Florian Heinemann – Founder Project A & ex Rocket Internet CEO (#PE2)

Project A Bets Venture Needs In-House Operators

Project A built a venture firm around an in-house operating agency, born from Rocket Internet's incubation playbook. The bet is that European venture rewards embedded execution and aligned incentives, not just capital. Heinemann then applies the same urgency to Europe's growth problem, which he sees as a capital markets and immigration issue.

Takeaways

• Project A embeds operators inside portfolio companies. Project A runs a full-stack agency with developers, product managers, data, marketing, sales and recruiting. Each startup gets an investment contact and a venture-development contact. 40 percent work with the firm monthly. Fees come from the management fee, so startups pay near in-house hire cost.
• Jamba made TV a performance channel. Jamba and an idea from Oliver Samwer first used TV systematically as a performance channel, attributing orders to individual spots and deriving cost per subscriber. Zalando and Trivago followed. Heinemann now sees B2B marketing and sales converging into the same funnel logic.
• Project A stays generalist but theme-led. Project A is a generalist fund with four or five themes per fund. Themes include European resilience, fintech, supply chain and logistics, AI and climate/energy. It picks low-correlation themes and is cautious on hardware-heavy energy because VC has a narrow filter.
• Angels should not take control. Heinemann made roughly 100 angel investments, including Trivago and audibene. He says many angels push their own need for control onto the company and take too much of founders' time. He was a founding member of Saarbrücker 21. Trivago returned 110 to 120 times.
• Europe needs capital markets and immigrants. Heinemann says Europe holds 2 percent of the global VC market and needs one or two strong financial centres instead of fragmentation across Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam and London. He wants easier immigration for highly qualified people and more mobilised capital. He calls degrowth grossly antisocial.

Rocket Internet's incubation playbook

1. Rocket Internet started in mid-2007 by hiring a managing director first, then recruiting a founder or management team with equity incentives.
2. Heinemann joined as Geschäftsführer to build operational support, as Rocket moved from incubation toward investing in founder-led companies.
3. Project A was prepared as a VC fund in 2011 and began investing from a fund in 2012.
4. Rocket Internet no longer invests but still holds a large portfolio.

Project A's fund ladder

1. The first fund was 80m euros. Otto committed 50m through Rainer Hillebrand, and Axel Springer added 30m.