Bernhard Niesner

Bernhard is that rare combination of experience, drive and execution, and he chooses every day to invest it in founders. He pushed our last fundraising round over the line, opened doors in his network that led to significant deals for Glacier, and keeps challenging me to focus on what truly matters as a CEO. He has helped us build a much stronger commercial engine, with a razor-sharp eye for detail and for what actually drives revenue. And above all, he is a great human and became a friend over time, something you cannot take for granted as a usual investor.

Rainhard Fuchs, Co-founder and CEO, Glacier

Bernhard is a rare combination: someone who has scaled a hugely successful business and genuinely cares about impact. He has an incredible ability to cut through the noise and turn OKRs into something a team actually executes on, and he does it with kindness and real listening.

Dr. Dijana Galijasevic, impact hero

Bernhard is amazing at helping me as a founder to simplify the business. At Tomorrow University we face many questions on how to best support our students: which programs to offer, which markets to serve, which languages to support and when, and which OKRs give the team the clearest guidance on those goals. Bernhard is a great sparring partner for exactly these strategic decisions and helps me turn complexity into clear priorities.

Christian Rebernik, CEO and Founder, Tomorrow University

What stands out about Bernhard is that, despite his incredibly busy schedule, he always finds time for the founders he backs. After a long event at the House of Lords, when most people would have called it a day, Bernhard was more than happy to head to a pub for another couple of hours to talk through Bactery's strategy, the challenges of moving from pre-seed to seed stage, and how to build the right team for our next chapter. That willingness to roll up his sleeves, challenge my thinking and genuinely invest his time in helping founders succeed is what makes him such a brilliant mentor.

Jakub Dziegielowski, Founder & CEO at Bactery

Bernhard has a remarkable ability to connect long-term ambition with short-term execution. As an entrepreneur himself, he understands the pressures and urgency we face, while bringing the experience and perspective to recognise what can genuinely make or break a business. He challenges our assumptions, helps us look beyond technical achievements towards tangible commercial progress, and pushes us to focus on the decisions and milestones that matter most today, without losing sight of our bigger ambition to build a relevant and impactful business. That combination of belief, support and constructive challenge has helped us move faster and make more meaningful progress.

Richard Alexandre, CEO & Co-Founder at Pyri