Rocket & Bembel - VC Training: Inside the Investor Mindset

Dear ESA BIC Hessen community,

We are inviting you to our next Rocket & Bembel event, which will focus on one of the most critical challenges for founders: preparing successfully for Pre-Seed, Seed and Series A funding rounds and understanding how VCs really make decisions.

For this session, we are excited to welcome Jovana Walter (Futury Capital), Lukas Tümper (Daisytuner) and Ansgar Thilmann (HCP Sense), who will share their perspectives from both the investor and founder side.

Jovana Walter combines first-hand founder experience with deep investment expertise and brings a strong understanding of both entrepreneurial realities and VC decision-making.

Today, Jovana works as an Investment Manager at Futury Capital, where she supports startups from Pre-Seed to Series A. Prior to venture capital, she gained experience in banking and consulting, working on financing structures and investment decisions. As a CFA charterholder, she is known for translating complex VC logic into clear, actionable insights for founders.

Jovana will open the session with a structured introduction to VC fundamentals and decision logic, sharing how funds operate, how investment decisions are made, and what it truly means to be investor-ready.

The session will be complemented by two founder stories from our ESA BIC alumni. Lukas and Ansgar will share hands-on experiences from building their companies and successfully closing funding rounds, focusing on concrete learnings, challenges and best practices when working with VCs.

What we will discuss:

• VC mindset & decision logic
  How funds are structured, how returns are generated and what really drives investment decisions
• Investor readiness & financing strategy
  When and why startups are VC-fundable and how to structure and communicate capital needs
• Cap table fundamentals
  Understanding cap table mechanics, common risks and hidden costs, how early mistakes impact later rounds, and how to maintain long-term attractiveness for investors
• Typical VC questions & red flags
  What investors ask repeatedly and what can quickly become a dealbreaker
• Pitch deck criteria
  What VCs expect to see and how to sharpen your story

This workshop will include interactive Q&A sessions where you can ask questions, challenge assumptions and discuss your own fundraising situations openly.

The focus this year is strongly on scale-up and VC training. We see outstanding technologies and excellent engineers in our programm and our goal is to support you even more effectively in closing funding rounds faster and successfully.

The event in a nutshell:

What? 120 minutes of insights incl. founder stories & Q&A
When? 05 March 2025, 16:00–18:00
Afterwards: Open networking with pizza & drinks

For those of you who are new to the format: Rocket & Bembel is our community event series designed to stay connected with you, enable founder-to-founder exchange and provide practical expert insights on topics that matter at your current stage.

We are very much looking forward to seeing you!

Best regards,

Your ESA BIC Hessen Team