Michael is one of the most successful founders of the German-speaking Internet industry.
Together with his brother Matthias, he created numerous ventures including lastminute.de and turned it into the largest last-minute travel site in Germany. Most notably, the brothers founded WEB.DE, and after a successful IPO, grew it into one of the country’s largest internet portals and online media businesses.
After the successful sale of his companies, Michael created the seed-stage venture capital investor Kizoo that came to fund and mentor some of Germany’s most promising tech startups including Babbel, Staffbase, and Mambu.
Forever Healthy started out more than a decade ago as a personal quest to shed the extremely unhealthy lifestyle he acquired while building WEB.DE, and over time turned into the focus of his entrepreneurial energy: To accelerate the transition to a world without age-related diseases.
Initiatives of Forever Healthy include hosting the annual Rejuvenation Startup Summit, funding translational research on the root causes of aging, and providing evidence-based evaluations of current rejuvenation therapies.
Michael’s venture capital firm Kizoo is now also part of Forever Healthy. Kizoo’s focus is on the creation, mentoring and financing of rejuvenation biotech startups that turn basic research into therapies for human use. Investments include Cellvie, Cyclarity, Revel, Elastrin, LIfT, and MoglingBio.