New insights into the red-white-red fund of funds at the Investors Breakfast of invest.austria

Vienna, May 13: Today's invest.austria Investors Breakfast, part of Connect Day, focused on the planned red-white-red fund of funds. Experts from the European Investment Bank, Speedinvest , and invest.austria discussed the current status and next steps. It became clear: The fund of funds is one of the most important instruments for the future of Austria as a center of innovation and financing, and invest.austria plays a key role in this.

Several years ago, invest.austria, representing the interests of investors in Austria, initiated the concept of a fund of funds. Since then, the association has actively supported its implementation and provided advice.

Current status and international learnings

"We are currently seeing that politicians and the investor ecosystem are collaborating intensively and solution-oriented on the fund of funds – which is why we are now making great strides forward. Together with the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, with teams of experts and at the political level, we are working in a structured process to set up the fund of funds in a long-term and future-proof manner. Quality and sustainability take precedence over speed. At the same time, we are benefiting from the exchange with partners in countries such as Germany, Denmark and Switzerland, who contribute their two decades of experience. Our goal is a reliable, well-structured instrument for the location. invest.austria is exactly the right platform to pool expertise, voices from the ecosystem and international best practices," says Stefan Haubner , policy officer at invest.austria.

Markus Lang, General Partner at Speedinvest, emphasized: "An Austrian fund of funds can become a decisive lever for bringing substantial institutional capital into our tech startups, scaleups, and innovative SMEs for the first time. It strengthens investment cycles and growth, as we are already seeing successfully internationally, for example in the USA, where the tech industry contributes around two trillion US dollars to GDP annually and creates 3.7 million new jobs. Austria also has enormous potential: a better developed startup ecosystem could create 200,000 new jobs and economic growth of €85 billion."

invest.austria as a strategic sparring partner for politics

Since the official inclusion of the fund of funds in the government program in February 2025, invest.austria has been heavily involved in its implementation, in close coordination with the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. As the central point of contact, invest.austria contributes its expertise, advises political decision-makers, supports them with know-how transfer and networking, and also provides operational support for the process. With over 350 members, including leading angel investors, venture capital firms, and private equity firms, the association is an indispensable voice in the implementation of the concept.

In parallel, invest.austria is working on developing an information platform for the fund of funds, which will serve as a central point of contact for all stakeholders in the future. The website will bundle in-depth expertise, regular updates on progress, understandable explanatory formats, expert interviews, comparative data from Europe, and studies on the economic benefits. The goal is to create transparency, provide guidance, and actively shape public and political discourse.

"The fund of funds is no longer an abstract idea; it is taking concrete form. Now it's all about implementation, coordination, and the right design. This is precisely where we see our contribution," says Niki Futter, Chairman of invest.austria.

Sources:

• McKinsey: Scaling the startup ecosystem

• Statista: Tech GDP as a percent of total GDP in the US 2017-2023

• Statista: US jobs created by start-ups