Startup incubator and investor
Open for applications
201-500 employees
Rocket enables entrepreneurship. The mission is to build and invest in great technology companies globally through a unique blend of operational support and capital.
Jump to section
Rocket enables entrepreneurship. The mission is to build and invest in great technology companies globally through a unique blend of operational support and capital.
Rocket Internet has played a central role in the growing-up of European tech. As a venture fund, they have launched some of Europe’s biggest successes: Canva, HelloFresh, DeliveryHero, to name a few.
Unlike other Venture Funds, Rocket are operationally active and infamously will often start with a startup idea that has been copied from another market, then staff operators to execute, while it has over 50% equity, making founders more akin to employees of the fund.
The firm recently de-listed itself from the stock exchange in a buy back deal. In turn, they are building a new abstracted version of Rocket, launching a pre-seed fund - Flash Ventures, a venture fund - GFC, and a debt fund - Global Growth Capital.
The challenge for Rocket is staying relevant amongst its own more narrow creations. While the ‘copycat’ model fuelled its early success, the current climate of widely available capital has troubled this high-equity business. It remains to be seen whether this side of Rocket will re-emerge, or the Samwer leadership will be content with its more conventional subsidiary funds.
Steph
Company Specialist
Aug 2014
$852m
LATE VC
Jul 2013
$554.7m
EARLY VC
This company has top investors
Founders
Oliver Samwer
(CEO)Before founding Rocket in 2007, Oliver, together with his brothers, founded several other successful companies, including Alando.de. After the sale of Alando to eBay Inc., he worked as Managing Director of eBay and was responsible for Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
Jobs (5)
Operations & Strategy