Markus Hablizel, head of DB1 Ventures, is one of the 100 leading corporate venturing professionals in our 2026 Powerlist.
As head of DB1 Ventures, Deutsche Börse Group’s corporate VC unit, Markus Hablizel has been striking the sort of deals in the past year that turn heads.
Perhaps its most significant deal was the $200m strategic investment in Payward (parent of cryptocurrency platform Kraken) through a secondary transaction in April 2026.
As Arjun Sethi, CEO of Payward, said, “The future… will be built by a trusted infrastructure that connects traditional finance and digital assets across custody, collateral, FX, derivatives, settlement, and distribution. Deutsche Börse brings some of the most important financial infrastructure in Europe. We bring crypto-native products, liquidity, and global digital asset rails. Together, we have the opportunity to enhance those capabilities and build something much larger: a more open, global, and programmable financial system.”
This corresponds with what Hablizel’s idea of building long-term value “through disciplined investing, intellectual curiosity, and strong partnerships”.
Hablizel added, “That is exactly what DB1 Ventures stands for: closely aligned with the group’s strategy and business units, and focused on building bridges between established and emerging markets.”
Kraken, however, is an outlier in deal size. DB1 Ventures typically invests in series A+ rounds with a ticket size of €5m to €25m. The unit looks at taking a significant stake (~10-20%) in those startups that are strategically relevant for Deutsche Börse Group‘s activities in capital markets infrastructure. DB1 Ventures has a global mandate and has been very active over the last 12 months.
Some of Hablizel’s other investments include Caplight, Digital Asset Holdings, Forge, Proxymity, Trumid and Wematch, as well as LP commitments in funds run by VC firms such as Illuminate Financial and Lakestar.
DB1 Ventures also led a $14m series A round in April 2026 in wealth-management platform Performativ. The investment helped them further strengthen their “leadership in the buy-side space. Wealth management represents a significant and rapidly growing part of global buy-side assets, and it comes with unique requirements for granular, end-investor level information. Performativ’s next-generation operating system presents a decisive answer to this challenge.”
Hablizel has been building a strong venture team with Monika Fuchs and Christoph Osburg who received the GCV Emerging Leaders award in 2025 and 2026 respectively, as well as Leopold Büning, one of GCV’s Rising Stars in 2026. This builds on more than a decade’s track record after Ankur Kamalia, a prior GCV Powerlist awardee, set up DB1 Ventures with minority holdings entrusted to the team in late 2015.
The GCV 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.
Here’s a snapshot of their recent deals:
