Founders

investing in other Founders

Four successful exits as founders and several exits - including two Unicorns - as first check investors. We are now sharing our experience to empower the founders of tomorrow.

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Why work with us

We are Investors with an Owner Operator Mindset

Our Approach
Our Focus
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Founder Led

We are founders and investors with more than three decades of experience in building companies from day one to exit.

Hands-On

We provide extensive experience and commit to a hands-on operational investor approach with deep partner involvement.

Driven by passion

We maintain transparency, simplicity, and humility.
The passion to work with great people is what drives us.

B2B SaaS & Deep Tech

Software and tech are fundamental drivers of change and growth. We bring decades of experience in B2B software and deep tech to the table. This is what we understand and where we can have a positive impact.

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Pre-Seed & Seed

There is no such thing as too early. We often talk to founders before a product exists, not to mention revenue. Typically we invest between 500k - 1.5m in (pre)-seed rounds. In 75% of the cases we are in the lead.

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Outstanding Founders

We are absolutely convinced that people make the key difference. We seek future innovators which can demonstrate empathy, resilience and a growth mindset.

People

Meet the Team

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Technology
Product Management
Founding Partner
Core-Team

Martin Altorfer

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Martin has 30 years experience in information technology. He was the founder and CEO/CTO of a number of companies including Active-Net AG, a leading Swiss ISP sold to UUNET 1999; BCAP AG, a Venture capital fund; Celeris AG, an internet security company sold to Swisscom 2005; replica, an online music company. He also served as CIO (Chief Information Officer) in one of Australia's largest companys, CSR Ltd. between 2007 and 2009. Since 2010, he has helped a number of companies with seed funding and close mentorship in all aspects of building a successful business. Among them Bexio AG, a SaaS company serving the Swiss SME market, where he was the seed investor and Executive Chairman, prior to the company's sale to Mobiliar insurance in 2018. Martin currently serves as a board member of Baggenstos AG, Bexio AG and Saporo AG.

Strategy & Growth
Finance
Founding Partner
Core-Team

Philippe Bubb

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Philippe has been passionate about the Internet since the nineties. He spent the first part of his career in investment banking, angel investing into consumer and tech startups and co-founding a wealth management boutique. Philippe was a first check investor in On Running and its Chairman from 2013 to 2018. He was an angel investor in SaaS company Bexio, which was sold to Mobiliar, an angel investor in UK digital wealth management company Nutmeg, which was sold to J.P. Morgan and currently serves as board member of several European startups. Philippe is a graduate of the University of St. Gallen with an MBA in finance.

Company building
Go to market
Partner
Core-Team

Jeremias Meier

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Jeremias brings 15 years of experience as a serial founder and CEO. His first company, a web development provider, was acquired by PWC. He then co-founded the market-leading SaaS accounting company bexio and led it to a successful exit. Today, Jeremias supports (SaaS) startups as a mentor, board member and investor. At session.vc he assists selected investments hands-on in company building, data-driven marketing and how to scale sales.

Research
Business Development
Investment Team
Core-Team

Vanessa Misselbacher

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Vanessa has extensive experience in the technology industry, specializing in e-commerce and productivity software. She has a track record as an entrepreneur, having co-founded two companies incl. one exit. Vanessa has also worked as a technology consultant at Accenture and has held positions in business development, technology and marketing at emerging companies. Vanessa holds an MBA from HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management, where she is an active mentor in the Venture Capital Club.

Product Management
Advisor
Advisors

Stefan Brunner

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Stefan is a Co-Founder of Bexio. As Product Lead he was responsible for the multiple award-winning “Business Software from the Cloud”, which has over 30’000 SMB customers and was sold to the Swiss insurance company Mobiliar in summer 2018. Today Stefan is an investor and advisor for ICT start-ups and venture capital companies.

D2C
Scaling
Advisor
Advisors

Samuel Wenger

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Sam is a member of On Running’s Executive Team and oversees its Direct to Consumer (DTC) division, including all of On’s ecommerce, own retail and customer experience. Prior to joining On in early 2017, Sam worked for six years at McKinsey & Company in Zurich, London and New York. Sam started out investing in fellow entrepreneurs early on and has co-invested alongside session.vc on several occasions. He helps session.venture to assess possible investment opportunities and acts as an advisor to existing portfolio companies, especially around digital and DTC topics.

We help our companies with their toughest challenges

Product & Technology

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Getting software architecture right from day one
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Setting up scalable infrastructure
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Strategic product management
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Growth & Traction

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Go-to-market fundamentals
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Building a data-driven marketing and sales motion
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Development of a successful and scalable revenue organization
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Team & Organization

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Mentoring & Coaching of Founders
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Recruiting of key hires
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Organizational development
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Interim C-Level engagement
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Funding & Finance

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Structuring financing and financial modeling
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Follow-on funding with own funds
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Introductions to international top VC
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Implementation of ESOP / PSOP
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Companies

Teams we’ve invested in.

Market leading Business Software for Swiss SME.

Real time air quality measurement.

Leading workspace management platform.

Next generation weather forecasting.

IT Security solution to resist attacks by reducing excessive access.

Cerrion automatically detect problems on factory production lines using advanced computer vision.

All Companies
Testimonials

Some words from our Founders

Quotation Mark

>75% of VCs never founded & scaled a company. Jeremias, Martin & Philipp are the opposite who all built companies and can & do therefore serve as trusted sparring partners for founders & startup leaders from their own experience.

Manuel Hartmann

Founder & CEO Salesplaybook

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I really love working with session.vc. All partners at Session are highly successful, smart, and driven - but still approachable.

Ivan Cossu

Founder & CEO of deskbird

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All three partners are superb. They are hands-on when we need them and leave us alone when we don’t need them. 10/10

Carlo Badini

Co-Founder & CEO of Pabio

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Jeremias and Martin are the best investors anyone could ask for. They are always there for us whenever we need sparring partner.

Karim Saleh

Co-Founder & CEO of Cerrion

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session.vc are a team of well connected, pragmatic operators, exactly what one needs at the earliest stage of building a company.

Andreas Brenner

Serial-Founder and CEO of Jua

Your Questions

Frequently asked questions

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What are your investement criteria?

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For us the most important criteria is the team. That is really the single most important criteria. We work with founding teams that not only have the necessary skills and experience but are driven to solve relevant problems in large markets through technology. In addition, we only invest when we are convinced that we can deliver value. That is why our focus is primarily on B2B and deep tech startups in the DACH region.

How do you support companies?

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We support founding teams in all aspects of building a successful company. Our complementary team has experience in Product, Technology, Financing, Strategy, Company Building and Go To Market. The support we provide is based on your needs. We can get very operational or enjoy watching your company thrive. When we are in the lead we usually have a board seat. That means we invest a lot of time to support and coach our founders in the best possible way. This usually goes much further than simply attending board meetings and reporting calls. But to be clear: You run the show!

How does the investment process look like?

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Once we are in touch and we believe that your startup could be a good fit for us, we make a first call. Afterwards we discuss the case in the team. For most, the process ends here. If we go deeper, another partner will join the discussion and more calls will follow. This process can take 1-2 weeks. It is important for us to get to know each other well and also to understand if and how we can help you.

How can I apply for a funding?

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Please use this form to submit your pitch deck. We will look at all decks and get back to you if your startup might be a good fit for us. Please understand that we cannot give detailed feedback on every deck.  Another effective way to get in touch with us is of course a warm introduction.

Who are your investors?

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We personally are our biggest investor. A large part of the capital in our fund comes from the partners. Furthermore, other entrepreneurs, senior executives and families we know and appreciate are invested with us.

Come build the next great company with us!
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