Meet Roland Fassauer, a tech pioneer, serial investor, and Professor at CODE University of Applied Sciences. Having co-founded Intershop in the early days of the commercial internet, Roland has been a mainstay in the European technology space for decades.
Today, he mentors the next generation of digital innovators while actively backing high-impact startups. We sat down with Roland to discuss his journey, his core advice for founders, and his vision for the European startup landscape.
- Hi Roland, thanks for agreeing to the interview. Could you tell us how you first got connected to the startup world?
I co-founded a company called Intershop back in the early 1990s. It eventually grew into a massive success, reaching a peak valuation of around $15 billion following our Nasdaq IPO.
- You’re currently involved in over 40 successful businesses. Tell us about your mission.
Actually, it’s closer to 80+ now! My mission centers on investing in early-stage startups, particularly those founded by our students. My primary focus areas are Software, B2B, AI, and Cybersecurity.
- You mentor the next generation of digital pioneers as a Professor at CODE University. Tell us more. What is it about entrepreneurship that particularly attracts you?
The easiest way to predict the future is to invent it. It is truly amazing to watch all these young people build new ideas and change the world.
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Please share three pieces of advice for founders that are vital for a startup’s survival.
– Focus, focus, focus
– Stay lean and avoid raising too much money too early
– It’s all about the team - Tell us about the German startup ecosystem, particularly your footprint across Berlin and Leipzig. What are the opportunities? What are the challenges? What do you predict for the near future?
There are lots of reasons to be optimistic. It’s a great ecosystem filled with incredible founding teams, and thanks to AI, this is one of the best times in history to launch disruptive companies.
In my opinion, we face one central challenge: Europe lacks a unified marketplace to effectively channel private and institutional capital into our own companies. This creates a bottleneck for wealth creation in Europe, but it’s actually an easy fix—it just requires minor regulatory tweaks with no government funding needed.
Insurers and private investors in Europe are sitting on billions. If we adjust regulations to enable them to invest directly in public stock markets, we will trigger a wave of IPOs. That way, global champions, productivity gains, and wealth stay right here in Europe.
Thank you very much for sharing your journey and opinion with us. We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.
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