Mario Götze will go down in football history as the player who scored the winning goal that made Germany champions of the FIFA World Cup 2014. But he is also an increasingly savvy angel investor.
Comrade MGötze’s personal investment vehicle, now has a portfolio of more than 70 companies, two of which have become unicorns in 2025 — Danish fintech Flatpay and German AI startup Parloa. But the athlete also learned some lessons along the way about control opportunities. “I only agree to invest if the startup and its founders check all the boxes,” he told TechCrunch.
Boxes can be quite subjective at the stage Götze invests in – typically pre-seed and seed rounds, with ticket sizes between €25,000 and €50,000 ($29,000-$58,000). To address this, Götze says Companion M “focuses on specific areas where we have built up a deep network and expertise.” Surprisingly, sports is not one of those areas — at least not directly.
According to Götze, Companion M mainly focuses on B2B SaaS, software infrastructure and cyber security, as well as health and biotech. While this is not sports technology per se, health and biotech is a natural niche for an athlete interested in human performance and well-being — and who has the freedom to pursue unconventional opportunities in these areas.
In 2020, Götze made headlines for investing in German cannabis startup Sanity Group when most European institutional investors wouldn’t touch hemp with a 10-foot pole. Since then Germany has liberalized some aspects of its cannabis lawscreating tailwinds for the startup he claimed 10% stake. of the German medical cannabis market in 2024.
With cannabis still banned for athletes in competition, Götze will have to wait to try things out for himself: The 33-year-old is still playing professionally at the top league level with German club Eintracht Frankfurt. But instead of waiting for retirement, he’s taking cues from American athlete-investors like NBA champion Kevin Durant.
Götze is not the only active European footballer who also invests in startups — for example, Cristiano Ronaldo and Kylian Mbappé does as well. But as a father of two young daughters, he has to balance his various commitments. “I have to schedule calls before or after training and align meetings with weeks when I don’t have away games or play Champions League,” Götze said. he wrote.
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Götze doesn’t do everything himself, but he doesn’t just trust others with his money. Instead, he created Companion M as a small team that supports him with angel investments, partnerships and other work. “These are important to me as a brand, especially long-term, then [my] active career,” he said he explained.
There is an undeniable branding aspect to these efforts. When Götze became the first ambassador for Revolut in Germany, the fintech company is mentioned His track record as an angel investor as a motivation. But as he prepares for his post-football career, Götze found what he was doing describes as “a passion other than sports”.
This passion may be less unexpected than it seems. While Götze and his siblings all became footballers, their father Jürgen is a professor at TU Dortmund University’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Informatics, and the family spent time in Houston, Texas, when Jürgen was visiting Rice University as a postdoctoral researcher.
Not coincidentally, Götze invests primarily in Europe and the US, with previous investments such as Miami-based Arcee AI and Frankfurt-based Qualifyze. Several holding companies have gone on to raise significant amounts of subsequent funding and it has already exited some, such as the Berlin-based KoRo.
The exits give Götze capital to reinvest, but he has also focused on long-term wealth consolidation. As a limited partner, Companion backed more than 20 venture capital firms on both sides of the Atlantic, including 20VC, Cherry Ventures, EQT Ventures, Planet A, Merantix, Visionaries Club and World Fund.
Gotze is still under contract with his team and is reportedly discussion of extension. But when he eventually retires, these venture firms could count on him as a peer. “After the end of my career, I plan to focus on my investment activities,” he said Bloomberg. But even then, don’t expect him to publish his anti-portfolio of the startups he passed on that later became huge successes.
“There are a lot of new startups every year, and there will be some you miss out on. But regretting past decisions leads to making uneducated or impulsive decisions in the future,” he told TechCrunch. Speaking like a true athlete: Dwelling on what you missed won’t help you get to the next goal.
