CalmarMemberships
The team
Markus Kainz

Founder & CEO

Markus Kainz

Exited founder and business angel, building and backing startups for more than 15 years.

startups backed as a business angel
30+
companies co-founded
4
years as founder and investor
15+

LinkedIn

Markus Kainz is the founder and CEO of Gateway Ventures and Calmar. He started Gateway in Vienna in 2015 with one goal: make startup investing accessible to everyone, not only to a small circle of insiders.

Before that he was a founder himself. He co-founded courseticket, an Austrian online marketplace for training courses, and later 1000things. When he sold part of his courseticket stake, he reinvested it straight away in other startups. Today he is personally invested in more than 30, among them circuly, mediaire, timeBro and tripmakery, and what he enjoys most about it is working closely with committed founding teams.

Under his lead primeCROWD became Gateway Ventures in 2022 and grew into one of Austria’s largest business angel networks. With Christian Gerencser and two partners he also co-founded Accessum Capital, a seed to Series A fund for DACH and CEE. Markus sits on the juries of the World Summit Awards and the aws First award, mentors founders and speaks regularly about startup investing, at the EBAN Congress, Web Summit in Lisbon and the 4GAMECHANGERS Festival among others.

Experience

  1. 2015 – todayFounder & CEOGateway Ventures, Vienna (primeCROWD until 2022)
  2. TodayCo-founderAccessum Capital
  3. TodayBusiness angel30+ private investments, among them circuly, mediaire, timeBro and tripmakery
  4. 2015Co-founder1000things
  5. 2015Managing DirectorStartupLeitner Axelerator (SLAX)
  6. 2011 – 2015Foundercourseticket