HZG Group Launches €50M Venture Capital Fund and Incubator

HZG Group

Lichtenfels/Coburg, Germany-based HZG Group has launched a €50M venture capital fund and incubator for 3D printing startups.

The firm has already held the first closing at €25m with Kerstin and Frank Carsten Herzog contributing know-how, network, and capital from more than 20 years of entrepreneurial activity.

The incubator with R&D facility will be established in Lichtenfels (Bavaria), which is one of the most important 3D printing centers worldwide.

Kerstin and Frank Carsten Herzog founded Concept Laser, now majority-owned by General Electric, based on their own research work. They developed the company headquartered in Lichtenfels, Bavaria, into a global market leader in the field of additive manufacturing. Over the past three years, various companies have invested more than 250 million euros in 3D printing infrastructure in the Lichtenfels region.

HZG Group operates:

  • a venture capital fund, called HZG Additive Manufacturing Tech Fund,
  • a startup incubator called Naddcon, for which a top-level research and development facility is planned, and
  • HZG NewConcepts for business angel activities pursued by Kerstin and Frank Herzog.

As venture capital investor, HZG Group invests in innovative 3D printing startups from the DACH region with Series A being the earliest. For startups still in seed stage, HZG Group is creating HZG NewConcepts, a VC vehicle pooling the
business angel activities of entrepreneurial investors Kerstin and Frank Carsten Herzog.
Access to the infrastructure in Lichtenfels, one of the world’s most important 3D printing hubs with a history of more than 30 years, with nearby universities and technical colleges, and with General Electric, one of the world’s largest industrial groups, serves as an additional plus for innovative teams and their ideas. The investment focus is on all segments of additive manufacturing and related industry areas: from machines and processes to applications and services, to robotics, automation, and AI applications.

FinSMEs

29/10/2021