Dr. Rainer Strohmenger

With over 25 investments in start-up companies, Rainer is one of Europe’s most experienced venture capitalists in the life science sector. Joining Wellington Partners in 1997, he became a Managing Partner responsible for the life science portfolio in December 2000. His 25 years of investment activity have involved financing of some of the most successful European biotech, medtech, diagnostics and digital health companies, six of which were taken public and 8 were successfully exited through trade sales.

In the late 1990s he co-managed Wellington Partners’ investment in Swiss biotech player Actelion, which became the most successful venture-backed biopharmaceutical company in Europe and was acquired in 2017 by Johnson & Johnson for US$ 30 billion. He was also responsible for the investments in Grandis (acquired by Novartis), Wavelight (acquired by Alcon), NoemaLife (acquired by Dedalus Group), MTM Laboratories (acquired by Roche), immatics (Nasdaq: IMTX), Oxford Immunotec (acquired by Perkin Elmer), invendo medical (acquired by Ambu), Genkyotex (acquired by Calliditas) as well as Definiens (acquired by AstraZeneca).

Prior to joining Wellington Partners, Rainer was involved in medical research with a primary focus on cardiovascular physiology and in research on health economics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, Germany. Rainer holds a doctorate in medicine as well as an MSc. in economics, both from Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, Germany, and was trained at the Entrepreneurship Center of the MIT, Boston, USA.

He represents Wellington Partners on the VC Council of Invest Europe and is a Member of the Senate at the German Association of Small and Medium-sized Businesses (BVMW).