Dirk Kanngiesser is the co-founder and CEO of the German Silicon Valley Accelerator. He is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist having been involved in the founding of many German and international start-ups. He is the principal founder and a Managing Partner of PolyTechnos, a transatlantic venture capital group. He has over 20 years of Venture Capital experience, mostly in partner roles. Dirk is also a partner of Cartagena Capital, a Munich based international investment advisory firm. Dirk has strong expertise in growth strategy definition and execution, and global business development in the ITC space.
He previously held a Partner position at Baring Private Equity Partners which gave him access to one of the most privileged networks in the investment industry. Prior to that, he worked at Procter & Gamble and Siemens, where he was an operative in brand management, product development, and project engineering.
Dirk serves(d) on the board of a number of international start-ups and has been an active angel investor. His most recent start-ups he co-seeded are AppCentral (U.S.) and Hemacon (Germany, India). He invested and/or has served on the board of a number of European success stories such as Danionics (IPO Copenhagen) and Gemplus (IPO France / Netherlands). He has laso served on the boards of a number of Venture Capital firms and as a member of the EVCA High Tech Committee. Dirk was a member of the German stock exchange task force in the creation of the Neuer Markt.
Dirk has studied in the U.S. and Europe and holds a dual citizenship (U.S. and German). He received his degree (Dipl. Ing.) in electrical engineering from Dortmund, Germany, and his MBA from Ann Arbor, Michigan. He served at the German Airforce Headquarters and holds a U.S. commercial pilot license. Dirk lives in the U.S.