Speedinvest is a Vienna-based venture capital firm founded in 2011. It focuses on early-stage startups across Europe, writing initial checks at pre-seed and seed stage and following on through Series A and beyond. The firm operates from offices in Vienna, Berlin, London, Paris, and Munich, giving it broad coverage of the European startup ecosystem.
Speedinvest raised its third fund – Speedinvest III – at €500 million, announced in 2022, making it one of the larger dedicated early-stage funds in continental Europe. Its investment thesis is sector-specific: the firm organizes its deal flow through dedicated vertical teams covering fintech, deep tech, health tech, consumer, and climate tech. This structure means each deal is led by partners with domain expertise rather than generalist investors.
The firm's geographic focus is primarily Europe, with particular density in the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) and the UK. It has also backed a small number of companies in Latin America and Southeast Asia where European founders or business models are expanding.
Notable investments
- Bitpanda – Austrian retail crypto investment platform, reached a $4.1 billion valuation in 2021 and is one of Speedinvest's most prominent exits by paper value.
- GoStudent – Vienna-born online tutoring marketplace that became one of Europe's fastest-growing edtech unicorns.
- Wayflyer – Revenue-based financing for e-commerce brands, headquartered in Dublin.
- Billie – Berlin-based B2B buy-now-pay-later provider targeting SME trade credit.
- Hokodo – B2B trade credit and embedded finance platform serving European merchants.
- Klar – Mexican neobank backed as part of Speedinvest's selective bets outside Europe.
- Blockpit – Crypto tax and portfolio tracking software, an Austrian company that fits squarely in Speedinvest's DACH fintech focus.
- TourRadar – Online marketplace for multi-day tours, an early portfolio company that demonstrated Speedinvest's consumer travel thesis.
Team
Oliver Holle is the founding CEO and Managing Partner. He previously co-founded the mobile ad network Mobilizy and held operating roles at Hutchison Telecom. His background is in product and growth, which shaped Speedinvest's founder-first, hands-on support model.
The firm's partner group is organized by vertical. Andreas Schwarzenbrunner and Max Riedel are among the partners who have led deals in fintech and consumer respectively. Public information on the full partner roster beyond Holle is limited – Speedinvest does not prominently publish partner bios at the individual deal level, and the firm has grown its team significantly since the Speedinvest III close.
Recent activity
Since closing Speedinvest III in 2022, the firm has been deploying capital across its vertical teams at a consistent pace. It has increased its focus on climate tech and industrial deep tech, sectors where European regulatory tailwinds – particularly under the EU Green Deal – create structured demand. The firm also expanded its London presence to capture more UK deal flow post-Brexit, where some continental capital dried up.
Bitpanda's trajectory has been the firm's most-watched holding in crypto. The exchange navigated the 2022 bear market with layoffs but remained operational and retained its Austrian banking license. Whether Speedinvest has realized any return on Bitpanda is not publicly confirmed as of mid-2026.
Speedinvest occupies a well-defined position: it is large enough to lead rounds and add operational support, but small enough to remain genuinely early-stage. Its vertical structure is a differentiator in Europe, where many seed funds still operate as generalists. The main risk is concentration – several of its high-profile bets, including Bitpanda and GoStudent, operate in markets that saw sharp corrections after 2021 peak valuations. How those holdings perform at exit will define the firm's Fund III returns. For crypto-native founders in Europe, Speedinvest – via Bitpanda and Blockpit – has shown consistent interest in regulated, compliance-first crypto infrastructure rather than speculative token projects.