Tilo Bonow (born January 7, 1980 in

Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and, with around 183,000 inhabitants, largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...

) is a German tech investor and entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of the communications agency Piabo and a speaker at Startup and tech conferences. He is considered a digital pioneer in the Business and Startup world.

Career

Early career and founding Piabo

From 2002 to 2006, Bonow was Head of Corporate Communications at

Jamba! Jamba (formerly Jamba!) was a German company, operating under the name Jamster in China, Armenia, Georgia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Oman, France, Kuwait, Turkey, Switzerland, Kazakhstan, Austria, Brazil, Israel, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom ...

where he worked with the Samwer brothers. Prior to joining Jamba, he worked at the advertising agency O.T.W. and as a freelance consultant in the field of online marketing. In 2006, Bonow founded Piabo, a

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

-based PR agency specializing in tech companies, which is now one of the market leaders in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

. His portfolio includes companies such as

Tinder Tinder is easily combustible material used to start a fire. Tinder is a finely divided, open material which will begin to glow under a shower of sparks. Air is gently wafted over the glowing tinder until it bursts into flame. The flaming tinder i ...

, GitHub,

Shopify Shopify Inc. is a Canadian multinational e-commerce company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. Shopify is the name of its proprietary e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. The Shopify platform offers online ret ...

, Stripe,

Silicon Valley Bank Silicon Valley Bank is an American commercial bank. SVB is on the list of largest banks in the United States, and is the biggest bank in Silicon Valley based on local deposits. It is a subsidiary of SVB Financial Group. History Silicon Valley Ba ...

wework WeWork Inc. is a provider of coworking spaces, including physical and virtual shared spaces, headquartered in New York City. As of December 31, 2021, the company operated of space, including in the United States and Canada, in 756 locatio ...

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

, and BMW. Initially, Bonow was active with Piabo in Europe, then also in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

- especially the

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...

- until he began to expand into

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

in 2015.

Investor

Bonow is an investor in and advisor to various venture capital companies. His focus is on

Startups A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an Entrepreneurship, entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses t ...

with a tech focus. He primarily supports European companies financially and with his business expertise. He has been an investor in Cavalry Ventures since its founding in 2016. He is also an investor in 500 Startups and serves as a member of the investment committee at 3VC (formerly Capital 300). He has invested with Cocoon Capital Management, a

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

-based venture capital firm, and Unlock Venture Partners, a Seattle-based venture capital firm. In 2019, he began investing with Headline (formerly Infinity Ventures), a Japanese VC firm.

Speaker

Bonow is a regular speaker at tech conferences, such as the NOAH Conference in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

and

, the

Mobile World Congress MWC Barcelona (formerly but still commonly referred to as Mobile World Congress) is an annual trade show organised by GSMA, dedicated primarily to the mobile communications industry. The event is held in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain at the Fir ...

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

and

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

, the Bits & Pretzels Conference in Munich, the

Digital Life Design Digital Life Design (DLD) is a global conference network, organized by Munich-based DLD Media, a company of Hubert Burda Media. In 2005, Stephanie Czerny founded DLD as an annual conference scheme. Its main purpose is to connect business, creati ...

(DLD) Conference, the Plug & Play Conference, and at

The Next Web TNW (The Next Web) is a website and annual series of conferences focused on new technology and start-up companies in Europe. The Next Web company was established in 2006 by co-founders Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten and Patrick de Laive in Amsterda ...

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

. In April 2021, he spoke at the online EU Startup Summit. In 2020, Bonow spoke at Chatbot Summit, a conference specializing in conversational A.I. (artificial intelligence), among other events. In November 2020, he was a speaker at Ecosummit and in December 2020, he was a keynote speaker at Uppstart, a Swedish tech startup conference. Furthermore, he was an invited speaker as a scene expert at the NEXT Conference in Hamburg and at the German Tech Conference 2020. In 2017, he spoke at the Startupnight conference. In July 2014, he was a speaker at DLDwomen in Munich.

Other membership and engagements

Since 2013, Bonow has been a mentor at Microsoft Ventures Accelerator Berlin and at Axel Springer Plug & Play Accelerator, a joint venture. Since August 2014, he has served as an advisor at IBM Smart Camp, a global program that brings together entrepreneurs, investors, and mentors. IBM Smart Camp is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. He is also a mentor at ProSiebenSat.1 Accelerator and APX, the joint start-up program of Porsche and Axel Springer Verlag.

Personal

For regeneration, Bonow plays electric drums in his office or on his electric piano in his Berlin apartment.

Podcasts and interviews (excerpt)

* Tilo Bonow - Founder and CEO of PIABO a digital PR agency that provides cutting edge PR to companies such as Facebook & LinkedIn * Ten minutes with Tilo Bonow, Founder & CEO * Tilo Bonow – How to make the most of Clubhouse

Publications (excerpt)

* ''Light your fire! Personal Branding für Macher:innen und Visionär:innen.'' BusinessVillage, Göttingen 2021, ISBN 9783869805788. * ''Do-it-yourself branding: Do-it-yourself-Markenbildung: eine Bedienungsanleitung.'' In: Stefanie Hoffmann-Palomino, Christine Kirbach, Bianca Praetorius (eds.): The LEAN BACK Perspective. Springer, Wiesbaden 2017, ISBN 9783658139247, pp. 339-348.
5 Learnings from my time with the Samwer brothers - How communication drives business.

References

External links

Website of Tilo Bonow

Website of Piabo
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bonow, Tilo 1980 births Living people 21st-century German businesspeople 21st-century businesspeople People from Potsdam