Karen Wang, investment principal at Deutsche Bank Venture Capital, is one of our top 50 Rising Stars in corporate venturing for 2026.
Investment is money for equity – but one of Karen Wang’s favourite aspects of the job is actually how non-transactional the relationship building is.
“This is a people business – it is not that I meet someone and then something happens. I build a relationship, then, maybe, something happens in two or three years’ time. You get to know people as people,” she says.
Wang previously ran Deutsche Bank’s entrepreneur-in-residence programme, working with pre-seed and seed-stage companies to build out their solution with the bank, before proactively seeking a position at Deutsche Bank’s then-new venture team in 2020.
She found it rewarding to have seen the full investment lifecycle of a portfolio company, at code-testing platform provider Sealights, for which she was present for the entire investment, from due diligence to its acquisition by Tricentis, giving her a sense of satisfaction of having helped a young company on its journey.
“This is a people business – it is not that I meet someone and then something happens. I build a relationship, then, maybe, something happens in two or three years’ time. You get to know people as people.”
The biggest challenge of investing in a large institution, she says, is understanding its priorities and how the investment team can help the corporate strategically. Aligning on that strategy and those top priorities early on are important to support the startups throughout the entire investment, she says.
Looking ahead at 2026, Wang anticipates big movement in fintech cybersecurity – with the financial sector always at the forefront of having to protect itself from scams and malignant actors. She also sees a lot of opportunity in AI guardrail technologies that ensure compliance when using an ever-expanding range of AI tools coming on the market.
People just starting out in CVC should know that they can form their own path, she says.
“Do not wait for someone to give you something. If you want something, you need to go and get it yourself. You do not necessarily go through the front door – you have to go through the window sometimes.”
The Rising Stars are early-career corporate venture professionals who are making an outstanding contribution to their teams and the industry.
See the full list of Rising Stars 2026 here.
