Gunter Festel
Gunter Festel (born May 9, 1966 in Münchberg) is a German-Swiss scientist and entrepreneur. He is Professor for high-tech and life-science entrepreneurship at the Technische Universität Berlin, founder of Festel Capital and co-founder of numerous technology start-ups in Europe. Furthermore, he is founder of the Umbrella Kids Foundation.
Life and work
Gunter Festel was born in 1966 in Münchberg, Germany, and graduated from Gymnasium Münchberg in 1985. He studied chemistry and business administration, as well as economics, at the University of Bayreuth from 1986 to 1995, received an Executive Master of Corporate Finance from the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Switzerland in 2006 and a PhD in management & economics with a focus on technology and innovation management from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich in 2009.[1] [2]
Professional activities
He started his professional career in 1995 at Bayer AG and held various management positions, including head of a R&D laboratory, assistant to a member of Bayer's board of directors, and product manager for synthetic rubber. From 1998 to 2000 he was a consultant with McKinsey & Company in Brussels, Frankfurt and London. From 2000 to 2003, he was a member of the management team and head of the consulting business for the chemical and healthcare industry with Arthur D. Little in Zurich and Wiesbaden, as well as co-head of the global chemicals and healthcare business.
Business activities
In 2002, he founded the investment firm FESTEL CAPITAL, located in Switzerland and specializing in the commercialization of technologies in the areas of energy, environment, health, materials, and nutrition. In parallel, he initiated the Founding Angels investment model [3] [4]and has (co-)founded, as a Founding Angel, various technology start-ups in Europe. For example, he was co-founder of BayGenetics [5] [6], co-founder and CEO of Butalco, a company developing a technology platform for the production of biofuels, which was sold to the French company Lesaffre in 2014 [7][8][9][10], and co-founder and investor of the laboratory equipment company Dispendix, which was sold to the Swedish company Cellink in 2018[11] as well as the spin-off from the Fraunhofer Society Greasoline[12]. Currently he supports CasCat [13]and some other start-up companies like Aquarray, NanoLockin, and SenseUp.
Scientific activities
At ETH Zurich, he headed the Start-up Research Group. Since 2018, he is Professor for high-tech and life-science entrepreneurship at the Technische Universität Berlin.[14] Besides his activities at the Technische Universität Berlin, he is a lecturer and research fellow at the University of Basel [15] as well as a lecturer at the University of St. Gallen and the National University of Singapore.[16]
The research work of Gunter Festel focuses on the following topics.
- Strategic, operational, and financial aspects of high-tech and especially life-science start-ups;
- Technology transfer from universities and research institutions by start-ups;
- The Founding Angels’ concept to foster the foundation of start-ups.
Gunter Festel is author and editor of numerous books and author of more than 100 publications on various topics, such as industry trends in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, corporate finance, innovation management, biotechnology, and nanotechnology.[17]
He is co-founder and member of the advisory board of the Association for Chemistry and Economics, as well as co-founder and member of the executive council of the China Association for Management of Technology. In Switzerland, he is an advisory board member of the Institute of Chemistry and Biotechnology at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences[18]. He is a member of the Society for Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology (DECHEMA) in Germany and was, from 2013 to 2016, a board member of the biotechnology section of the German Society for Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology (DECHEMA), as well as chairman of the board of the Association of German Biotechnology Companies (VBU).[19] He has been engaged as an advisor to the OECD to help create a strategy for the bio-based economy.[20][21]
Charity Activities
Gunter Festel is founder and chairman of the Umbrella Kids Foundation, with the aim of improving access to education for young people from low-income backgrounds, especially in developing countries [22][23]. The foundation currently supports students in Myanmar.[24]
Bibliography (Selection)
Technology transfer by start-ups/spin-offs
- Gunter Festel, Academic spin-offs, corporate spin-outs, and company internal start-ups as technology transfer approach, The Journal of Technology Transfer, Vol. 38, No. 4, August 2013, p. 454-470
- Gunter Festel, Similarities of successful technology transfer through new ventures, International Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 19, No. 2, April 2015, p. 1550025 1-35
- Gunter Festel, Technology transfer models based on academic spin-offs within the industrial biotechnology sector, International Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 19, No. 4, August 2015, p. 1550031 1-34
Founding Angels investment model
- Gunter Festel, Sven De Cleyn, Founding angels as an emerging subtype of the angel investment model in high-tech businesses, Venture Capital: An International Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance, Vol. 15, No. 3, July 2013, p. 261-282
- Gunter Festel, Sven De Cleyn, Founding Angels as an emerging investment model in high-tech areas, The Journal of Private Equity, Vol. 16, No. 4, Fall 2013, p. 37-45
- Gunter Festel, Pablo Breitenmoser, Martin Würmseher, Jan Kratzer, Early stage technology investments of pre-seed venture capitalists, International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing, Vol. 7, No. 4, December 2015, p. 370-395
Evaluation of start-up companies
- Gunter Festel, Roman Boutellier, Ali Hassan, Peter Asmussen, Bewertung von High Tech-Start-ups in frühen Phasen, M&A Review, August/September 2009, p. 383-389
- Gunter Festel, Bewertung von High-Tech-Start-ups durch systematische Anpassung des Betafaktors, Corporate Finance biz, No. 3, April 2010, p. 175-178
- Gunter Festel, Martin Würmseher, Giacomo Cattaneo, Valuation of early stage high-tech start-up companies, International Journal of Business, Vol. 18, No. 3, Summer 2013, p. 216-231
Evaluation of biofuel technologies
- Gunter Festel, Biokraftstoffe in Deutschland – Produktionskosten und Marktchancen, Chemie Ingenieur Technik, 79, No. 5, May 2007, p. 605-612
- Gunter Festel, Biofuels – Economic Aspects, Chemical Engineering & Technology, Vol. 31, No. 5, May 2008, p. 715-720
- Gunter Festel, Martin Würmseher, Christian Rammer, Eckhard Boles, Martin Bellof, Modelling Production Cost Scenarios for Biofuels and Fossil Fuels in Europe, Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol. 66, 1st March 2013, p. 242-253
- Gunter Festel, Martin Würmseher, C. Rammer, Scale and learning effects of biofuel conversion technologies, Energy Technology, Vol. 2, No. 3, July 2014, p. 612-617
Evaluation of company locations
- Gunter Festel, Martin Würmseher, Challenges and strategies for chemical/industrial parks in Europe, Journal of Business Chemistry, Vol. 10, No. 2, June 2013, p. 59-66
- Gunter Festel, Martin Würmseher, Benchmarking of energy and utility infrastructures in industrial parks, Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol. 70, 1st May 2014, p. 15-26
- Gunter Festel, Martin Würmseher, Benchmarking of industrial park infrastructures in Germany, Benchmarking: An International Journal, Vol. 21, No. 6, p. 854-883
R&D and spin-offs in the pharmaceutical industry
- Gunter Festel, Sven De Cleyn, Roman Boutellier, Johan Braet, Optimizing the R&D Process Using Spin-Outs: Case Studies from the Pharmaceutical Industry, Research Technology Management, Vol. 54, No. 1, January 2011, p. 32-41
- Gunter Festel, Outsourcing chemical synthesis in the drug discovery process, Drug Discovery Today, Vol. 16, No. 5/6, March 2011, p. 237-243
- Gunter Festel, Reasons for corporate research and development spin-outs – the chemical and pharmaceutical industry as example, R&D Management, Vol. 44, No. 4, September 2014, p. 398-408
References
- ↑ "Gunter Festel". www.festel.com.
- ↑ "LinkedIn profile of Gunter Festel".
- ↑ Sørheim, Roger. "Categorisations of business angels: an overview". Handbook of Research on Business Angels: 76–91. doi:10.4337/9781783471720.00009.
- ↑ Lebret, Herve. "Founding Angels". Start-up - What we may still learn from Silicon Valley. Retrieved 28 February 2021. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Biotech: Ein Bazillus als Gründungsidee". www.wiwo.de.
- ↑ "BayGenetics – mit dem Heu-Bazillus ein Produktionssystem für Proteine entwickelt". Innovations Report. May 20, 2008.
- ↑ "Swiss yeast developer Butalco gets financial boost | Biomassmagazine.com". biomassmagazine.com. Retrieved 2021-03-08.
- ↑ "Lesaffre aquire Butalco - Bio-based News -". Bio-based News. July 24, 2014.
- ↑ "Lesaffre kauft Biosprit-Pionier Butalco | Bioökonomie.de". biooekonomie.de.
- ↑ "Laborjournal online: Spin-offs brauchen klare Bekenntnisse - Gunter Festel". www.laborjournal.de.
- ↑ "Dispendix acquired by Cellink". Dispendix. November 30, 2018.
- ↑ Stölzel, Thomas. "Existenzangst, Gebrüll, Enttäuschung: Die Leiden der Fraunhofer-Start-ups". Retrieved 28 February 2021. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Gunter Festel joins CASCAT GmbH as shareholder and non-executive director". CasCat. Retrieved 28 February 2021. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Prof. Dr. Dr. Gunter Festel". Centre for Entrepreneurship of TU Berlin. Retrieved 28 February 2021. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Prof. Dr. Dr. Gunter Festel". University of Basel. Retrieved 28 February 2021. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Entrepreneurship Workshop Series with Dr Gunter Festel". Tech in Asia. Retrieved 28 February 2021. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Profile of Gunter Festel on ResearchGate". Research Gate. Retrieved 28 February 2021. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Advisory Commitee School of Life Sciences and Facility Management / Institute of Chemistry an Biotechnology". Zurich University of Applied Sciences. Retrieved 8 March 2021. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Tiemann, Karin. "Neuer Vorstand für die VBU" (PDF). VBU-Newsletter. June/July 2013: 1 – via Dechema/VBU.
- ↑ "OECD Workshop on "Outlook on Industrial Biotechnology"". www.oecd.org. Retrieved 2021-03-08. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Future Prospects for Industrial Biotechnology - OECD". www.oecd.org. Retrieved 2021-03-08.
- ↑ "Umbrella Kids Foundation". Stiftung Schweiz. Retrieved 28 February 2021. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Unterstütz, Philipp. "Sie geben armen Kindern neue Hoffnung". Neue Nidwaldner Zeitung/Zentralschweiz am Sonntag. Issue from June 19, 2016: 18 – via Issuu.
- ↑ "Umbrella Kids". Official foundation website. Retrieved 28 February 2021. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help)
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