Fabian Heilemann

Who they are

Fabian Heilemann is Founder & CEO of AENU — co-founded DailyDeal with his brother in 2010 and sold it to Google in 2011, then backed N26, UiPath, and Isar Aerospace as a General Partner at Earlybird before launching AENU, a seed-stage climate tech VC fund.

Person

Fabian took the law-to-founder route that's rare in European VC: an LL.B. from Bucerius Law School, then a Dr. iur. in Corporate Law from Heidelberg, before co-founding DailyDeal with his brother Ferry in 2010 — a daily deals platform they sold to Google in 2011. That early exit bought him credibility and he moved into venture, spending years as a General Partner at Earlybird Venture Capital, where he backed category-defining companies including N26, UiPath, Aiven, and Isar Aerospace. He then co-founded AENU, a seed-stage climate tech VC fund in Berlin, joining it at its founding as a newly seeded vehicle focused on early-stage European climate tech. Alongside AENU he co-founded Leaders for Climate Action, a climate and social impact initiative. The through-line is founder-turned-investor-turned-builder: each chapter is a compression of the previous one into something more mission-driven. Possibly — his legal background shapes how he thinks about governance and fund structure, including AENU's impact mandate.

Company

Earlybird closed its largest fund yet — Fund VIII at €360 million — in April 2026, concentrating on AI applications, software infrastructure, foundation models, deeptech, and hardware. Alongside the fundraise, the firm implemented a perpetual active ownership model designed to align incentives across decades and give rising investors a clear leadership path. In May 2026, Earlybird led a €12 million seed round for Pillar, a construction operating system, and a $4.7 million pre-seed round for Avrea, an AI-ready CI/CD platform — the Avrea deal closed in a few weeks without a pitch deck. Earlier in 2026, Earlybird led an $8 million first round for Bayshore, building AI agents for law and compliance in regulated industries. The firm has now invested in 255 companies, with 13 new investments in the last 12 months, and a portfolio track record of 8 unicorns, 8 IPOs, and 65 acquisitions.

Market

Earlybird is one of Europe's oldest early-stage venture capital firms, competing with funds like Seedcamp and Partech Partners that frequently co-invest alongside it. The firm's deeptech and AI focus puts it squarely in a market shaped by intensifying geopolitical competition in technology — particularly the US-China dynamic — regulatory complexity, and supply chain risk, all of which affect both the startups it backs and LP appetite for European venture.

Network

No direct edge data is available for Fabian's current network at AENU. His Earlybird tenure connects him to the founding teams of N26, UiPath, Aiven, and Isar Aerospace. At Earlybird, current partners include Dr. André Retterath, who leads AI and infrastructure investments, and Paul Klemm, a general partner involved in recent deals.

How they likely show up

  • Founded DailyDeal, then moved to GP at Earlybird, then founded AENU → pattern of building, then compounding that experience into the next chapter rather than staying in one lane.
  • Dr. iur. in Corporate Law from Heidelberg before any startup work → likely brings rigorous structural thinking to deal terms, fund governance, and portfolio company formation.
  • Co-founded Leaders for Climate Action alongside a full-time GP role → high agency; runs parallel initiatives rather than waiting for the day job to create the platform.
  • Backed companies at Earlybird that became category leaders (N26, UiPath, Isar Aerospace) → investor identity is thesis-driven and concentrated, not spray-and-pray.
  • Possibly — medium tenure shape across roles suggests he moves when the mission or learning curve shifts, not for titles or incremental pay.

Conversation tips

  • → Ask about the Earlybird-to-AENU transition specifically — he left a top-tier fund platform to start something mission-driven from scratch, which is a deliberate choice worth understanding.
  • → Reference the DailyDeal-to-Google sale with his brother — it's the origin story and he likely has strong views on what early liquidity did (and didn't) solve.
  • → He posts on European venture, deep tech, and climate; come with a specific thesis or market view to test, not a generic question about the sector.
  • → Don't treat climate tech as a soft or peripheral interest — AENU is his primary vehicle and Leaders for Climate Action predates it, so this is a years-long commitment, not a trend bet.

Toolbox

Openers

  • Open on the AENU founding moment — he left a GP seat at Earlybird to build a seed-stage climate tech fund from scratch, a deliberate step down in institutional safety for a mission bet. That choice is worth understanding on its own terms.
  • Reference the DailyDeal sale to Google in 2011 — co-founded with his brother Ferry, sold within a year of launch. It's the origin of his credibility in European venture and he will have a clear view on what that experience shaped.
  • Bring up Isar Aerospace or UiPath as Earlybird investments — he backed both as category leaders during his GP tenure, and asking how he identified them early gives a direct window into how he evaluates companies.

Discovery questions

  1. When you moved from Earlybird GP to founding AENU, what did you have to unlearn about how a large established fund evaluates companies versus how a new seed vehicle has to operate?
  2. Leaders for Climate Action came before AENU — how did running a non-investment climate initiative shape the thesis you're now deploying as capital?
  3. The Avrea deal closed in a few weeks without a pitch deck — what are the signals that let you move that fast on a pre-seed, and where does your legal background factor into that speed versus caution tradeoff?

Avoid

Don't treat his law doctorate as a credential footnote — his Dr. iur. from Heidelberg is load-bearing in how he thinks about structure and governance, so dismissing it as an unusual path would read as unprepared.

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Sources

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Generated by briefthecall.com from public web sources on June 5, 2026. Each claim is linked to its source above.

Automatically generated by AI from public sources. May be inaccurate or out of date. Remove or correct this profile →