1. With a €200 million commitment over five years, how will you measure the success of Fresenius Ventures? Is this strictly about financial ROI, or are you prepared to back startups that might actively disrupt Fresenius’s existing core business?

Success has two dimensions for us - strategic and financial. We expect every investment to offer an attractive venture risk-return profile. At the same time, Fresenius Ventures is a strategic instrument that gives us early access to technologies, business models and entrepreneurial talent in growth fields adjacent to our three strategic platforms: (Bio)Pharma, MedTech and Care Provision. It can also create opportunities for future partnerships, licensing or M&A deals. We will therefore assess financial performance alongside strategic outcomes such as portfolio quality, insights generated, collaborations enabled and credible pathways to value creation for Fresenius.

We are also prepared to invest in technologies that challenge existing products or enable new care models. Our role is to identify where healthcare is heading and enable Fresenius to engage with emerging change early. We would rather understand and help shape disruption than react to it too late.

2. Fresenius operates Europe’s largest private hospital group with Helios. Will the fund act as an exclusive fast-track to deploy new technologies directly into your clinics, or will your investment decisions be completely independent of Helios's day-to-day procurement needs?

Fresenius Ventures does not invest to fulfil a procurement need, and an investment from us does not imply a commercial contract. Investment decisions must stand on their own strategic and financial merits. Equally, Helios and Quirónsalud continue to select solutions based on clinical need and value, quality and operational fit.

We may explore the opportunity to engage with expertise from one of Europe’s leading care-delivery networks, with around 140 clinics and extensive outpatient operations. Where there is mutual interest, we can connect founders with clinicians, operators and subject-matter experts for feedback, validation, and potentially a pilot or partnership. Any collaboration must follow the relevant clinical, procurement, data-protection and compliance processes that apply to other external partners.

And it is not exclusive. Our portfolio companies need the freedom to serve the broader market across customers and geographies. That makes them stronger businesses and, ultimately, better investments.

3. The fund specifically highlights frontier fields like precision nutrition and the microbiome. Given Fresenius’s traditional strength in heavy medtech and acute hospital care, why are you branching out into these early-stage, wellness-adjacent sectors now?

I would draw a clear distinction between consumer wellness and medical nutrition. Medical nutrition is one of Fresenius Kabi’s core businesses. We are a global leader in enteral and parenteral nutrition for critically and chronically ill patients, so this is not a departure from our core capabilities.

Precision nutrition is about how nutritional interventions can be tailored to an individual patient, a specific disease state and a particular point in the care pathway. The microbiome could become one important part of that approach, alongside biomarkers, diagnostics and data supported by AI-analytics. The science is still evolving, so we assess opportunities carefully. Strategically, these are adjacent innovation fields that build on Fresenius’ long-standing capabilities in medical nutrition and care delivery. Our focus is healthcare, not consumer wellness.

4. Founders often fear that corporate investors move too slowly or try to lock them into restrictive partnerships. How do you convince a top-tier digital health founder to choose a corporate fund like Fresenius over a traditional, fast-moving tech VC?

The concern is legitimate, and our answer has to be demonstrated through how we work. Having founded two companies myself, I know that a slow “maybe” can be more damaging than a fast, well-explained “no”. We therefore commit to focused diligence, transparent timelines and timely decisions.

We invest on market terms. We do not make exclusivity, rights of first refusal or commercial agreements a condition of our investment. Our portfolio companies must remain free to work with the customer, partners and potential acquirers that are right for them.

What we add is healthcare depth: medical, regulatory and operational expertise, together with access to clinical, scientific and academic networks. Strong technology is essential, but success in healthcare also depends on demonstrating clinical relevance and measurable value within regulated systems. That is where Fresenius can contribute.

We also do not see corporate versus financial venture capital as competing models. The strongest syndicates often combine an experienced financial lead with strategic investors who know the market. We actively want to co-invest with leading funds.

Austria is a natural market for us to explore, with a strong life-science base in Vienna, Graz and Innsbruck, excellent clinical research [institutions] and a growing founder scene close to our home market. We want to become a visible and accessible partner for Austrian founders.

5. By investing in external startups, you might back technologies that compete directly with Fresenius Kabi’s product pipeline or challenge Helios’s operational structures. How do you plan to manage these inherent corporate conflicts of interest at the board level?

Through clear governance and disciplined information management. We look for potential overlaps with Fresenius businesses during diligence and continue to monitor them as both the portfolio company and Fresenius evolve. Confidential portfolio information is ring-fenced within the investment team. Business units may contribute expertise, but they do not get access to a startup’s sensitive data unless this has been explicitly agreed.

Where a specific conflict arises, we respond proportionately. That could mean limiting information flows, recusing an individual from a discussion, adjusting our board participation, or in some cases we may decide not to invest at all.

Strategic tension is not necessarily a problem. A good venture portfolio should challenge established assumptions. The goal is to engage with that change while protecting the interests of both the portfolio company and Fresenius.