Who this is
Christian Meermann is a founding partner at Cherry Ventures in Berlin. He studied at WHU, was CMO at Zalando and started Cherry as an angel fund together with Filip Dames, whom he knows from university and from Zalando. Today Cherry invests in European founders out of a new fund of 500 million, runs an office in London and puts almost half of the fund into UK startups. Its portfolio includes Flink, Dash0, Proxima Fusion, The Exploration Company and Q.ANT.
Episodes
Numbers from the episode
FAQ
Who is Christian Meermann?
Christian Meermann is a founding partner at Cherry Ventures in Berlin. He studied at WHU, was CMO at Zalando and co-founded Cherry with Filip Dames, initially as an angel fund. To the episode →
How big is Cherry Ventures' new fund?
At the start of 2025 Cherry raised 500 million for European founders. According to Christian, 400 million dollars are earmarked for early stage, half of that for follow-on rounds, and the rest sits in the Select Fund for Series B and later rounds of the portfolio's winners. The stated goal is Europe's first trillion-dollar company. To the episode →
Which startup ideas would Cherry Ventures fund right away?
Christian names five themes from Cherry's internal list: AI drug discovery, supply chain transparency and sovereignty, European cybersecurity, a neobank for defense companies, which often can't borrow from regular banks, and AI for insurance claims handling, for example water damage or car accidents. To the episode →
How does Cherry Ventures pick founders?
At pre-seed and seed it's almost all about the team. Cherry asks about vision and real motivation, checks whether founders listen, runs workshops on the substance and gets to know them socially, for example over dinner or on a road bike trip. A degree from a top school is a good checkmark, but passion and the will to win count for more. To the episode →
What's the best way to reach Cherry Ventures?
Christian suggests reaching out via LinkedIn, but ideally through a warm intro from someone who knows Cherry. In his experience cold inbound never really works well for fundraising. To the episode →
Quotes
„… Geld ist am Ende eine Commodity für gute Gründer.““In the end, money is a commodity for good founders.”
„Und wir haben das Talent in Europa, wir haben das Kapital. Wir haben eigentlich alles, was es dazu braucht.““We have the talent in Europe, we have the capital. We actually have everything it takes.”
„… Gründen ist Schmerzhaft. Also es ist ein Rollercoaster. Es geht up und down und das 20 Mal im Jahr.““Founding a company hurts. It's a rollercoaster, up and down, twenty times a year.”
„Dieser Zyklus ist in VC extrem lang.““That cycle is extremely long in VC.”
„Cold Inbound funktioniert einfach nie so richtig gut.““Cold inbound just never really works well.”