Don Ritzen

Interim Managing Partner Energy Fund at Rockstart

I get excited by working alongside entrepreneurs with big and disruptive ideas, a tremendous drive and the attitude to get stuff done. E.g. in the areas of AI, 3D printing, Smart Energy, Sustainability, Health, Marketplaces, P2P, SaaS, B2C, and many more. To help those kind of people succeed, I've co-founded a company called Rockstart where we have invested in 202 startups till date of which 70% have raised follow on funding totalling 70+ million Euro and who are worth EUR 350 million. Several have raised series A/B from well known VC's such as EQT Ventures, Greylock Partners, Balderton and Notion Capital. During my time at Rockstart I've founded our Accelerator program together with Rune Theill and our business unit focused on helping large corporate innovate and collaborate successfully with startups, together with Sander van der Blonk. For our corporate practice I worked with companies such as Philips, Sony and Achmea. For our accelerator programmes, I sat on the investment committees for our Web&Mobile, Artificial Intelligence, Smart Energy, Digital Health and Rockstart Colombia programme and screened over 5.000 startups. I spoke to about 1000 entrepreneurs about their business and discussed these investment opportunities with some of the brightest entrepreneurs and investors in the Dutch tech industry. I currently have a non operational role at Rockstart, I'm an active shareholder an advisor to my former colleagues and co-founder. Areas of expertise: new business models, lean startup, innovation, entrepreneurship, investments, go to market strategies, high performing teams. In my free time, I like to: travel, enjoy nature, hike, play squash, emerge in Latin American culture, dive deeper into our society's challenges in the area of sustainability, and discuss international politics.