Well I promised you an interview with Nicolas Berg from
Redalpine venture partners who has been behind many successful startups in Switzerland and is now widening his start up net.
So here goes.
1. Where is your home town?
Gstaad, Switzerland
2. Where are you living now?
In Solothurn, Switzerland.
2b. What are you doing now?
I co-founded Redalpine Venture Partners with partners in August 2007 to invest in highly scalable European start-ups. It’s one of the few venture funds that focuses on the finance gap («valley of death») of investments in the range of €200k to €2m.
3. What were you doing before this?
Since 1984 I have been a serial entrepreneur. I initiated eight start-ups, among others the financial platform borsalino.ch in 1998 and sold it to Switzerland’s leading publisher Ringier in 2000. Since that trade-sale I spent seven years as a full-time angel investor investing in 16 start-ups such as Genevalogic or XING, the leading European platform for business networking that went public 2006.
3b. So you have been an entrepreneur from the start?
No, in between I checked out how it is to work as an employee: 1986-87 I was working as a sales coach in Norway, 1989-90 as a part-time human resources lecturer at the University of Berne, 1992-98 as an editor for a daily newspaper.
4.What did you study after school?
1980-85 I studied law and business administration in Berne. At the same time I competed in alpine ski races with the Swiss university team, travelled for three months in the USA, supported political activities of social democrats and a green party, and I started my first company that sold PCs, software and networks.
5. What did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to become an architect, a painter, a writer of screenplays or a theatre director.
6. Tell me how your present company came about?
After seven years as a full time business angel I searched for a better business model to fill the European early-stage finance gap. Together with my closest co-investors we had several successful exits with half a dozen «disruptive» companies but we were stressed due to no regular income, and we often lost time for syndicating with other investors. By starting Redalpine we wanted to create a new mix by combining best practices of professional angels (speed & gut feeling) and VC funds (investment power & coherent investment process).
7. Explain Redalpine Venture Partners to me?
As serial entrepreneurs and investors Redalpine’s partners have a strong network. It provides a deal-flow of more than 1000 early-stage business plans annually. We select about 20-30 truly talented entrepreneurs with a disruptive and scalable business model that seem to fit best in our pro-active investment strategy. Then we discuss how we might achieve success together. We end up with about eight investments p.a. – some as a lead investor – negotiating deal terms & active member of the board –, some as a co-investor –leveraging our network by door opening. The investment goal is always to sell the company within two to five years and realising a two-digit valuation multiple.
7b. Who invested in Redalpine?
We are three full-time investment managers and at the same time General Partners (GP) of the fund. The GP is the biggest investor, but we also raised funds from three dozen successful entrepreneurs and financiers in six European countries. These Limited Partners add a lot of value by leveraging our capital and network.
8. What is your vision for it?
We want to be the most successful European early-stage high-tech fund by 2014. If we achieve a high profit we will also have continued to contribute to the creation of thousands of new jobs. And the disruptive technologies of our portfolio will improve the health of the over-all economy.
9. What would you like to do next?
Redalpine II. Maybe it will again finance ICT and science based companies, maybe we will go for green technologies. Personally I would like to do more sports or become what I originally wanted to be: a screenplay writer or director.
10. What does your family think of your job?
My kids (9 and 11) tell friends that Nicolas is working in the Internet and that he «buys» companies cheap and sells expensive. They like that I now am more often at home than during my days as a dotcom founder. When I say no to some of the «investments» they propose they suggest: «You better go and find a job with a real salary, man!»
11. What are you most proud of professionally?
I am most proud of a few good stories as a journalist. And I am proud of some of my start-ups that changed the way of doing things such as social networking, recruitment fairs, speed executive search, super-learning or premedical coaching. The top exit with borsalino.ch was nice as well because I suddenly had enough money to build a house and to learn the profession of a full-time venture investor.
12. Which book are you reading at the moment?
On my bedside locker you will find half a dozen Norwegian, Swedish and Danish detective novels, a biography on German-Sicilian Emperor Frederick II von Staufen (1208-1250) and a book from last year that predicts the financial crisis.
13. What other profession would you like to try.
To become a professional athlete I should be a little younger. So I have to go for actor, movie director, novel writer or painter.
Interview copyright
Wisequeen
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Donna Jackson
Social Communications Specialist.
So what do you think ? Do the Swiss Tech start-ups rival Silicon valley? Is Switzerland the new Silicon valley? Let's debate this with intense debate.
Tell us what you think - comment above .
Sunday, February 1, 2009 at 4:43PM 
