Roman Kirsch is a German serial
entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...
and
investor
An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital most of the time the investor purchases some species of property. Type ...
in the tech- and consumer-internet-space.
Early life and education
Kirsch holds a business degree from the German
business school
WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management
The WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management is a top German business school with campuses in Vallendar and Düsseldorf, Germany. WHU was founded in 1984 by the Koblenz Chamber of Commerce as the Wissenschaftliche Hochschule für Unternehmen ...
. He also has a
Master of Science degree from the
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a public university, public research university located in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidn ...
in Finance, Accounting and Management.
He also spent time at the
University of Southern California
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, religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist
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, accreditation = WSCUC
, type = Private research university
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as well as the
Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.
Career
At the age of 13, Roman set up a business of importing watches from
China. Later in 2003, at the age of 15, Kirsch founded his first company (a souvenir shop in Hamburg).
In 2011, Kirsch founded Casacanda; a furniture company that was later acquired by
Fab.com
Fab is an e-commerce company founded in 2010. Once estimated at a worth of over $1 billion, in March 2015, the digital and ecommerce assets of Fab were acquired by PCH International for an undisclosed sum and has since been relaunched as a ne ...
in February 2012, making it one of the fastest company exits in tech history for one of the youngest founders.
He spent a year as the CEO of Fab Europe until end of 2012 where he oversee the company reaching the unicorn status at a USD 1 billion valuation.
In 2012 Kirsch started investing and building multiple companies. In 2012 Roman was a founding investor of Amorelie, which became the female-focused lingerie company in Europe. In 2015 media company
Pro7Sat1 acquired Amorelie, which is now valued at €100 million.
In 2013 Kirsch, alongside Matthias Wilrich and Robin Müller, founded the
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
e-commerce startup
Lesara with Kirsch as the CEO of the company.
The company was awarded as fastest-growing tech company in Europe in 2016 by “The Next Web” and as the fastest growing tech company in Germany in 2017 by Deloitte.
Through his ''Rapid Pioneers Group'' Kirsch has co-founded and invested into several consumer technology and brands with a focus on Europe.
In 2015 Kirsch became the first investor and advisor in the Instagram-DTC-pioneer Fitvia. In June 2019 stock-listed Dermapharm announced the acquisition of 70% of the shares in Fitvia. Other consumer brands he has been a founding investor in are K-Beauty brand Yepoda, natural cosmetics brand Happyglam and couponing platform Lumaly.
The total portfolio of the ''Rapid Pioneers Group'' consists of over 25 companies, including green climate tech unicorn Enpal GmbH,
Carprice, SevenSenders, Bending Spoons, Hive logistics, everdrop and Wild Cosmetics. In 2022 Kirsch was awarded as one of the best 50 seed investors in Europe by Business Insider.
In 2018, the company Lesara struggled with follow-on financing and had to declare bankruptcy, selling a part of the insolvency mass to Ladenzeile, a subsidiary of
Axel Springer SE
Axel Springer SE () is a German digital and popular periodical publishing house which is the largest in Europe, with numerous multimedia news brands, such as '' Bild'', ''Die Welt'', and '' Fakt'' and more than 15,000 employees. It generated t ...
.
In April 2021, Kirsch has raised $345m in an IPO on the NASDAQ stock exchange for the investment vehicle Tio Tech. Kirsch serves as CEO of Tio Tech.
Awards and recognition
*In January 2016,
Forbes Magazine US listed Kirsch in its ''
30 under 30 Europe'' list for retail and e-commerce
*In 2017, the business magazine Capital listed Kirsch in its 40 under 40 list for young elites
*He is also a "Global Shaper” of the World Economic Forum Davos and a member of YPO
See also
*
Agile retail
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kirsch, Roman
1988 births
Living people
German company founders