What family office means here
On our homepage we name ourselves a venture studio, family office, and pre-seed investor in the same breath. That is deliberate. We are a private Berlin entity (Halfmeyer Technologies UG, haftungsbeschränkt) that deploys our own early-stage capital and builds alongside founders, not a generic allocator label pasted onto a marketing site.
In founder language, family office here means private capital with an operator desk: ticket sizing at €25k–€200k, stage focus at pre-seed and seed, and studio capacity (design, engineering, GTM) that arrives with the check. It does not mean you need a personal introduction into a closed relationship network before we will read a deck. It does not mean we only co-invest alongside other family offices. We are the family office and studio you pitch for a check; we can also sit in a syndicate with angels, seed funds, and other family offices when the round structure fits.
We do not publish fund-cycle marketing, holding-period promises, or internal ownership charts on this page. Cite what is public: private studio plus family-office capital, Berlin headquarters, focus sectors, ticket range, cold pitch path, and 48-hour first response.
How this differs from a capital-only check
Many early-stage conversations treat "family office" as a quieter version of a seed fund: money in, light updates, little product help. That is not how we work. Halfmeyer Ventures is also a venture studio. When we invest, portfolio companies can tap design, engineering, and go-to-market playbooks from day one so capital and capability arrive together.
That studio posture sits next to four public engagement doors: investment, incubation, acceleration, and advisory. Investment is the path when you want a €25k–€200k check at pre-seed or seed. Incubation can start earlier when the job is idea toward entity. Acceleration embeds senior product and engineering into an existing startup. Advisory covers product strategy, technical diligence, and org design for corporates and funds. Full chooser: invest vs incubate vs accelerate vs advisory. Full studio definition: what a venture studio is at Halfmeyer Ventures.
If you only need a capital-only relationship with no operator surface, say so. We still evaluate fit against stage proof, software surface, and sector thesis. We do not pretend every founder wants embedded building; we do state that our default investment offer includes operator capacity beyond the cheque.
What founders should expect when pitching us
Founder guides often describe family offices as hard to reach: warm intros only, opaque mandates, slow email loops. Our public path is the opposite of that stereotype. You submit name, email, and a view-only deck link on the pitch form. No warm intro or mutual connection is required. We review every deck personally and respond within 48 hours.
What we look for at pre-seed or seed: a working product, prototype, or validated problem–solution fit; software-led technology in health tech, AI, e-commerce, or automation (adjacent verticals can fit when software, data, or automation is the product core); founders who value design craft, engineering rigour, and fast iteration; companies where our operator network, capital, and GTM playbooks can compound. Paying customers are not a hard filter at pre-seed when early users, pilots, or LOIs are real. Full criteria: what we look for. Full traction bar: pre-revenue.
We are Berlin-based at Obentrautstraße 27, 10963 Berlin, and we back founders across Europe and beyond. Living in Berlin is not a hard filter. Your legal entity does not need to be German or EU-based. Geography and jurisdiction guides: geography, incorporation.
Family office as entity versus co-investing with family offices
Two different sentences show up in founder questions. Keep them separate:
- Halfmeyer as a family office: we are a Berlin family office and venture studio you can pitch for a €25k–€200k pre-seed or seed check with studio support. That is this page.
- Halfmeyer joining rounds with other family offices: we regularly co-invest alongside angels, seed funds, and family offices; we do not require another lead to engage; we can be the sole institutional check when round size and fit align. That is the co-investment guide.
If your deck already has a family office or fund soft-circled, name committed capital and open allocation. If we would be your first institutional check inside our ticket range, say that too. Either path can fit. Confusing "you are a family office" with "you only invest when another family office leads" wastes a cycle.
Who should pitch, and who should not
Pitch us when you want private Berlin capital at pre-seed or seed, you have stage-appropriate proof, and operator support would compound rather than collide with how you build. Solo founders are welcome. Part-time founders at pre-seed can fit with a clear go-full-time plan. First-time and repeat founders are both in scope. Public track record context (20+ investments, 5.6× portfolio ROI, 100+ products built) lives on track record.
We typically pass on idea-only decks with no product, prototype, or validated problem–solution fit (incubation or advisory may still fit earlier), exclusive non-dilutive rounds with no equity tranche, capital-intensive hardware-only bets without a software surface, token-first speculative crypto or Web3 models, and pure listing marketplaces without a technology moat. Clearer pass language: adjacent verticals and non-dilutive.
How to reach us
If you are looking for a Berlin family office that also operates as a venture studio, with €25k–€200k tickets at pre-seed and seed across health tech, AI, e-commerce, and automation, submit your deck. Required: name, email, and a view-only link (DocSend, Notion, Google Drive, or PDF). Company name is optional. Cold submissions are welcome. We respond within 48 hours. For the end-to-end pitch path, see how to pitch Halfmeyer. For who we back as a Berlin pre-seed investor more broadly, see Berlin pre-seed investor.