Erfahren Sie alles über die FlexCo (Flexible Kapitalgesellschaft) – ihre Vorteile für Startups und Unternehmen in Österreich: flexibles Kapital, Unternehmenswertanteile, vereinfachte Gründung. Flex Co. Die FlexCo ist da – Die neue Rechtsform für Startups und Innovation in Österreich Initiiert von invest • austria Entwickelt für Gründer:innen, Investor:innen und die Zukunft! Discover More Was steckt hinter der FlexCo? Die neue Rechtsform für Startups und Innovation in Österreich Seit 2024 steht die Flexible Kapitalgesellschaft (FlexCo) Gründer:innen, Investor:innen und innovativen Unternehmen in Österreich zur Verfügung. Diese moderne Rechtsform vereint die Stärken bestehender Gesellschaftsformen und wurde gezielt auf die Bedürfnisse des Startup-Ökosystems zugeschnitten. Was macht die FlexCo besonders? Die FlexCo kombiniert die Vorteile der GmbH – wie einfache Gründung und überschaubare Struktur – mit Elementen der AG, etwa flexiblen Beteiligungsmodellen und verbesserten Möglichkeiten zur Kapitalaufnahme. Mit einem reduzierten Mindeststammkapital von nur 10.000 € erleichtert sie den Zugang zum Unternehmertum und schafft gleichzeitig klare Regelungen für Mitarbeiterbeteiligung und Investor:innen. Besonders für Startups, Scale-ups und technologieorientierte Unternehmen bietet die FlexCo entscheidende Vorteile: Sie ermöglicht vinkulierte Anteile, erleichtert Exit-Szenarien und bietet mehr Spielraum bei der Anteilsvergabe – bei gleichzeitig hoher rechtlicher Sicherheit. Für Investor:innen bedeutet das: Professionelle Investitionsstrukturen, erhöhte Transparenz und bessere Planbarkeit. Gleichzeitig bleibt der Verwaltungsaufwand im Vergleich zur AG gering – ein echter Pluspunkt für wachstumsstarke junge Unternehmen. Ein Meilenstein für Österreichs Innovationslandschaft Die FlexCo macht Unternehmertum einfacher, attraktiver und international wettbewerbsfähiger.

Lesen Sie die Executive Summary zum rot‑weiß‑rot Dachfonds: Wie institutionelles Kapital gebündelt, VC/PE-Fonds unterstützt und die heimischen Startups gestärkt werden. invest • austria Executive Summary: Der rot-weiß-rot Dachfonds Become a Member Eine aktuelle Studie zeigt einen Rückgang der Gesamtfinanzierung in Österreich um 17% im Jahr 2024. Der rot-weiß-rot Dachfonds soll helfen, diese Finanzierungslücke zu schließen. Der Dachfonds soll das Kapital österreichischer institutioneller Investoren wie Pensionskassen, Versicherungen, Stiftungen und Banken bündeln und in Venture Capital- und Private Equity-Fonds investieren. Diese wiederum finanzieren österreichische Startups und KMUs. Der Dachfonds dient als Risikopuffer, der es auch risikoaversen Investoren wie Pensionskassen und Stiftungen erleichtert, in die österreichische Wirtschaft zu investieren. So bleibt Kapital im Land, statt überwiegend am internationalen Kapitalmarkt – und damit außerhalb Österreichs – angelegt zu werden. Der Fonds erleichtert jungen und kleinen Unternehmen den Zugang zu frischem Kapital und unterstützt ihr Wachstum. Dadurch wird verhindert, dass innovative Unternehmen aufgrund besserer Finanzierungsmöglichkeiten ins Ausland abwandern, wie es bisher häufig der Fall ist. Ein Blick auf erfolgreiche europäische Vorbilder zeigt, dass dieses Prinzip funktioniert: In Deutschland speist sich der Wachstumsfonds mehrheitlich aus privaten Mitteln. Zu den Investoren gehören neben dem Bund und KfW Capital als Ankerinvestoren über 20 institutionelle Investoren, darunter Versicherungen, Versorgungswerke, Stiftungen, Vermögensverwalter und große Family Offices. Dieser Wachstumsfonds hat bereits erhebliche Zusagen für Venture und Private Equity Fonds gemacht, die einen Investitionsschwerpunkt in Deutschland haben. Dänemarks erster Wachstumsfonds, gegründet 1992, erzielte über 17 % jährliche Rendite und ermöglichte damit deutlich größere Folgefonds. Die staatliche Investitionsbank BPI (Banque Publique d'Investissement) in Frankreich investiert jährlich über 1 Milliarde Euro in Fonds. Der Dachfonds hat zum Ziel, den Innovations- und Wirtschaftsstandort Österreich zu stärken, die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit des Landes zu erhöhen und langfristig zur Schaffung neuer Arbeitsplätze sowie zum Wirtschaftswachstum beizutragen.

Seien Sie Teil der exklusiven Investors Lounge von invest.austria – privates Networking, hochwertige Gespräche und direkter Austausch auf Augenhöhe. Was ist die Investors Lounge? Die invest austria Investors Lounge ist eine monatliche Veranstaltung, die den Austausch zwischen Investor:innen fördern soll. Jede Session konzentriert sich auf relevante Themen aus den Bereichen Venture Capital, Private Equity, Family Offices und dem weiteren Ökosystem, jeweils präsentiert durch kuratierte Formate wie Panels, Keynotes, Fireside Chats und Startup Pitches. Jetzt Mtiglied werden Für wen ist es gedacht? Die Teilnahme ist exklusiv für invest • austria Mitglieder. Angel Investor:innen Venture Capital und Private Equity Fonds Family Offices Institutionelle Investor:innen Ökosystempartner Investors Lounge Wo Österreichs Investor:innen zusammenkommen, wachsen und co-investieren. Die Investors Lounge ist das pulsierende Herz des Netzwerks, ein exklusives, monatliches Veranstaltungsformat für alle invest austria Mitglieder. Mit inspirierendem Input, tiefgreifenden Diskussionen und hochwertigen Verbindungen schaffen wir einen Raum für Lernen, Wachstum und Co-Investmentmöglichkeiten. Mitglied werden Private Capital for Tomorrow Sind Sie daran interessiert, Mitglied zu werden und Ihre Reise als Investor:in zu beginnen? Möchten Sie mehr über die Vorteile einer Mitgliedschaft in unserem Netzwerk erfahren? Wir freuen uns darauf, mit Ihnen ein unverbindliches Erstgespräch zu führen. Kontakt aufnehmen invest • austria Investors Lounge 8. Dezember 2026 Investors Lounge Dezember Read more 13. Oktober 2026 Investors Lounge Oktober Read more 8. September 2026 Investors Lounge September Read more 9. Juni 2026 Investors Lounge Juni Read more 12. Mai 2026 Investors Lounge Mai Read more 14. April 2026 Investors Lounge April Read more 10. März 2026 Investors Lounge März Read more 10. Februar 2026 Investors Lounge Februar "Im Fadenkreuz der Hacker: ..." Read more 13. Jänner 2026 Investors Lounge Januar Read more 9. Dezember 2025 Investors Lounge Dezember Read more 7. Oktober 2025 Investors Lounge Oktober Read more 18. September 2025 Investors Lounge „Expanding Horizons“ mit SFG, CVF & Slovenian Business Angels Read more 9. September 2025 Investors Lounge September Read more 10. Juni 2025 From Boomers to Gen Z: Rethinking Investing Across Generations Read more 20. Mai 2025 KMU-Investitionen neu gedacht: Wie gelingt es uns, das Rückgrat der Wirtschaft zu stärken? Read more 8. April 2025 VC/PE Meetup April Read more 11. März 2025 Follow-on Success: How to Keep Your Rights & Raise/Invest Smart Read more 11. Februar 2025 The current state of AI - what we learned and where we see it going Read more 14. Jänner 2025 FL/GHTKEYS - Take-Off to Exit: Eine Erfolgsgeschichte aus Gründer- und Investorensicht Read more invest • austria Investors Lounge First Prev 1 Seite 1 Next Last 8. Dezember 2026 um 17:00:00 Investors Lounge Dezember Read More 13. Oktober 2026 um 16:00:00 Investors Lounge Oktober Read More 8. September 2026 um 16:00:00 Investors Lounge September Read More 9. Juni 2026 um 16:00:00 Investors Lounge Juni Read More Anprechpersonen Daniela Haunstein General Manager Mert Ravci Head of Events & Digital Operations

Beyond the Hype: 5 Real-World Lessons from Building a B2B AI Tool, Robert Kopka, founder of StartMatch.ai, shares key lessons from building a B2B AI platform that streamlines grant applications, emphasizing thoughtful model selection, privacy, technical challenges, customer AI literacy, and the affordability of modern AI tools. Beyond the Hype: 5 Real-World Lessons from Building a B2B AI Tool 20.3.25, 11:00 Robert Kopka, founder of StartMatch.ai, shares key lessons from building a B2B AI platform that streamlines grant applications, emphasizing thoughtful model selection, privacy, technical challenges, customer AI literacy, and the affordability of modern AI tools. Practical wisdom for founders and investors navigating the AI landscape Funding a startup is tough. As someone who founded a hardware B2C company a decade ago, I know firsthand how challenging it can be to secure investment for high-risk, capital-intensive ventures. While equity funding was my initial goal, I quickly discovered the value of public grants as an alternative funding source. The process, however, was far from efficient. I spent weeks and months searching for suitable grants and writing applications—valuable time that should have been dedicated to product development and customer acquisition. This personal frustration led to the founding of StartMatch.ai , an AI-powered platform that generates tailored applications in less than half the traditional time. By giving founders back their most precious resource—time—we help them focus on what truly matters: building their products and serving customers. Along our journey developing this B2B AI tool, we’ve gathered several important insights that may benefit both startups building AI solutions and the investors supporting them. Learning #1: AI Doesn’t Equal AI – Model Selection Matters One of our earliest and most significant realizations was that not all AI models are created equal. The performance of LLMs varies dramatically, and selecting the right one for your specific use case can be a game-changer. When we began developing StartMatch.ai , we initially experimented with several popular models. The differences in output quality and consistency were striking. Some models excelled at creative writing but struggled with structured documents like grant applications. Others demonstrated impressive factual recall but lacked the writing capabilities essential for compelling applications. For startups building AI tools, it’s critical to rigorously test multiple models against your specific requirements rather than simply selecting the most hyped option. For investors, understanding that a startup has conducted thorough model evaluation and selection can be a strong indicator of technical diligence. Learning #2: B2B Customers Prioritize Privacy and Data Protection If you’re building a B2B AI product, prepare for intensive discussions about data protection, GDPR compliance, and privacy. We received more questions about these areas than about features or capabilities. We discovered that prospective customers are as interested in our AI’s impressive writing abilities as in how we handled their sensitive business information. Questions about data storage, processing locations, and security measures dominated our sales conversations. For startups, building good safeguards from the ground up is far more efficient than retrofitting them later. For investors, recognizing that privacy features are not just compliance requirements but essential selling points in the B2B space can help identify promising AI ventures. Learning #3: LLMs Struggle with Consistency and Counting While LLMs demonstrate remarkable capabilities in many areas, they have specific limitations that required substantial engineering to overcome. Grant applications typically have strict character or word count limits. We discovered that LLMs are surprisingly poor at counting and consistently staying within these boundaries. What seemed like a straightforward requirement—”write a compelling project description in 2,000 characters”—often resulted in submissions that were significantly over or under the limit. Similarly, consistently extracting data from resource documents proved challenging. And it makes a big difference if the maximum supported project volume is €20.000 or €200.000. Addressing these limitations required developing specialized prompting techniques, implementing post-processing validation systems, and creating robust review mechanisms. For AI startups, recognizing and engineering around these model limitations early can prevent significant issues later. For investors, understanding that successful AI products require substantial engineering beyond simply connecting to an API is crucial for evaluating technical teams. Learning #4: AI Literacy Remains Surprisingly Low Despite ChatGPT being publicly available for over two years, we’ve found that AI literacy among potential B2B customers varies dramatically. Many of our customers have limited experience with AI tools, often citing privacy concerns and fears about hallucinations as reasons for their hesitation. This lack of familiarity creates some challenges. For startups, gauging your target market’s AI literacy and tailoring your messaging accordingly is essential. For investors, companies that demonstrate awareness of and strategies for addressing varying AI comfort levels may be better positioned for broader market adoption. Learning #5: LLMs Are Relatively Affordable One of the most pleasant surprises in our journey has been the accessibility of powerful AI models. Every major LLM provider offers generous free credits for startups, and even their regular pricing remains reasonable considering the capabilities these models deliver. The intense competition between OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and the advent of open source models has created a favorable environment for startups building on these foundations. This competitive landscape has not only kept prices in check but has also accelerated model improvements and specialization. For startups, this means that building sophisticated AI products is more financially viable than ever. For investors, it highlights that the barrier to entry for AI startups has shifted from access to technology to the quality of implementation and domain expertise. The Path Forward Building a B2B AI tool has been a journey of continuous learning and adaptation. At StartMatch.ai , we’ve transformed my personal frustration with grant applications into a solution that helps founders reclaim time for what matters most—building great products and serving customers. For those considering similar ventures, remember that success in B2B AI isn’t just about having the most advanced models, but about thoughtfully applying them to solve real business problems while addressing the legitimate concerns of enterprise customers. And for investors evaluating AI startups, looking beyond the hype to examine how companies handle model selection, data privacy, technical limitations, customer education, and cost optimization may provide valuable signals about their potential for long-term success. __ About the Author: Robert Kopka is the founder and CEO of StartMatch.ai , an AI-powered platform that helps startups find and apply for suitable grants in half the time. He is also the founder of Luke-Roberts.com where he developed smart lighting solutions before he sold the company to a competitor in 2021. invest • austria News Jetzt Mitglied werden Vorheriger Artikel Nächster Artikel

invest.austria is the national representation of interests of investors of the pre-IPO capital market in Austria. Johannes Cech ARotB for Startups Johannes Cech studied Business Administration at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. He spent the majority of his professional career at the price comparison platform Geizhals.at, which he helped build for 13 years. Since his exit in 2016, he has been investing as a business angel in numerous early stage startups. In 2019, he founded Startup Manufaktur, a venture builder focused on creating technology startups and supporting them on their path to market entry. Back Next

Investors Lounge März , Investors Lounge März 10. März 2026 um 17:00:00 Jeden zweiten Dienstag im Monat findet unser Networking Event für unsere Mitglieder statt. Wir laden euch herzlich zu unserer nächsten Investors Lounge ein. Weitere Infos folgen. invest.austria Mitglieder erhalten den Link zur Anmeldung per E-Mail. Interessierte Investor:innen können sich unter office@invest-austria.com melden. Become a Member Investors Lounge März 10. März 2026 um 17:00:00 Jeden zweiten Dienstag im Monat findet unser Networking Event für unsere Mitglieder statt. Wir laden euch herzlich zu unserer nächsten Investors Lounge ein. Weitere Infos folgen. invest.austria Mitglieder erhalten den Link zur Anmeldung per E-Mail. Interessierte Investor:innen können sich unter office@invest-austria.com melden. invest • austria Events Become a Member

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invest.austria is the national representation of interests of investors of the pre-IPO capital market in Austria. Stefan Haubner Board Member & BdV Politik General Partner at APEX Ventures and responsible for Fund Operations as COO. In parallel, member of the VC Council at Invest Europe and of the Startup Advisory Board of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Labour and Economy. Previously a career officer, security advisor and business angel. Back Next

Masterclass September, Wiener Börse AG, Wallnerstraße 8, 1010 Wien, Austria Masterclass September 9. September 2025 um 14:00:00 Wiener Börse AG, Wallnerstraße 8, 1010 Wien, Austria Speaker: Thomas Rainer, MA Head of Member Sales & Business Development at Wiener Börse AG This session will be held in English. Become a Member Masterclass September Wiener Börse AG, Wallnerstraße 8, 1010 Wien, Austria 9. September 2025 um 14:00:00 Speaker: Thomas Rainer, MA Head of Member Sales & Business Development at Wiener Börse AG This session will be held in English. invest • austria Events Become a Member

invest.austria is the national representation of interests of investors of the pre-IPO capital market in Austria. Markus Lang Board Member As the lead partner in Speedinvest's SaaS & Infra team, Markus divides his time between Berlin, Vienna and London, backing the very best B2B software entrepreneurs all across Europe. He is an operator-turned-founder-turned-VC with nearly 15 years of experience in running, scaling, and advising tech startups from zero employees to thousands. Markus has written checks for 50+ companies, usually as their first institutional, and more often than not, pre-revenue, product, and sometimes incorporation. As such, he has been the first-cheque investor in companies such as GoStudent, Prewave, Refurbed, Gigs, Upvest, Shapr3D, Opal and Sona. Markus is passionate about championing wildly ambitious founders who aim to digitize traditional industries in large, underserved markets that others might not consider exciting enough. He is particularly drawn to B2B applications and API-first players that accelerate this transformative technological shift. Before joining Speedinvest, Markus launched his career by founding and leading a venture-backed logistics startup. He's experienced the peaks and troughs of company building and understands the roller coaster that founders go through. Beyond his professional commitments, Markus is also an avid outdoorsman who loves nothing more than hiking the Alps in summer and skiing its peaks in winter. He's a lecturer at Vienna Technical University, advises government institutions and NPOs, and has co-founded an initiative to promote diversity in leadership teams. Back Next

Investors Lounge Dezember, Gonzagagasse 1, 1010 Wien, Österreich Investors Lounge Dezember 8. Dezember 2026 um 17:00:00 Gonzagagasse 1, 1010 Wien, Österreich Jeden zweiten Dienstag im Monat findet unser Networking Event für unsere Mitglieder statt. Wir laden euch herzlich zu unserer nächsten Investors Lounge ein. Weitere Infos folgen. invest.austria Mitglieder erhalten den Link zur Anmeldung per E-Mail. Interessierte Investor:innen können sich unter office@invest-austria.com melden. Become a Member Investors Lounge Dezember Gonzagagasse 1, 1010 Wien, Österreich 8. Dezember 2026 um 17:00:00 Jeden zweiten Dienstag im Monat findet unser Networking Event für unsere Mitglieder statt. Wir laden euch herzlich zu unserer nächsten Investors Lounge ein. Weitere Infos folgen. invest.austria Mitglieder erhalten den Link zur Anmeldung per E-Mail. Interessierte Investor:innen können sich unter office@invest-austria.com melden. invest • austria Events Become a Member

Investors Breakfast, Wiedner Hauptstraße 63, 1040 Wien, Austria Investors Breakfast 13. Mai 2025 um 13:30:00 Wiedner Hauptstraße 63, 1040 Wien, Austria invest.austria – the Austrian Association for Private Capital – is pleased to invite you to a unique investors’ breakfast in the heart of Vienna, as part of ViennaUP 2025 and ConnectDay. Come and meet various potential partners from the growing local investment community over the traditional Viennese “Frühstück”. Take the opportunity to network with Vienna-based venture capital and private equity firms as well as business angels, and to get involved in co-investments! We look forward to welcoming you! Save your Spot Investors Breakfast Wiedner Hauptstraße 63, 1040 Wien, Austria 13. Mai 2025 um 13:30:00 invest.austria – the Austrian Association for Private Capital – is pleased to invite you to a unique investors’ breakfast in the heart of Vienna, as part of ViennaUP 2025 and ConnectDay. Come and meet various potential partners from the growing local investment community over the traditional Viennese “Frühstück”. Take the opportunity to network with Vienna-based venture capital and private equity firms as well as business angels, and to get involved in co-investments! We look forward to welcoming you! invest • austria Events Become a Member