Crispin Leick, managing director at EnBW New Ventures, is one of the 100 leading corporate venturing professionals in our 2025 Powerlist.

A self-proclaimed ‘energy nerd’, Crispin Leick has been interested in all things energy from a young age. “It fascinated me because energy could be used to make movement, for transportation, heating, cooling and creating light – there was an answer to everything.”

A career in energy was a logical step and Leick started off with a focus on natural gas, before moving into renewables in the early 2000s.
Leick was approached by German electric utility firm Energie Baden-Württemberg (EnBW) to build a dedicated corporate VC unit from scratch. This was the second CVC unit Leick had built – the first being a corporate venturing unit for German energy company RWE Innogy in 2010.
“I started building EnBW New Ventures in early 2016 using the learnings from the previous fund. The fund has a renewable and sustainable mandate and a core belief that the future of the energy market is electric, decentral and digital,” says Leick.
Leick pushed for the fund to have an evergreen structure. “We got a commitment of $100m at the start and that was it. But I got the company to agree that the CVC could reinvest the money made from selling the startups, which gave me a larger fund. We need to be very financially driven, or the business model does not work.”
“We are not looking to invest in something that might peak 15 or 20 years later. We are focused on what is scaling now.”
Underneath the overall evergreen structure, Leick put in ‘virtual funds’ to help him track performance accurately. “The first virtual fund operated between 2015 to 2019 with a size of $50m and had nine startups. The second one was between 2020 to 2024, with a size of $75m and 12 startups. And we have started the third fund this year – it will target 15 startups and be sized at $100m.”
Leick has seen the CVC industry change and reinvent itself constantly during his long tenure in the business, but he maintains it is a necessary companion to slower corporate processes.
“We embrace new technologies and products because entrepreneurs are innovating faster than large corporations. We are not looking to invest in something that might peak 15 or 20 years later. We are focused on what is scaling now,” says Leick.

The Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist represents the 100 individuals spearheading the future of the corporate venturing industry.
These individuals excel in terms of their venturing approach and structure, number and quality of portfolio companies and in their contributions to the corporate venturing profession.