pd ventures

pd ventures (formerly PDV Inter-Media Venture GmbH) is the corporate venture capital arm of Mediengruppe Pressedruck, the Augsburg-based German media group best known for publishing the Augsburger Allgemeine. Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Augsburg, the firm has invested for more than 15 years in digital media and media-adjacent business models across web services, internet, and mobile applications, with a clear preference for scalable propositions targeting the German DACH market and, selectively, international markets. Founder and Managing Director Renate Dempfle leads the platform alongside Investment Manager Fabio Fiorda. Rather than acting as a pure financial backer, pd ventures explicitly leverages the distribution, reach, and operational synergies of the wider Mediengruppe Pressedruck group where relevant, and offers structures including seed funding, Series A, follow-on, financial investor, media-for-equity, and startup advisory arrangements. The firm has made approximately 20 investments and generated one IPO and eight acquisitions. Notable portfolio and exited companies include Ryte (SaaS content and SEO platform, acquired by Semrush in July 2024 following pd ventures' 2017 investment), Lingoda (online language learning, which had raised $83 million including a $68 million Summit Partners round in April 2021), Asgoodasnew, Spark Networks (IPO), pflege.de, Tausendkind, and Good Hood. pd ventures did not record any new investments in 2025 per public sources. For digital media and consumer internet founders building for the DACH market, pd ventures offers a combination of patient capital, media-industry expertise, and access to one of southern Germany's most established regional media networks, making it a strategic co-investor rather than a passive financial partner.