Carsten Puschmann

CEO I Serial Entrepreneur I Early Stage Investor I Digital Advisor

Tap to play

About

Carsten Puschmann founded his first startup at the age of 16. His 30-year career as a serial founder has taken him to numerous companies, startups, corporations, industries and institutions.

His currently most important company is Scale Now GmbH, based in Essen and Berlin. He is establishing the company as the leading venture builder for early-stage startups along with Oliver Weimann, Christian Saxenhammer and a team of experienced experts from the tech, business development, communication and HR sectors.

The Essen-born entrepreneur has an extensive and long-standing international network of multipliers and decision-makers from business, the media, politics and culture.

He takes an active part in numerous events as a keynote speaker, a member of a panel of judges and is an established investor and entrepreneur, including in ruhrSummit, ruhrSTARTUPWEEK, the RISE Conference and the Private Equity Conference. Together with his co-founder Oliver Weimann, Carsten Puschmann establishes his own event format, the “Scale Now Dinner Nights”, which regularly connects forward-looking startups with important players from politics, business and the media in an exclusive setting.

From 2024, Carsten Puschmann will also be introducing a startup format at the annual Ludwig Erhard Summit at Tegernsee which he has created specifically for the event. This will include a networking forum, a startup exhibition area and an exclusive, new award ceremony for startups.

Carsten Puschmann is a passionate driver of the digital ecosystem. He has many years of expertise in the areas of entrepreneurship, digital advisory services and investment, which has given him a solid track record of exponential growth scenarios. He is also a member of the FDP (Free Democrats Group) economic forum in the Bundestag, and a guest lecturer in entrepreneurship at the Fresenius University of Applied Sciences.

In February 2024, Carsten Puschmann was included in the watchlist of the 100 most innovative minds in the German digital economy by the magazine Business Punk.

Values

Integrity

I believe that transparency, loyalty and ethical business practices are the fundamental building blocks for generating respectful business relationships on an equal footing. I stand by my values and act in accordance with moral principles.

Teamwork

I believe that successful collaboration is founded on open communication, working on equal terms and an appreciative cooperation with partners, colleagues and employees.

Sustainability

It is important to me that my companies have both a sustainable and environmentally-friendly impact on society. Ecological and social responsibility are two crucial pillars on which I base my decisions and actions.

Commitment

I am what I do, and all my actions are driven by ambition and passion. I stand behind my work 100% and demonstrate a relentless commitment to achieve the goals I have set for myself.

Spirit of innovation

As an entrepreneur, I am driven by the search for new, innovative and future-oriented, pioneering technologies that improve the future of all of us through sustainability.

As an entrepreneur, I uphold numerous values that guide me and determine my daily work activities.

Scale Now

Creating future Ventures

Carsten Puschmann founded the venture builder, Scale Now GmbH, in April 2022 with his co-founders Christian Saxenhammer and Oliver Weimann. The trio aim to build sustainable, innovative and future-oriented startups and to successfully launch them on the market under the strapline “Creating future ventures”. The company also helps renowned family offices identify profitable investments and matches them with suitable founders.

Advisory and Investment

As a venture builder, Scale Now GmbH combines the core disciplines of advisory services and investment and, along with the three prominent heads from the digital economy and financial sector, Carsten Puschmann, Christian Saxenhammer and Oliver Weimann, is a first-class, interdisciplinary team of experts from the finance, tech, sales, HR and communication sectors.

Corporate Startups

Scale Now GmbH also creates corporate startups for leading companies. It is often difficult to implement innovations in large companies, but Scale Now GmbH exploits the agility of a startup and bundled expert knowledge to develop innovative high-end solutions with a ready-made, scaling business model and an existing team of experts. These include the Sana clinics, for which Scale Now is building the first digital hospital, and the largest European loyalty program in the housing industry for Vonovia.

Find out more

Quote

The impetus behind Scale Now was not to become another venture builder in the startup scene that creates young companies from scratch at breakneck speed, scales them steeply at a rapid pace under high pressure and then sells them at a substantial profit. We wanted to build companies that receive the best possible support from us to grow in a healthy and stable process to then establish themselves sustainably in the respective markets and thus make an important contribution to our economy and society.

Carsten Puschmann

Investor

As an investor, Carsten Puschmann focuses on companies that use innovative technological solutions to infiltrate existing, traditional industries and to change them to prepare for the future. His entrepreneurial mindset and long years of expertise enable him to identify potential investments with pinpoint accuracy in terms of innovative strength, scalability and sustainability.

As the CEO of Scale Now GmbH, Carsten supports young companies during startup and growth financing in the pre-seed and seed phases and exploits his high-caliber network to forge the right links between founders, family offices and investors. He also helps investors to select suitable investments.

Advisory

With over 30 years of experience, Carsten Puschmann is both an ambitious entrepreneur and a driver of success in the digital economy. He has founded and successfully built numerous companies during his career, such as Capital Now, Q-One GmbH and Q-Two GmbH and Swissmaster Watches, claudio.de and womensnet.de, and achieved a successful exit. He shares his vast experience and knowledge with young founders and established companies who want to reposition themselves in the wake of digitalization.

As a proven expert in the startup scene, Carsten Puschmann advises young entrepreneurs on their market orientation and develops suitable strategies for success. In daily business, he gets deeply involved in the operations of the respective company and optimizes processes where required with his co-founder and CEO Oliver Weimann and an experienced, interdisciplinary team at Scale Now.

Carsten Puschmann also gives lectures on entrepreneurial skills to students at the Fresenius University of Applied Sciences, among others.

Network

Carsten Puschmann is acutely aware of the importance of a resilient and relevant network to build a company while also maximizing entrepreneurial success. He has generated a first-class network of contacts in the worlds of politics, media, business and culture during his long career, which he uses to provide significant support to the Scale Now GmbH portfolio startups, always bringing the right people together. He is also establishing an event concept with his own series of events, the “Scale Now Dinner Nights”, to introduce prominent personalities from politics, business, media and culture to innovative and up-and-coming startups.

Committees

Carsten Puschmann has been a member of the FDP economic forum since 2019 through his direct personal contact with FDP Chairman Federal Minister of Finance Christian Lindner and Federal Minister of Justice Dr. Marco Buschmann. Here, he advises the parliamentary group and members of parliament on political issues with a focus on digitalization. His work with the economic forum enables him to highlight current digitalization topics that are analyzed in-depth in working groups who then propose practical recommendations for action.

Events

Carsten Puschmann is currently devising various event formats under the umbrella brand of his venture builder, Scale Now GmbH, which will significantly bolster the important role of startups in a political and economic environment.

He also participates in numerous events as a speaker, investor and member of a panel of judges.