Finance Forward: How serial founder Jessica Holzbach wants to build 1,000 fintechs with 0TO9

Jessica Holzbach (35) had no shortage of opportunities after her career break. The serial entrepreneur, who has already successfully built and sold two fintechs, Penta and Pile, is well-connected in the financial scene. Investors, banks, and others vied for her services – "I've really been there for everything," she reports in the current Finance Forward podcast. Nevertheless, she noticed that the market's momentum has noticeably slowed. "I don't think the current AI push is necessarily helping to revitalize a funding model like fintech, because it simply takes a bit longer to build these companies," she says.

Her own enthusiasm for the topic remains undiminished. She still sees enormous potential for new business models. This is one of the reasons why Holzbach chose her new role – and has now switched sides : Instead of founding the next startup herself, she heads the German business for the company builder 0to9 and intends to support founders from the initial idea to profitability.

The Swedish startup, founded by former bank manager Tord Topsholm , sees itself as a "bank for entrepreneurship." It offers startups not only capital but also an administrative infrastructure. Fintechs can outsource core functions such as IT, compliance, or marketing to the platform, thus saving themselves the burden of time-consuming and expensive in-house development. Particularly exciting, however, is the Swedish banking license, which is made available to portfolio companies via 0to9. The idea is that the license will also be brought to Germany via so-called EU passporting, reveals Holzbach. This would enable companies to bring financial products to market in Germany much more quickly.

The 0to9 model envisions two paths: financing existing teams and developing completely new ideas following the classic incubator model. In the latter case, the financier secures significantly more shares in the new startup. " We often take majority stakes because we finance the companies all the way to profitability," says Holzbach. The entrepreneurial freedom of the founders should be preserved despite the minority stake, she emphasizes. "We are all former founders and know how little you can dictate the tone from the outside when you're not in the thick of the day-to-day business."

The team's ambitions are high. 1,000 new fintechs are to be created in the next 20 years. And the projects are to be profitable after just one or two years. However, the expectation is not that every project will become a billion-dollar business like N26. " It would also be okay for us if if it remains niche, becomes profitable and supports itself, for example, the absolute specialist in car financing," says the manager.

What lessons Jessica Holzbach learned from her time at the incubator Finleap, what she now wants to improve – and what role AI should play in this: she spoke about this in a podcast with manager-magazin editor Caspar Schlenk.