"It's easy to be a startup founder, but it's hard to be a successful entrepreneur building a large and sustainable company. My mission is to back entrepreneurial talent and help European founders succeed - whether in Europe or anywhere else.”

Florian's entrepreneurial awakening came in 1998 with a single domain name registration – a moment that revealed the internet's world-changing potential. This early insight into digital infrastructure became the foundation for a career spent at the intersection of technology and entrepreneurship.

After studying Law and Business at University of Bayreuth, he co-founded united-domains AG in 2000, building it into one of Europe's leading domain registrars and web hosting providers. As CEO for more than a decade, he scaled the company from a startup to an industry leader before successfully exiting to 1&1 Ionos Group in 2015.

Parallel to united-domains, Florian solved a personal frustration in 2007 when hunting for a condo in Munich led him to create neubau kompass. What started as an Excel spreadsheet evolved into Germany's leading real estate marketplace for new residential constructions, which he recently sold to Scout24 in December 2024.

Florian's transition from founder to startup investor began with his early bet on Foodora (acquired by Rocket Internet) in 2014, when he became their first angel investor at a time when few believed in the food delivery vision. This prescient investment marked the beginning of his investments in 60+ tech startups in Europe and the US, spanning diverse sectors from AI and fintech to healthtech and proptech.

His investment acumen earned him the prestigious "Business Angel of the Year 2018" award from the German Business Angels Association.

As a Founding Partner, Managing Director, and later Venture Partner, Florian was instrumental in building Signature Ventures – a Crypto VC –  from inception, defining its investment strategy and fostering a strong, founder-focused culture.

Signature Ventures is an early-stage venture capital fund with a clear investment thesis: backing visionary teams that build the backbone of a decentralized future powered by blockchain, distributed ledger technology (DLT), and Web3. The firm invests in startups developing open, secure, and privacy-centered infrastructure and applications, typically from pre-seed to Series A, with a strong focus on Europe but a global outlook.

In 2022, despite having the track record to pursue any venture path, Florian made a strategic decision to join Daniel Dippold as a Co-Founder of EWOR. As Chief Investment Officer, he saw an opportunity to scale his impact beyond individual investments to systematically foster entrepreneurial talent across Europe.

EWOR represents Florian's vision for what European entrepreneurship could become – an ecosystem where exceptional founders receive not just funding, but the mentorship, network, and resources needed to build globally competitive companies. His experience spanning two decades of founding, scaling, and investing provides EWOR fellows with battle-tested insights into the realities of building sustainable companies. .

"I want to give back and help founders build world-changing tech companies.. The future depends on connecting the right minds with the right resources at the right moment."