Swiss investors shine in Forbes Midas list

Every year, Forbes' Midas List recognises the top 25 European investors. Being included on the list is considered a definitive accolade in the investor community – similar to being nominated for the Ballon d'Or in football, for example.

Midas List Europe is a metrics-driven ranking of the best venture investors in Europe and the Middle East. With this list, Forbes and TrueBridge recognize those investors who have earned the best returns for their limited partners – that is, their companies have gone public, had an M&A transaction, or raised rounds of financing at an increased valuation.The list counts investments in private companies that have raised funding at a valuation of $200 million or more, or that have gone public or been acquired for at least $100 million, within the past five years. Extra weight is given to realized and more recent returns.

The list continues to become less London-centric as Europe’s tech economy grows. While there are still 13 London-based investors featured, notable new additions include Florian Schweitzer, founding partner of btoventure.

In 1996 Schweitzer began his mission to support entrepreneurs as a student at the University of St. Gallen, helping to initiate START Global and to found what has become b2venture at the end of his studies in 2000 – a unique venture capital firm with Europe’s leading community of business angels. He has not only been an early partner to fantastic teams such as SumUp, DeepL, 1KOMMA5°, and many more, he’s helped shape the European tech ecosystem from the ground up.

“This honour would not have been possible without the b2venture angel investor community, some of whom have been supporting the 32 full-time professionals at our firm for over two decades”, Florian Schweitzer commented in a blog post. “I look forward to continuing to do the same with you in the coming decades – discovering and supporting extraordinary talent in startups at earliest stages, until they become large, independent companies."

As in previous years, the list includes two other Switzerland-based investors: Klaus Hommels and Neil Rimer. Klaus Hommels is one of Europe’s leading business angels and venture capitalists. He was an early investor in companies such as Skype, King, Facebook, Spotify, Airbnb, Revolut, Klarna, Sumup, Zoom, Coinbase and Isar Aerospace. He founded Lakestar in 2012 after running his own Venture Capital fund, Hommels Holding.

As a passionate advocate of the European Tech Ecosystem, as well as the digital and technical sovereignty of our continent, Klaus frequently interacts with politicians, regulators and corporates to bring European technology and capital flows on the global agenda. He chairs the board of directors of the NATO Innovation Fund and is a founding member of think-tank initiatives such as the Internet Economy Foundation and the European Center for Digital Competitiveness in Berlin. 

Neil Rimer co-founded Index Ventures in 1996 and served as a Partner for more than 25 years. In 2021, Neil stepped down as an active Partner. Since then, he has continued to manage his portion of the portfolio and makes himself available to support his partners and the firm he helped build.

As an investor and a founder, Neil has played a seminal role in nurturing the tech ecosystem in Europe and beyond. He led the firm’s investment in a number of enduring companies including Betfair (Flutter), Genmab, Stepstone, Climate Corporation, Supercell, Trello, Typeform, Nexthink, Funding Circle, Stack Overflow, Revolut and Roblox. 

Incidentally, all VCs represented by the three top investors have invested in Swiss startups this year: b2venture in SamanTree Medical, Lakestar in Lightium and Index Ventures in EthonAI.

(Stefan Kyora)