NAO: Partnership with Redstone opens VC investments for private investors

Berlin, July 16, 2025 — Redstone takes a strategically new path with the Redstone Global Venture ELTIF and makes it easier for institutional, professional and semi-professional investors to get started in VC investments — they can now subscribe to ELTIF shares directly through their custodian banks and thus invest in Redstone target funds.

The offer, which has so far been aimed exclusively at the named investor groups, is provided by the partnership with Berlin-based WealthTech NAO also open to private investors. They can participate in the start-up investments of venture capital investor (VC) Redstone from 1,000 euros. For the first time, the cooperation makes a successful and broadly diversified VC investment strategy of institutional quality retailable.

Broad diversification meets top performance

The Redstone Global Venture ELTIF is a European Long-Term Investment Fund (ELTIF). The fund invests in a wide range of European Redstone funds and fund generations. This gives investors access to over 200 startups from currently five specialized funds — from FinTech to Deeptech, AI to Education & Health. The successful investments in the portfolio include well-known names such as Exein, Timeleft, Planradar and Finanzguru. In the future, the fund will also invest in new fund strategies from Redstone to further diversify its portfolio.

Investors benefit in several ways: Broad diversification into over ten differently specialized verticals enables VC investments with broad diversification across sectors, countries, phases, technologies and business models. In the past, Redstone's vertically specialized fund strategy has regularly outperformed generalist VCs. Investors also benefit from a streamlined cost structure: The typical double fee burden, as is usual with fund of funds structures, is almost completely eliminated with the Redstone Global Venture ELTIF.

The timing for the partnership couldn't be better: Post-crisis venture capital years have historically exceeded other volumes by an average of 17.5 percent IRR (internal rate of return). Redstone's active funds are already showing remarkable performance of up to 40 percent IRR and are therefore among the top percentile globally. In principle, European VC funds perform six percent better than their North American counterparts — while at the same time reducing volatility. Due to the unique risk/return ratio of broadly diversified VC portfolios, institutional investors from the USA are already investing up to 20 percent of their total capital in venture capital.

Breakthrough for institutional & private investors in the VC market

Until now, entry into venture capital funds has primarily been reserved for large institutional investors and very wealthy private individuals. The reason for this was not only high minimum amounts, but above all complex legal requirements and complex processes.

With the Redstone Global Venture ELTIF, this is fundamentally changing: in levels of 25,000 euros, 250,000 euros and 5 million euros, qualified investors can invest directly with most banks via an ISIN — without the usual bureaucracy. This creates access that was previously only available to a few — but has now been significantly simplified for all types of professional and semi-professional investors.

Thanks to the partnership with NAO, private investors can also, for the first time, supplement their portfolio with broadly diversified start-up investments via the NAO app from as little as 1,000 euros. Structural barriers to investing in young growth companies are thus being consistently broken through for the first time.

The initiative shows in very concrete terms how private investors can participate in investments in sustainable products and solutions. From an economic perspective, mobilizing private investments in innovative business models makes sense: In this way, the potential of private investors is systematically tapped to strengthen young companies and Europe as a location for the future.

Michael Brehm, general partner at Redstone, explains: “Venture capital has so far been a highly attractive but also extremely difficult to access asset class — even for institutional investors. With the Redstone Global Venture ELTIF, we are making it easier for institutional investors to get started not only in monetary terms, but also, above all, administratively. In addition, with NAO, we are democratizing genuine institutional VC quality for private investors for the first time — and at what we believe is a historically favorable time to start. ”

“German private investors have been missing out on one of the most profitable asset classes of all for years. With Redstone, we are fundamentally changing this: Investments starting at 1,000 euros in over 200 startups in ten specialized verticals — that's real institutional diversification,” explains Robin Binder, founder and CEO of NAO. “With VC investments, we are opening up an important asset class for the mass market for the first time. The broad diversification in particular is perfect for the retail market and can be an attractive new portfolio component. ”

About NAO

NAO is a novel co-investment platform for private and alternative investments. The mission of NAO founder Robin Binder is to liberalize investments and help people build up wealth over the long term. In the NAO app, investors can find carefully selected and exclusive investment options that were previously only available to a small financial elite. NAO was founded in Berlin in 2022 and received the FinTech Germany Award in 2024. The NAO team works with renowned banks and asset managers such as Baader Bank, BNP Paribas AM, Chartered Investments, FERI, Goldman Sachs AM, Muzinich & Co., Partners Group, UBS, UniCredit and Vontobel.

About Redstone

Redstone is a leading European venture capital firm with headquarters in Berlin and additional offices in Munich, Zurich and Helsinki. The company pursues a data-based and sector-focused investment approach via clearly structured, dedicated funds.

This approach — combined with the strategic cooperation of a global network of industrial partners — creates targeted access to relevant fields of innovation. Redstone thus enables reliable investment decisions and attractive long-term returns for institutional investors, industrial partners and portfolio companies.

The current portfolio comprises around 200 fast-growing startups and tech companies, particularly in areas such as deep tech, fintech, health or education. The basis of the investment strategy is the proprietary SOFIA analysis platform, which evaluates more than three million startups worldwide in real time and supports the investment team in making fact-based decisions.

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