Gharage Ventures plans to invest in 30 startups in five years.

Gharage Ventures, a venture capital fund anchored by Gebr. Heinemann, has stepped up plans to back travel ecosystem startups and promises to invest in 30 companies in the next five years, acting as the industry’s early‑stage tech scout.

In March, Gharage made a decisive shift by moving from an internal innovation lab to developing a fully regulated venture capital (VC) fund with €40 million earmarked for deployment. Fund I, based in Singapore and Berlin, aims to create industry‑wide technology standards by supporting strategic LPs (limited partners) to move proofs of concept (POCs) in a more directed way.

At a briefing in Heinemann’s Hamburg headquarters last week, Managing Partner Lennard Niemann said the pivot reflects six years of learning about what actually shifts the dial in travel retail and airport operations, as well as a way to harness, for example, the power of AI and agentic commerce.

“In collaboration with Heinemann, we tried every tool of innovation you can imagine in that time… M&A, when it comes to technological innovation, was too expensive, partnerships were too slow, R&D or venture building was too expensive and too slow,” he said. “What worked was venture‑clienting—collaborating with young tech companies to adopt innovation more efficiently. We’ve learned how to turn innovation into a profit centre, not a cost centre.”

From corporate lab to industry platform

Venture‑clienting allows a big corporation like Heinemann to collaborate with young tech companies to bring ideas from the outside in. Given that “legacy players were not moving fast enough in this direction,” Niemann has spotted an opportunity in becoming a gateway between startups and the wider travel ecosystem.

Lennard Niemann briefs the travel retail press at Heinemann’s Hamburg HQ.

The new fund structure—regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore—formalises that gateway role, with the venture capital acting as an engine to access “the best of what’s out there”. The fund will close at around €40 million, with a small circle of carefully selected LPs, ideally from across the travel value chain: retailers, wholesalers, logistics players, airports, airlines and suppliers. A second closing is expected at the end of this year.

While the goal is not simply financial return, Niemann says the existing portfolio is already “profitable on paper”. Startups in Northern Europe and Southeast Asia will be the focus going forward, and the fund will act as a strategic funnel, giving LPs access to vetted technology, shared deal flows, and the ability to scale pilots across multiple operators.

Where the €40m will go

Gharage Ventures expects to invest €250,000–€500,000 per deal, taking minority stakes in startups that are valued between €5m and €50m, typically from seed (first external funding) to Series A (the first institutional venture round). By co‑investing alongside tier‑one VCs globally, Gharage believes it will gain access to oversubscribed rounds. “The goal is that we don’t just create one‑by‑one POCs, but technological industry standards,” Niemann says. “The more players that join, the more synergies we can build.”

The VC has built a searchable ‘book’ with hundreds of relevant new companies to choose from in three areas of investment focus:

• – Operational AI – inventory optimisation, enterprise automation, reconciliation tools
• – Airport and logistics automation – robotics, autonomous ground handling, supply‑chain optimisation
• – Commercial and retail technologies – generative commerce, geo‑search, conversion tools.

The fund’s timing aligns with a broader shift: airports and travel retailers are under pressure to improve margins in a concession‑driven model while dealing with geopolitical volatility, climate‑related disruptions, and rising operating costs.“Passenger growth alone won’t solve our problems – the biggest disruptive potential is customer change and technology,” argues Niemann.

Looking ahead five years, Niemann believes the winners will be those who use AI to extend and monetise customer lifetime value beyond the brief walk‑through store moment. “There are far bigger ways to monetise travellers than just selling chocolate and whisky,” he says.

Gebr. Heinemann’s Co-CEO Max Heinemann commented: “Innovation doesn’t happen in isolation. Rather, it emerges where fresh ideas, new technologies, and operational expertise meet. This is precisely the mission of Gharage Ventures. It gives us, as an investor, early visibility into emerging consumer behaviours, travel technologies, and bold founders, pushing us to think beyond today’s boundaries.”

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