Mark Schmitz is CEO & Managing Partner of Equation, a Munich-based asset management firm focused on technology investments. The company has developed a proprietary investment platform by uniting latest academic research with data science to promote better decision-making in private capital markets. Previously, Mark was a member of the founding team of Lakestar, one of Europe’s largest VC funds with more than €1 billion in assets under management, and headed its German branch as Partner and Managing Director. His investment and advisory work has spanned diverse industries and digital business models: FinTech (solarisBank, CrossLend), PropTech (McMakler, LimeHome), Software as a Service (Teralytics, Seerene), TravelTech (Omio, Mapify). Since June 2019, Mark has been a board member of the German PE / VC Association (BVK), and he is also an Atlantik-Brücke Young Leader. Mark studied law and business at Bucerius Law School in Germany, Technical University of Munich and at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.