Mario Götze
About Mario Götze
Mario Götze is a German professional footballer and an angel investor based in Germany. He scored the winning goal for Germany in the 2014 FIFA World Cup final. His club career has included Borussia Dortmund, Bayern München, PSV Eindhoven and Eintracht Frankfurt.
According to Boardroom, he began investing in 2016 as a passion project. In a Forbes interview he described how he learned the field. He consulted a family office, built a network and made early co-investments. It took him about three years to understand how stages, valuations and founder teams work.
He invests mainly through Companion M, his personal investment vehicle, which TechCrunch says has a portfolio of more than 70 companies. Third-party profiles list him as founder of Companion M, and the vehicle works with a small team on investments and partnerships. He has said these activities are also part of building his personal brand for life after football. He has not founded a venture-backed startup, and Crunchbase lists 0 companies founded.
Crunchbase's public profile for Götze lists 63 investments and 56 portfolio companies at the time of writing. Lounge's earlier Crunchbase snapshot showed 37 investments, 0 lead investments and 0 exits. TechCrunch reported in January 2026 that Companion M's portfolio exceeded 70 companies, and Goal also describes about 20 venture fund commitments. Counts differ by source and date.
TechCrunch reports that two portfolio companies became unicorns in 2025: the Danish fintech Flatpay and the German AI startup Parloa. In 2020 he backed the German medical cannabis company Sanity Group, when many European institutional investors avoided the sector. Forbes names Qualifyze, a compliance platform for pharmaceutical supply chains founded in Frankfurt in 2017, as one of his early investments.
Other rounds on Crunchbase include LANCH (pre-seed, May 2023), KoRo (Series B), Light (seed), comstruct (pre-seed), Fyxer AI (Series A), Kodesage (seed) and Seamflow (seed). He often co-invests alongside institutional funds.
Crunchbase data shows 18 AI investments by Götze since 2023. The AI-related portfolio includes Dash Bio, Xaver, Born, ScorePlay, Plato, Zeit AI, Seamflow, revel8, SECJUR, Helical, Parloa and Brickanta.
ScorePlay is the best-documented example. It is an AI-powered media asset manager, and its announcement named Götze as a new angel in a pre-seed round that took the total to over €1M. The company said he understood the problem right away, and Goal links the investment to the media-management difficulties footballers face. Parloa is a German conversational AI company. Seamflow raised a $5M seed round in February 2026 according to NFX Signal. Helical, which PitchBook classes under drug discovery, raised a seed round on which he is listed as an investor.
He has said he relies on a network of VC funds, angels and founders for technical judgment. In the Forbes interview he said cybersecurity has many experts who assess it far better than he can, and that he has not spent ten years at Google or OpenAI.
Stage: TechCrunch says he typically invests at pre-seed and seed, with tickets between €25,000 and €50,000. NFX Signal lists an investment range of $5K to $50K with a sweet spot of $25K. His portfolio also includes later rounds such as Fyxer AI's Series A and KoRo's Series B. Startupintros describes his activity as seed and Series A.
Sectors: Goal lists B2B SaaS, software infrastructure, cybersecurity and digital health. Boardroom says he started with consumer brands such as nutrition and wellness and later added categories such as Web3 and sustainability. NFX Signal ranks him in seed-stage biotech, digital health and SaaS.
Geography: the portfolio is mainly European, with some US companies. He is based in Germany, and many of his investments are German startups.
Process: he told TechCrunch he invests only when the startup and its founders meet all his criteria. He schedules founder calls around training and match weeks. No formal thesis document or public list of criteria is available.
- Parloa: German conversational AI company that became a unicorn in 2025.
- ScorePlay: AI-powered media asset manager. He joined its pre-seed extension, which took the round to over €1M.
- Seamflow: seed round of $5M in February 2026.
- Helical: seed round with Götze as an investor, listed by PitchBook in April 2026.
- Fyxer AI: Series A investor per Crunchbase.
- Flatpay: Danish fintech that became a unicorn in 2025.
- Sanity Group: German medical cannabis company he backed in 2020.
- Qualifyze: pharma supply chain compliance platform from Frankfurt, an early investment.
- revel8, SECJUR, Brickanta, Dash Bio, Xaver, Born, Plato and Zeit AI: other AI-tagged companies in his Crunchbase portfolio.
- crunchbase.com/person/mario-g%C3%B6tze
- crunchbase.com/person/65806cae-9ce4-419f-b8ba-0da81b2626dd
- techcrunch.com/2026/01/06/how-world-cup-champion-mario-gotze-built-a-p
- scoreplay.io/blog/investor-update-mario-gotze
- signal.nfx.com/investors/mario-gotze
- pitchbook.com/profiles/investor/437788-36
- goal.com/en-gb/news/footballers-investing-in-tech-startups/blte37555ab
- forbes.at/artikel/fussball-ist-endlich
AI portfolio
Investing activity
Mario Götze has made 37 investments according to Crunchbase. 18 of those investments since 2023 were in AI companies, including Dash Bio, Xaver, Born, ScorePlay and Plato.
Mario Götze appears in 3 AI deals tracked by the Lounge deals desk. The rounds are mostly Seed, with a median round size of $6M and the largest at $7M. The most recent are Zeit AI (Seed, $5.8M (EUR 5.0M), Sep 2026), Kodesage (Seed, $6.6M, Jun 2026) and Seamflow (Seed, $4.5M, Feb 2026).
Mario Götze most often invests alongside Martin Schoeller, Cervin Ventures, Sequoia Scout and Leopold von Schlenk-Barnsdorf, and the companies they back on Lounge are mostly in AI.
Deals
Frequently asked questions about Mario Götze
Does Mario Götze invest in AI startups?
Yes. Crunchbase data shows 18 AI investments since 2023, including Parloa, ScorePlay, Helical, Seamflow and Dash Bio.
What check size does Mario Götze write?
TechCrunch reports tickets of €25,000 to €50,000, typically at pre-seed and seed. NFX Signal lists a $5K to $50K range with a $25K sweet spot.
What stage does Mario Götze invest in?
Mostly pre-seed and seed. He has also joined some later rounds, such as Fyxer AI's Series A, usually alongside institutional investors.
How do I pitch Mario Götze?
No public pitch process is listed. His investments run through Companion M, and he has said he relies on VC funds, angels and founders in his network, so a warm introduction through a co-investor is likely the most practical route.
What does Mario Götze look for in a startup?
He has said the startup and its founders must check all his boxes, but he has not published the list. He emphasizes team strength and leans on his network for domain expertise.
Is Mario Götze the footballer the same person as the angel investor?
Yes. The investor profiled here is the German footballer who won the 2014 World Cup. He invests through his vehicle Companion M.
Is Mario Götze an angel investor?
Yes. Mario Götze invests personally as an angel. Crunchbase counts 37 investments.
What AI companies has Mario Götze invested in?
Mario Götze's AI investments include Dash Bio, Xaver, Born, ScorePlay, Plato, Zeit AI, Seamflow and revel8. The 3 rounds on Lounge are listed on this page with amounts, dates and co-investors.
Where is Mario Götze based?
Mario Götze is based in Germany.
What stage does Mario Götze invest at?
In the rounds tracked on Lounge, Mario Götze has invested at Seed, with a median round of $6M.