Team — Kiefern Ventures

The Team

"The only useful thing a VC who has run a company can offer is the honest account of where they got it wrong." — Lukas Bergmann

3 investment partners

20+ years operating experience

Lukas Bergmann

General Partner

Co-founded and scaled a B2B SaaS company in Berlin to 200 employees before a strategic exit in 2019. Spent the subsequent year as a venture partner at a European early-stage fund. Launched Kiefern in 2020 with a focus on AI-first B2B software transforming European mid-market operations.

Lukas's evaluative edge comes from having sold enterprise software to the same mid-market companies he now backs founders into. He knows what a VP of Operations at a 300-person German manufacturer needs to hear before signing a contract — because he has been in those rooms. His investment thesis is built on the premise that the bottleneck in enterprise automation is rarely technical; it is almost always commercial and organisational.

Katrin Schulz

Partner

Eight years in enterprise sales at two German SaaS unicorns, rising to VP Revenue. Joined Kiefern in 2021 to lead go-to-market diligence and portfolio revenue acceleration. Oversees Fund II deployment in workflow automation and horizontal AI platforms.

Katrin brings the most direct commercial value of anyone on the team. She has personally closed enterprise contracts with Mittelstand companies across nine verticals — she knows where the resistance is and how to structure products to reduce it. For Kiefern portfolio companies working on their first enterprise GTM motion, she is the person they call when the procurement process stalls. She also leads the fund's network of enterprise buyers who serve as informal reference accounts for portfolio products.

Maximilian Vogt

Principal

Former machine learning engineer at a research institute in Munich, followed by three years at a Berlin-based AI startup. Transitioned to venture in 2023, covering technical diligence for AI-native B2B deals across the DACH region.

Maximilian is the team member who reads the GitHub repository before the first meeting. His background means he can evaluate model architecture decisions, data flywheel credibility, and ML engineering quality in a way that most VC associates cannot — and he can do it quickly. He covers the DACH deal sourcing network and is the primary author of Kiefern's technical diligence framework, which has evolved substantially through Fund I deployment.

Office

Kiefern Ventures
Friedrichstrasse 68, 4. OG
10117 Berlin Mitte
Germany

Contact

[email protected] +49 30 2093 4871