team – xpress ventures

Meet our team of partners, venture architects, and world-class problem solvers.

Founders need the support of passionate entrepreneurs, experts, and operators. Get to know the people shaping the future of logistics

Matthias friese

Managing Partner

Matthias friese

Matthias Friese initiated XPRESS Ventures and is Managing Partner from Day 1. In his early days, Matthias learned the trade of building and scaling B2B/B2C startups at company builders such as Team Europe, Project A and Rocket Internet through various portfolio companies in the areas of e-commerce, market places and SaaS. As a result, he co-founded, led and partly exited digital startups in the sectors of cyber security, DOOH and media monitoring. At XPRESS, Matthias’ passion is to share his experience, especially in fundraising, sales and marketing, with young founders who want to prove themselves in the digital logistics space. In his private life, Matthias likes to swap pitch decks for guitars and term sheets for fine dining with precious wine

adrian graf

Partner

adrian graf

Adrian is Partner at XPRESS Ventures and responsible for operations, finance internal venture building and deal flow. After he started his career in the M&A department of a large US Bank, he founded 6 companies in the offline marketing, online education and travel space. He is a passionate tennis and squash player and holds a B.Sc in business law from European Business School (EBS) and a M.Sc. in economics from Leipzig School of Management (HHL).

Newton Davis

Senior Venture Architect

Newton Davis

Newton joined XPRESS in May 2022 as a mobility expert. As a senior venture architect, he splits his time between company building and investing activities. Newton sharpened his toolkit through past experiences in consulting and venture capital at Accenture and 500 Startups. Newton is a self-proclaimed foodie with a B.A. in history from Williams College and M.Sc in Global Affairs from Tsinghua University, Schwarzman College.

Ole Poppinga

Venture Architect

Ole Poppinga

Ole is one of XPRESS’ earliest Venture Architects and responsible for our (pre-)seed investment deal flow. Thereby, he was deeply involved in co-founding our portfolio ventures Apothera and on-boarding PaketConcierge. Before that, he worked in banking and strategy consultancies like Accenture Strategy and alt//cramer with focus on business model digitization and notable merger in the automotive, healthcare and retail industry. The native east Frisian and passionate surfer studied economics at the WWU in Münster (B. Sc.) and CSULB in California before graduating a Master in Management (M. Sc.) from the ESCP Business School in Paris, Berlin and Madrid.

philipp teßmann

Venture Architect

philipp teßmann

Philipp is the logistics and market nerd at XPRESS. Before joining XPRESS, he held various positions in strategy and operations at startups and companies in logistics and eCommerce. Among others, he built the fulfillment service line of the Berlin-based LogTech start-up Warehousing1 and developed a supply chain visibility product at global industry leader Kühne + Nagel. Philipp originates from the rural area of Hamburg and studied International Management (B.Sc.) at BSP in Hamburg and UC Berkeley in California. In his free time, Philipp is passionate about cycling and reading books.

Markus hüting

sr. venture architect

Markus hüting

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