Fabian Heilemann

Who they are

Fabian Heilemann is Founder and CEO of AENU — sold DailyDeal to Google for $114 million in 2011, then co-founded Forto, the digital freight forwarder valued at $2.1 billion, before starting AENU, a €170 million climate-tech impact fund.

Person

Fabian studied law at Bucerius Law School, completed a doctorate in Corporate Law at Heidelberg University in 2013, and did a program at Stanford GSB — a legal academic foundation that's an unusual starting point for a serial tech founder. His first act was DailyDeal, a daily-deals platform co-founded with his brother Ferry and sold to Google for $114 million in 2011; after repurchasing it, they folded it into Sky & Sand Group and launched Heilemann Ventures in 2011–2013 as a micro-VC for early-stage digital startups. He then co-founded Forto (originally FreightHub) in 2016, a digital freight forwarding company that reached a valuation of $2.1 billion. Before starting AENU, he spent time as General Partner at Earlybird Venture Capital, where he backed category leaders including N26, UiPath, Aiven, and Isar Aerospace. He founded AENU in 2021 with Ferry — the fund closed at €170 million in September 2024 and became a Certified B Corporation with a score of 127.5 in 2026. Beyond the fund, he co-founded Leaders for Climate Action (LFCA), a coalition of 210+ tech CEOs and VCs that lobbies policymakers and publishes research; he writes on LinkedIn and the AENU Insights blog about impact capitalism, energy transition, and VC diversity, and has spoken at DLD, Hello Tomorrow, SuperReturn Energy Transition, and the MCJ Collective podcast.

Company

AENU's most recent public investment was in April 2026, when it led a $3.9 million growth-stage round for Plume, an AI geospatial platform for renewable energy site selection. The fund itself closed at €170 million in September 2024 — above its original €100 million target — and has since deployed across a portfolio of over 30 companies with 1 unicorn, 1 IPO, and 4 acquisitions including Dance, Minimum, Plantix, and Tesvolt. In 2026, AENU became a Certified B Corporation with a score of 127.5, a distinction its core competitors in impact VC do not hold. The fund has also transitioned from an evergreen to a closed-ended structure to better fit current VC market conditions, per Managing Director of Finance and Legal Vanessa Brahmi. Portfolio companies have collectively enabled nearly 22 million tons of CO₂e reductions and removals, with impact nearly doubling every year of the fund's life as of 2025.

Market

AENU operates in European impact venture capital, focusing on Seed and Series A climate-tech and social impact companies with checks from €500k to €5 million and follow-ons up to €10 million. The sector is being shaped by accelerating regulatory pressure in Europe, growing corporate net-zero commitments, and a macro shift where renewable power now generates more electricity than coal as of 2024–2025. AENU differentiates on its B Corp certification and a dual thesis — financial return alongside measurable environmental and social outcomes — in a field where most competitors carry neither the certification nor the explicit impact mandate.

Network

Fabian's closest working relationship is with his brother Ferry Heilemann, co-founder and partner at both AENU and Heilemann Ventures — they've built companies together since DailyDeal in 2010. Vanessa Brahmi is Managing Director of Finance and Legal at AENU, running fund operations and investor relations as of 2026. His broader network spans the Berlin climate-tech VC community, with co-authored position papers alongside firms including PT1, Cavalry Ventures, Project A, Planet A Ventures, and World Fund.

Ferry Heilemann· Co-founder and Partner, AENU / Heilemann Ventures
Vanessa Brahmi· Managing Director of Finance and Legal, AENU

How they likely show up

Serial founding pattern — DailyDeal, Heilemann Ventures, Sky & Sand Group, Forto, Leaders for Climate Action, AENU — suggests someone who defaults to building institutions rather than joining them.
Doctorate in Corporate Law followed immediately by a startup exit to Google → likely comfortable holding structural complexity (fund mechanics, legal scaffolding) alongside operator intuition.
Long-running brother-partner dynamic at Heilemann Ventures and AENU → probably values high-trust, low-ceremony working relationships over formal hierarchy.
Active public writing on impact capitalism, climate tech, and VC diversity on LinkedIn and the AENU Insights blog → comfortable being visible and opinionated; responds well to people who've read the actual work.
Moved from GP at Earlybird (backing others' companies) to founding Forto (building one) to founding AENU (backing others again) → the direction isn't linear; he moves where the highest-leverage problem is.
Possibly — posts on mental health and burnout prevention for founders suggest he's thought hard about the cost of high-intensity company building, and may bring that into how he engages with portfolio founders.

Conversation tips

→ Reference a specific AENU Insights piece — 'Impact Capitalism in a Nutshell' or the 2025 Impact Report — he'll know immediately whether you've done the work.
→ Ask about the Forto experience specifically: going from GP at Earlybird to co-founding a logistics company is a deliberate move, and the story behind it reveals a lot about how he thinks about founder-investor alignment.
→ Don't treat climate tech as background context — it's the thesis, not the wrapper. Come with a specific view on the energy transition or industrial decarbonization.
→ The DailyDeal-to-Google exit at 114M is not the headline for him — AENU and the impact mission are. Lead with what's current.
→ If you've followed Leaders for Climate Action or the '5 for '25' position paper, mention it — it signals you see the policy dimension of his work, not just the financial one.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on AENU's B Corp score of 127.5 — he just achieved it in 2026 and it's a point of differentiation he's publicly proud of; asking what the certification process surfaced about the fund's own operations is a strong entry.
Reference the Plume investment from April 2026 — AENU led a $3.9 million round into an AI geospatial platform for renewable energy site selection, a specific enough bet to ask what thesis it expresses about where capital-efficient climate infrastructure is going.
Bring up LFCA — the coalition of 210+ CEOs and VCs he co-founded to lobby policymakers; it's a structural bet that market incentives alone won't drive decarbonization, and it opens a conversation about where venture ends and policy begins.

Discovery questions

You moved from GP at Earlybird — where you backed UiPath and N26 — to co-founding Forto yourself, then back to investing at AENU. What does that operator detour change about how you underwrite a founding team?
AENU transitioned from evergreen to closed-ended fund structure — what did that shift reveal about what LPs actually want from an impact-focused vehicle right now?
The 2025 Impact Report shows portfolio CO₂e reductions nearly doubling every year — how do you hold that impact metric accountable when it depends so heavily on what portfolio companies claim rather than what AENU controls?

Avoid

Don't conflate impact investing with ESG box-ticking — he has written explicitly about 'impact capitalism' as a distinct thesis, and treating AENU as a standard ESG fund will signal you haven't engaged with his actual position.

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