Janna Ensthaler

What you can learn from Janna Ensthaler:

• Which startups currently have the greatest chances of success
• How early-stage companies need to position and differentiate themselves strategically to be attractive to investors
• What founders can get particularly right—and wrong—in the first twelve months

On television, she invests in healthy gummy bears and collagen porridge. Behind the cameras, however, her investments focus on global players like Anthropic, ElevenLabs, and SpaceX: Janna Ensthaler says few German families have as much access to deals and startups in Silicon Valley as she does. In Germany, her public profile is still primarily shaped by her role as an investor on Die Höhle der Löwen (Germany's Shark Tank), where she has been meeting founders—and occasionally backing them—for several seasons. Her work as a columnist for various media outlets certainly contributes to this public image as well. Restarting nuclear power plants, slimming down the state, boosting birth rates: Janna Ensthaler doesn't shy away from using her conservative-liberal stance to challenge current economic policies. When Manager Magazin published a story headlined "Startups and Outrage – The Business of Janna Ensthaler," she responded on LinkedIn with her typical candor—generating more impressions than Manager Magazin has in circulation. At the OMR Festival 2027 in Hamburg, she will undoubtedly bring that same outspoken energy to the stage.

(Photo: Krissi van der Viven)