujarati, Hindi, English, German

Munich

Sagar is one of those people that make new friends every day. Deeply passionate about the potential of blockchain technology, he is our master networker creating valuable allies, helpful introductions for our portfolio companies, and strong connections within the web3 community. In addition, his multinational upbringing and engineering background make him feel at ease in almost any environment.

NMIMS University

TU Dresden

Porsche

Techstars

Blockrocket

Prof. Dr. Philipp Sandner
Venture Partner

German, English

Munich

By creating the Frankfurt School Blockchain Center in 2017 and contributing to the Web3 community through many conferences, round-tables, podcasts, and educational programs, Philipp has defined the German center of gravity for all things blockchain. Being in contact with the next generation of business leaders daily, he is convinced that Web3 technologies will eventually be everywhere.

Frankfurt School Blockchain Center

Bundesministerium für Finanzen

ITSA

University of Mannheim

Technical University of Munich

Munich Innovation Group

Ulrich Spindler
Venture Partner

German, English

Neustadt

Ulrich, a successful entrepreneur and founder of a mail-order pharmacy, knows firsthand the challenges and sacrifices that come with starting a business. His experience makes him well-equipped to support our startup teams and understand their passion and determination to succeed. In addition to his business ventures, Ulrich is an active angel investor dedicated to fostering the growth of talented founders.

University of Mannheim

KPMG

Medpex

Zur Rose Group

Peter Cullom
Venture Partner

English, German, French

Frankfurt

Peter is a veteran venture capital investor with thirty years of experience as a GP manager, angel, and LP investor. He has invested directly and indirectly in over 500 start-ups through four significant business cycles of growth and recession. Peter is a trusted advisor for many venture capital funds, and we are very fortunate to call him an esteemed advisor and a close friend.

University of Bradford

Louvain School of Management

Price Waterhouse

3i

ECM

Investec

Cullom Capital

Alex Höptner
Advisor

German, English, French

Frankfurt

Ever since entering the crypto space in 2013, Alex has been a strong advocate of the potential of tokenization for financial markets. With his experience at Deutsche Börse, as CEO at Börse Stuttgart and later at BitMEX, he played a pivotal role in launching the BISON app, which served as a gateway to Bitcoin for many newcomers. Alex's visionary mindset has always driven him to think big to explore the vast possibilities of crypto.

Goethe University Frankfurt

Duke University

Hochschule Reutlingen

Deutsche Börse AG

Börse Stuttgart

BitMEX

Euwax AG

Pranav Sharma
Advisor

Hindi, English

India and UAE

It is rare to meet a more thoughtful person than Pranav, the founding partner of Woodstock, a multi-asset investment fund focusing on early and growth-stage Distributed Ledger Technology startups. Pranav studied mechanical engineering at Pune University (India), the Asian Institute of Management (Philippines) and earned his MBA at HEC (Paris). His professional trajectory has traversed a wide spectrum, from engaging in strategic initiatives at Aditya Birla Group—an Indian multinational conglomerate—to immersing himself in the intricacies of Web3 protocols in his current capacity as an investor.

Vishwakarma Institute of Technology

Asian Institute of Management

HEC Paris

Woodstock Fund

Aditya Birla

Alternergy

Wolfgang Männel
Managing Partner

German, English, French

Frankfurt

Wolfgang worked in consulting, PE/VC, and startups in industries ranging from telco, construction, retail, and consumer goods in functions like IT, supply chain, sales & marketing, and strategy across Europe, the US, China, and India. Having witnessed many economic and technological hype cycles in his 35-year career, he has a good grasp on the sometimes long path to mass adoption and the critical triggers required to get there. He has made the experience that women and migrants often make the toughest founders.

European Business School

Mars Group

Capgemini invent

3i

Munich Innovation Group

Ben Horvath
Partner

German, English

Berlin

Ben, a lifelong gamer and sci-fi enthusiast, knows what it's like to be founder. His former startup, matching people based on their character, may not have achieved unicorn status. Still, it taught him valuable psychometrics skills that we use to support and benefit our founder teams every day. He is committed to both grand innovation and constantly improving the small details of our work with startups on a daily basis.

WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management

Rocket Internet

Frankfurt School Blockchain Center

ITSA

Blockrocket

Sagar Barvaliya
Partner

Gujarati, Hindi, English, German

Munich

Sagar is one of those people that make new friends every day. Deeply passionate about the potential of blockchain technology, he is our master networker creating valuable allies, helpful introductions for our portfolio companies, and strong connections within the web3 community. In addition, his multinational upbringing and engineering background make him feel at ease in almost any environment.

NMIMS University

TU Dresden

Porsche

Techstars

Blockrocket

Prof. Dr. Philipp Sandner
Venture Partner

German, English

Munich

By creating the Frankfurt School Blockchain Center in 2017 and contributing to the Web3 community through many conferences, round-tables, podcasts, and educational programs, Philipp has defined the German center of gravity for all things blockchain. Being in contact with the next generation of business leaders daily, he is convinced that Web3 technologies will eventually be everywhere.

Frankfurt School Blockchain Center

Bundesministerium für Finanzen

ITSA

University of Mannheim

Technical University of Munich

Munich Innovation Group

Ulrich Spindler
Venture Partner

German, English

Neustadt

Ulrich, a successful entrepreneur and founder of a mail-order pharmacy, knows firsthand the challenges and sacrifices that come with starting a business. His experience makes him well-equipped to support our startup teams and understand their passion and determination to succeed. In addition to his business ventures, Ulrich is an active angel investor dedicated to fostering the growth of talented founders.

University of Mannheim

KPMG

Medpex

Zur Rose Group

Peter Cullom
Venture Partner

English, German, French

Frankfurt

Peter is a veteran venture capital investor with thirty years of experience as a GP manager, angel, and LP investor. He has invested directly and indirectly in over 500 start-ups through four significant business cycles of growth and recession. Peter is a trusted advisor for many venture capital funds, and we are very fortunate to call him an esteemed advisor and a close friend.

University of Bradford

Louvain School of Management

Price Waterhouse

3i

ECM

Investec

Cullom Capital

Alex Höptner
Advisor

German, English, French

Frankfurt

Ever since entering the crypto space in 2013, Alex has been a strong advocate of the potential of tokenization for financial markets. With his experience at Deutsche Börse, as CEO at Börse Stuttgart and later at BitMEX, he played a pivotal role in launching the BISON app, which served as a gateway to Bitcoin for many newcomers. Alex's visionary mindset has always driven him to think big to explore the vast possibilities of crypto.

Goethe University Frankfurt

Duke University

Hochschule Reutlingen

Deutsche Börse AG

Börse Stuttgart

BitMEX

Euwax AG

Pranav Sharma
Advisor

Hindi, English

India and UAE

It is rare to meet a more thoughtful person than Pranav, the founding partner of Woodstock, a multi-asset investment fund focusing on early and growth-stage Distributed Ledger Technology startups. Pranav studied mechanical engineering at Pune University (India), the Asian Institute of Management (Philippines) and earned his MBA at HEC (Paris). His professional trajectory has traversed a wide spectrum, from engaging in strategic initiatives at Aditya Birla Group—an Indian multinational conglomerate—to immersing himself in the intricacies of Web3 protocols in his current capacity as an investor.

Vishwakarma Institute of Technology

Asian Institute of Management

HEC Paris

Woodstock Fund

Aditya Birla

Alternergy

What our founders think about us

No founders were harmed in the making of this statement

" Being a great  VC is an end-to-end process from deal sourcing to due diligence and ongoing investment monitoring to eventually exit. The Blockchain Founders team is very sincere about each step of the process. Their initial engagement and questioning were thoughtful and made us improve. Furthermore, while we now, almost a year later, navigate many changes in the market, they have provided significant inspiration that has led to our latest product offering. "

Fleur Heyns

CEO and Co-Founder of Proof