Stefan Glaenzer

Who they are

Stefan Glaenzer is a Founding Partner at Passion Capital — co-founded ricardo.de in 1998, one of Europe's first online auction sites, and later co-founded Last.fm before turning to VC.

Person

Stefan Glaenzer completed his degree at the University of Hamburg in 1990, then built a sequence of German internet companies during the first dot-com wave: companions.de, myblog.de, and ricardo.de — the last of which he co-founded in 1998 and describes as one of Europe's first online auction and classified sites, eventually sold to QXL. From there he moved into music: he co-founded Last.fm, the social music network that was acquired, cementing his reputation as someone who spotted platform businesses before the category existed. He then ran Rebate Networks as Executive Chairman, and built White Bear Yard, a co-working hub in London's East End, which became the physical incubator for what would become Passion Capital. He co-founded Passion Capital in 2011 alongside Eileen Burbidge and Robert Dighero when it launched with a ~$60 million first fund; he has since stepped back from the Managing Partner role, with the day-to-day now run by Dighero, Andrew Jenkins, Will Orde, Sarah Stafford, and Greg Bennett. Alongside those tracks he also founded Triple A and LIFT99, a startup skill-sharing platform. The through-line is serial company creation followed by institutionalising that instinct into a fund. He speaks publicly at DLD, NOAH, NEXT, and EU-Startups conferences, and appeared on the 20VC podcast on seed-stage investing; Possibly — his public output has been occasional rather than sustained.

Company

Passion Capital closed its fourth seed fund, Passion IV, at €46 million in April 2026 — fully backed by private investors and structured alongside two SPVs, with 13 startups already deployed into from the new fund at close. The firm's 2025 was its strongest year for distributions, returning €72 million to LPs from exits including the €1.1 billion acquisition of GoCardless by Dutch payments firm Mollie in December 2025, plus liquidity from Ravelin, Tillo, and Xelix. The current team also participated in a $75 million Series C for Lassie in February 2026 and led a €1 million pre-seed into Prague-based payments infrastructure startup Tapaya. Passion Capital has now backed 107 companies since 2011, including 5 FinTech unicorns — Monzo, GoCardless, Tide, Marshmallow, and Lendable — and reports a net IRR of 23% and 2.5x DPI across its funds.

Market

Passion Capital operates in the highly competitive London early-stage VC market, writing first checks in AI, FinTech, and enterprise risk alongside peers Seedcamp, LocalGlobe, Balderton Capital, and Atomico. The firm differentiates on stage — pre-seed and seed, roughly 10 investments per year — and on sector depth in regulated financial markets where its portfolio companies compete with established players including Mollie, Monzo, and PolyAI. The European early-stage landscape in 2026 is seeing a rebound in AI and FinTech deal volumes, while tightening SFDR regulatory expectations and geopolitical fragmentation are reshaping how funds position themselves with LPs.

Network

Glaenzer co-founded Passion Capital with Eileen Burbidge and Robert Dighero, both of whom remain central to the firm's identity and LP relationships. He has also served on the advisory board of the Zagreb Entrepreneurship Incubator (ZIP), advising startups including BackWay, Fieldpod, and Publiconn.

Eileen Burbidge· Founding Partner, Passion Capital
Robert Dighero· Founding Partner, Passion Capital
Greg Bennett· Partner, Passion Capital

How they likely show up

Founded or co-founded at least eight companies across multiple decades → he's a builder-first investor, not a career-track VC; he'll have strong operating instincts and low patience for purely theoretical discussions.
Moved from company creation (ricardo.de, Last.fm) to infrastructure building (White Bear Yard) to institutionalised capital (Passion Capital) → he thinks in stages and tends to create the scaffolding others build inside.
Stepped back from day-to-day Managing Partner duties at Passion Capital after the first funds → comfortable handing off execution once a structure is established; values delegation over control.
Speaks at DLD, NOAH, NEXT, and EU-Startups conferences — all practitioner-facing European tech stages → he engages publicly but selectively; these are peer forums, not self-promotion circuits.
Possibly — public writing signal is described as 'occasional'; he is more of a conference presence than a regular writer, suggesting he communicates best in conversation rather than long-form.

Conversation tips

→ Open on the ricardo.de era — he posted on LinkedIn about turning down an acquisition offer in 1999, which suggests it's a story he's still thinking about; ask what that decision taught him.
→ Reference the GoCardless exit specifically — a €1.1 billion acquisition from an early seed check is the kind of outcome that defines a fund's story, and he'll have a considered view on how it happened.
→ Ask about the White Bear Yard to Passion Capital transition — he built a physical community before turning it into a fund, which is an unusual path and likely a point of genuine pride.
→ He has founder-operator DNA, so frame any questions around what founders actually need at day zero — don't treat him as a purely financial allocator.
→ Don't ask him to compare European VC to Silicon Valley in a generic way — he has been operating in European tech since 1998 and will find the framing reductive.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on the 1998 founding of ricardo.de — he co-founded one of Europe's first online auction sites and later posted publicly about turning down an acquisition offer in 1999; that decision and what followed is a pointed entry into how he thinks about company-building under pressure.
Reference the GoCardless exit: a December 2025 acquisition by Mollie for €1.1 billion from a seed check written over a decade earlier. That's the clearest proof point in Passion Capital's track record and he'll have a specific view on what made it work.
Mention Passion IV closing in April 2026 with 13 investments already deployed — the fund was live before it formally closed, which signals something about how he and the team source and decide at speed.

Discovery questions

You went from building White Bear Yard as a co-working space to launching Passion Capital out of it — at what point did you decide the community itself was the fund, and how did that shape your LP pitch?
Passion IV is already 13 investments deep at close — how do you think about conviction at pre-seed when you're writing first checks before most signals exist?
You've co-founded companies across German internet (ricardo.de, myblog.de), music (Last.fm), and now backed 5 FinTech unicorns — how has your mental model for what makes a defensible business changed across those three waves?

Avoid

Don't treat him as a passive capital allocator — he has been a hands-on operator and founder since 1998, and framing the conversation around fund mechanics or portfolio metrics without acknowledging the builder context will fall flat.

Make it yours