Key Points
- Investors are increasingly drawn to Europe amid tariff uncertainty, but startups face still obstacles going public on European exchanges.
- Swiss real estate heir Robin Lauber and German billionaire Christian Angermayer are joining forces to get startups to go public in Sweden.
- Lauber told CNBC about their startup pipeline and why Sweden is a bright spot for ambitious firms in Europe.
A version of this article appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox. Investment firms of the ultra-wealthy are increasingly investing in Europe , seeking stability and a diversification away from the U.S. amid tariff uncertainty. Two European family offices are capitalizing on this market momentum by funding startups to go public in Sweden, CNBC has learned. The partnership brings together the family offices of Robin Lauber, a third-generation heir to a Swiss real estate fortune, and German billionaire Christian Angermayer, whose high-profile bets include psychedelic biotech Atai Life Sciences and Enhanced Games, an Olympics-style competition where performance-enhancing drugs are encouraged. Lauber’s Infinitas Capital and Angermayer’s Apeiron Investment Group are committing capital to the investing partnership alongside Elevat3 Capital , Apeiron’s venture capital arm backed by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and family office Thiel Capital. “It seems to be like the first time in a long time that things are moving again,” Lauber said of Europe’s IPO market. “We’re building this blueprint for certain types of businesses to tap capital markets early on.” Lauber said he and Angermayer have been co-investors for about six years, backing startups in longevity and psychedelics as well as a sports advisory firm with a stake in Italian soccer team Venezia. The first startups in the pipeline are Kanaan Sellers Group, a conglomerate of e-commerce brands including kitchen appliances; Storypod, an early childhood audio and education company; and HausVorteil, a fintech that allows homeowners to sell stakes in their residences and still live there. Lauber told CNBC that he expects the trio to go public by the end of the year. He said there are three more companies in the pipeline but declined to give details. While European startups are garnering more attention, they can face stiff opposition when trying to go public on European stock exchanges, according to Lauber. “In general, I think Europe lacks deep capital markets for tech-savvy businesses,” he said. “In the U.S., you can go public without being profitable, but I think in Europe, especially in Germany, you can’t go public without being a profitable business already so you can’t get any credit for your future business plan and your growth.” One of Lauber’s goals is to demonstrate that ambitious startups can have successful IPOs without going overseas, he said. “I think what’s important to us from a European perspective is that we don’t lose basically all our gems to the U.S.,” he said. Lauber and Angermayer picked Nasdaq Stockholm for the future listings because Sweden has more flexible capital markets, Lauber said, which allows companies to issue new stock faster than in other countries like Germany. Nordic bonds also allow asset-heavy companies to raise debt “pretty easily and cheaply,” Lauber said. He added that Sweden has a strong retail investor culture as capital gains on stocks are not taxed if held in a tax-efficient investment savings account . To appeal to retain investors, they are targeting firms with tangible and accessible business models. By going public, Lauber believes the portfolio companies can raise financing and get better valuations than with a large venture capital or private equity firm. For Kanaan, the IPO will allow the firm to scale by using stock to make more opportunistic acquisitions. “The Swedish market doesn’t need to be the final step,” Lauber said. “I think that’s the beauty of the Nasdaq ecosystem. It can just be a stepping stone, maybe at some point, to the Nasdaq main market.”
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