GCV Powerlist 2018: Nazim Cetin

Nazim Cetin joined Allianz X as CEO in August 2017 and initiated the company’s strategy shift from being a company builder to becoming a digital investment unit of the Allianz Group, one of the world’s largest insurers and asset managers.

Since taking the helm, Nazim deployed more than €200m ($236m), made five new investments in digital growth companies around the world, hired a growing team of investment professionals and repositioned Allianz X as a competitive investor in the venture capital space.

Allianz X invests in growth companies of strategic relevance for the Allianz Group across five sectors: mobility, connected property, connected health, wealth management and retirement, and data intelligence and cybersecurity. Allianz’s previous venture unit, led by Jörg Richtsfeld, invested in companies such as DRL, Simplesurance and MoneyFarm, and Allianz X is working with them to unlock strategic value alongside Allianz’s operating entities.

Since Nazim’s arrival, Allianz X co-led N26’s $160m series C round alongside Tencent Holdings in March this year. N26 is Europe’s first mobile bank and is backed by premium investors. Additionally, Allianz X invested in BIMA, a mobile technology company that delivers affordable health insurance and health products to 30 million underserved consumers in 14 emerging markets across Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Furthermore, Allianz X invested in its first Asian-headquartered company, Go-Jek, a leading Indonesian on-demand service provider that provides a variety of complete services starting from transportation, logistics, payment, food delivery, and other on-demand services. Go-Jek has more than a million driver partners and 150,000 food vendors, and is backed by JD, Google, Sequoia Capital, KKR and Rakuten. Allianz X also participated in the latest funding rounds for Boston-based telehealth platform American Well and C2FO, the world’s first working capital marketplace.

“It has been a very exciting and rewarding time to lead Allianz X,” said Nazim Cetin. “Our business is a critical component of the group’s renewal agenda and we are looking forward to enable Allianz to become more customer-centric and tech-focused via our digital growth investments.”

Nazim joined Allianz X from media conglomerate Bertelsmann, where he was a vice-president of corporate development and new businesses, as well as head of business development. Previously, he founded the first German magazine focusing on philosophy and economics, internationalised the commercial finance division of Maple Bank, served as a venture partner for Target Global, and advised many international VC funds and startups.

Nazim currently sits on the boards of American Well, BIMA, C2FO and N26.