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Conference
FIBE Conference 2025 - What's the plan?
Welcome to FIBE: The Fintech Festival, where the future of finance comes to life!
In just two days, we'll delve into the most cutting-edge topics that are reshaping the financial landscape. With Handelsblatt, Germany’s business and financial daily, we have a more than competent partner at our side, who is responsible for curating the stage program.
In addition to dealing with the newest content, we create interactive formats and an exchange at eye level between the audience and our top speakers: No matter whether it's a debate, a live feed to our correspondents around the world or a meet and greet with our international top speakers: You can count on our conference program to be bang up-to-date, controversial and interactive.
To help you navigate our vast array of offerings, we’ve divided our festival program across three different stages:
- On our Festival Stage, we delve into the big questions and connections within the industry, if not the world, through panel discussions and one-on-one interviews. There's plenty of space around this big stage to listen, ask questions, and join the discussion.
- As the name Club Stage suggests, things are a bit more intimate here. Our speakers and moderators take a behind-the-scenes look at companies (be it a unicorn or an early-stage startup), collaborations, investments, and more. Again, your questions and experiences are more than welcome here.
- Experience Fintech Berlin style at our ever so popular Späti Stage. For many, a Späti (Berlin’s corner shops), replaces the living room or kitchen table and so does the Späti Stage: Completely informal and unconventional it features quick presentations, out of the box impulses, and our meet and greet sessions. Grab an ice cream, a beer, or some crisps and join the Späti crowd!
So: What will your personal agenda look like on these two festival days? In any case, it’s entirely up to you - no pre-registration is required for our stage program and you may check the current status of the program any time here.
Pitch Perfect
You’re a fintech startup (seed phase) that offers an innovative product? Well, then you should definitely apply for our Pitch Perfect and secure yourself a 5 minute pitch slot on our Festival Stage within #FIBE25.
Why the hassle?
Pitching in front of our audience (Founders, Investors, Banks) is a great opportunity of creating awareness for your brand and product.
What’s in?
Besides the performance on our main stage, you’ll get 2 FIBE tickets, which give you access to the whole FIBE program. Additionally, you’ll receive an invitation to our exclusive Pre Party.
You can apply for Pitch Perfect from autumn - detailed information will be provided on time.
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Eager to speak?
Ali Niknam
Ali Niknam set up his first company when he was just 16 years old. When he turned 20, he founded TransIP, which grew to be the biggest domain name and web hosting provider of the Netherlands.
In 2012, he founded Neobank Bunq in Amsterdam - the first bank in 35 years to receive a European banking license in the Netherlands. It focuces on the power of AI to make banking safer and more effectively than with any traditional method.
For a long time, Niknam financed its start-up itself. In 2021, the investor Pollen Street invested 193 million euros in the company, making it a unicorn. The company has been profitable since the 4th quarter of 2022 and is pleased to have ten million users.
Jessica Holzbach
Jessica Holzbach is a serial fintech entrepreneur and CEO of Pile Capital, a solution helping startups and VCs to manage their treasury and reduce financial risk.
She is also the co-founder of Penta, a digital business bank, that she scaled up to over 30,000 customers with over 45 million in venture funding.
Jessica's impressive achievements have been appreciated by Forbes "30 under 30" award in Finance and by winning the Startup Awards 2021. Beyond her work she is an active angel investor in early-stage companies, and also a share her viewpoints as a sought-after advisor to other fintech companies or as a seasoned speaker at several events.
Carsten Höltkemeyer
Carsten Höltkemeyer knows the financial industry well: for many years he headed Barclaycard's German business, followed by positions at payment service provider Concardis and lending platform Auxmoney.
Meanwhile he has taken on one of the most prominent jobs in the Berlin fintech scene. He is the CEO of the Berlin startup Solaris, which is a partner bank behind fintechs like Vivid and Bison.
He is facing exciting challenges: Solaris has come under the scrutiny of the financial supervisory authority in Berlin, while they must find a path to profitability.
Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen
Thomas H. Zurbuchen, also known as Dr. Z, is a former NASA science director, who oversaw launching 37 missions and two Mars landings.
Previously, he was a professor of space science and aerospace engineering at the University of Michigan, where he also founded the Center for Entrepreneurship. Over the course of his career, Dr. Zurbuchen built multiple space instruments and involved several innovations in his projects. He is known for driving innovation and linking research with business.
In 2023 he received the “Innovator of the Year” Award by Wirtschaftswoche.
Valentin Stalf
Valentin Stalf co-founded N26 in 2013 with the vision of building a company that would make banking more accessible to millions of people around the world. Today, N26 is one of the fastest growing mobile banks in the world and has more than 8 million customers.
Before that, he participated in the creation of Payleven and Paymill, companies specializing in mobile payments.
Valentin also acts as an investor and has backed several startups in Europe as well as venture capital funds. He also advises various investors around the world.
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Katie Palencsar
Katie Palencsar is an investor and thought leader in early-stage company building, venture studios, and the female founder investment ecosystem. Currently she is a Partner at Anthemis, where she also serves as Global Head of Venture Studio and leads the Female Innovators Lab Fund, investing in early stage female founders in fintech. Since launching the fund at the end of 2019, Katie has led its global expansion and AUM growth with backing by Barclays, Aviva, Visa and BMO and now investing across North America, UK and Europe.
Magali Van Bulck
Magali Van Bulck is European Policy Officer at Wise, formerly TransferWise. It is a global and fast-growing technology company with over five million users, that is building the best way to move money around the world.
Magali Van Bulck is focused on financial services policy and consumer awareness campaigns to make finance fairer. Therefore she is aims improving transparency in cross-border payments, lowering the cost of remittances and providing a pathway for non-banks to join the national financial infrastructure.
Ramin Niroumand
Ramin Niroumand, also known as the Fintech-Pioneer in Germany, joined Motive Partners as a Partner and Head of Motive Ventures. He is responsible for sourcing and executing investment opportunities with a focus on identifying trends and growth for Motive portfolio companies.
Ramin is also the founder and Executive Chairman of finleap, a fintech ecosystem based in Europe. His leadership spearheaded the disruption of complex legacy domains such as banking, insurance, and wealth management. At one time there are employing over 1,500 persons across 15 portfolio companies. The portfolio is collectively worth over €3bn today and includes 3 unicorns.
Adrian Locher
Adrian Locher is Co-Founder, CEO and General Partner of Merantix, an AI investment platform based in Berlin. He is also the initiator of AI Campus, a non-profit center for the AI community in Berlin.
Over the last 20 years, he has been an entrepreneur and investor, founding more than 10 companies in Europe and the US in the software, technology, e-commerce and AI sectors.
He sold his last company, a leading Swiss e-commerce company, with a turnover of EUR 100 million. Adrian has received several awards and chairs the board of START, Europe's largest student entrepreneurship initiative.
Elina Berrebi
Elina Berrebi is co-founder of Revaia, a European growth fund.
Revaia invests in growth-stage European companies with global ambitions and sustainable leadership, helping them navigate the entire lifecycle from growth stage to IPO and beyond.
Prior to founding Revaia, Elina was involved in the creation of Eurazeo Growth and worked as an investment manager at Bpifrance. She has experience in financing, structuring and monitoring more than 30 growth companies and currently serves as a board member in several companies.
Elina Berrebi has received several awards for her work.
Lesley Li
Lesley is the managing director and co-founder of U Impact. The award-winning startup helps financial institutions turn their ESG costs and regulatory burdens into revenue and growth opportunities by using data to empower their end investors to be more confident and sustainable.
Prior to founding U Impact, she worked for leading investment banks including JP Morgan and Barclays in London for over ten years. She completed two master's degrees in finance and industrial management at the University of Cambridge.
She gave a TEDx talk in Berlin in 2022 and was selected two times for the Women in Fintech Powerlist by UK Innovate Finance.
Miriam Wohlfarth
Miriam Wohlfarth is the Co-CEO of Banxware. This Berlin-based financing startup enables young founders in the e-commerce industry an alternative to traditional bank lending by seamlessly integrating lending into online sales platforms.
Back in 2009, Miriam founded the fintech company Ratepay, which makes her to one of the first female fintech founders in Germany. In the meantime, Ratepay has reached "Unicorn" status.
Furthermore, Miriam is a member of the Digital Finance Forum of the German Federal Ministry of Finance, a supervisory board member in various corporations, partner of Payment & Banking, LinkedIn Top Voice, and successful book author.
Through various initiatives, she gets young people excited about digitalization and programming. Manager Magazine has ranked her among the top 100 most influential women in German business for several years now.
Tatjana Kiel
Tatjana Kiel is CEO of Klitschko Ventures and a long-time business partner of Dr. Wladimir Klitschko.
Since the end of 2016, as Managing Director, she has been responsible for the entire set-up and development of Wladimir Klitschko's post-career, as well as the merging and development of new ventures and products. They extracted the FACE the Challenge method from his expertise in nearly 30 years of competitive sports.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Tatjana Kiel's work has had another focus. Her aid initiative #WeAreAllUkrainians turned into a non-profit GmbH of the same name, which implements sustainable aid measures and mediates between donors, Ukrainian NGOs and aid projects on a needs-oriented basis.
Erik Podzuweit
Erik Podzuweit is co-founder and Co-CEO of Scalable Capital, a leading investment platform in Europe. He has many years of experience in the finance sector and in building digital business models.
Before founding Scalable Capital, he was Co-CEO of Westwing Home & Living, responsible for the German business. Prior to this, he worked as an Executive Director at Goldman Sachs in London and Frankfurt for seven years. There, he advised financial institutions in the area of capital investments and was responsible for an electronic trading platform.
Lukas Zörner
Lukas Zörner is Managing Director Germany of Qonto, the European market leader in financial management for SMEs.
He has the entrepreneurial gene: at the age of 21 he began his carer as an analyst at Morgan Stanley, and at the age of 23 he already founded his first startup - and other fintechs, like the AI-driven fintech Mespo, followed.
Most recently, he helped build the fintech champion Penta. Since the merger of Penta with Qonto, he has been VP Germany of Qonto. This puts him in charge of the German business, and he is also part of Qonto's Global Executive Committee.
Alexis Augier
Alexis Augier is a former Elliott investment professional.
He was an analyst at Goldman Sachs and then joined the private equity firm KKR.
After a few years, he moved to a hedge fund and then founded Vega - a wealth management firm targeting younger, underserved high-net worth individuals in the UK. This digital platform seeks to bridge that gap in the market, and was launched $8.3 million in seed capital.
Dr. Florian Toncar
Florian Toncar is a German politician (FDP) and lawyer. He has been a member of the German Bundestag for many years and has been Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Finance since 2021.
He is committed to tomorrow's prosperity, sound finances, security in freedom, work-life balance and better infrastructure.
Malte Huffman
Malte Huffmann is co-founder and co-CEO of Mondu, an innovative B2B payments company. He is a seasoned entrepreneur and venture builder with over fourteen years of experience in consulting and management in Europe and Latin America.
Previously, in 2011, Malte co-founded Dafiti, the leading online platform for fashion and lifestyle in Latin America, which went public in 2019 via Global Fashion Group.
He was also Managing Director of MyBrands in Germany, which was sold to Zalando.
Maik Taro Wehmeyer
Maik is a domain expert in ML/AI with a focus on risk, credit, and insurance applications.
Prior to Taktile, he worked alongside his Co-Founder Max at QuantCo modernizing the risk stack for large financial institutions.
He is also a member of the EU Commission’s AI Alliance and the German AI Alliance and holds degrees from Harvard University, École Polytechnique and KIT.