Making corporate pensions simple is the mission on which Penzilla was founded in 2021. Now the founders Catherine Leser and Christoph Leser have successfully completed their pre-seed financing round. With 2.5 million euros raised, their goal is to make corporate pension simple and secure.

Digitisation offers huge market potential

The digitalisation of corporate pensions is one of the biggest growth opportunities in the insurance market and Penzilla quickly convinced the new investors after an in-depth analysis of the segment.

Michael Hock, Partner at lead investor Motive Ventures, emphasises: "There is a clear gap in the market when it comes to offering software for corporate pensions and income protection as well as health and long-term care provision. Penzilla enables employers to save costs with a central management system and at the same time creates legal clarity."

Co-investor WENVEST Capital also sees a high readiness for digital transformation in this segment as well as the need to make processes more efficient which is exactly what Penzilla offers a holistic solution for.

Efficiency and clarity instead of paper and complexity

The topic of corporate pensions is not new to the founders. Christoph Leser comes from a family business with over 30 years of experience in traditional corporate pension administration. Therefore, he knows the challenges. 

"Basically, there are two fear opponents: paper and the fear of the supposed complexity," he notes.

With this in mind, Penzilla was developed. The result is an innovative, digital and, above all, simple approach.

"In fact, corporate pension is still paper-based in many companies," Catherine Leser adds. "Penzilla solves the related problems by digitising the entire portfolio and managing it in a legally compliant way." 

In addition to companies with a long and distinctive corporate pension history, companies that are dealing with the topic for the first time also benefit.

Penzilla's customers enjoy a simple solution that makes it possible to find, contract and manage the right pension plan. Employers' challenges are fully solved by ensuring 100% compliance, transparency and a high level of automation.

The all-round carefree package for corporate pension

Penzilla is the operating system for digital corporate pension provision.

As a Software as a Service (SaaS), it integrates into the existing HR system of companies. "Once this is done, the administrative effort is reduced to almost zero", explains Christoph Leser, "ensuring 100 % compliance".

The system administers old contracts and finds suitable contracts for new agreements, each tailored to the wishes of the employer and the employee. All relevant data can be viewed via dashboards and changes can be made if necessary. Collaboration with corporate pension advisors takes place via a separate user interface.

Pension provision as a building block of corporate social responsibility

Simplicity in a complex subject area is one of Penzilla's main priorities - but not the only one. Founders and investors point out the special function of pension provision in terms of a sustainable social structure. 

Providing for employees is a task of socially responsible companies. This is not just about financial security in old age, but also about provision for corporate disability, illness or long-term care. Penzilla therefore covers all corporate pension provision. Catherine Leser also emphasises the relevance in the battle for skilled workers: "Employees appreciate a good, regulated pension plan more than an even fuller fruit basket.

The investors

Motive Ventures

Motive Ventures is the early-stage investment arm of Motive Partners, focused on pre-seed through to Series A financial technology investments in North America and Europe. Motive Ventures is based in Berlin, London and New York. Motive Partners is a specialist investment firm focusing on venture, growth equity and buyout investments in technology-enabled financial and business services companies. Motive Partners brings differentiated expertise, connectivity, and capabilities to create long-term value in financial technology companies.
More information on Motive Partners can be found at motivepartners.com

WENVEST Capital

WENVEST Capital is a private venture capital investor based in Munich. WENVEST focuses on pre-seed and seed stage investments in start-ups with a B2B SaaS business model in the areas of digitalisation, digital health and climate tech. WENVEST has a portfolio of > 20 investments and is managed by Bernd Wendeln & Christophe Aumaitre. Bernd Wendeln & Christophe Aumaître geleitet. 

More about WENVEST Capital wenvest.capital

Angel Invest

Angel Invest is Europe's most active angel fund and invests in more than 50 European technology start-ups every year. Jens Lapinski, Jag Singh, Christine Kiefer and Matthaus Krzykowski are partners who make angel investments and coach founders.

More information about Angel Invest can be found here: angelinvest.ventures

buildery.vc

As serial entrepreneurs and business founders, buildery.vc invests in great teams and helps build scaling businesses.

More about buildery.vc: buildery.vc

Unsere Angels

Penzilla is supported by great and experienced business angels, including Stefan Menden, Andreas Burike, Uli Erxleben, Maximilian Backhaus, Nikolai Skatchkov, Stevan Lutz, Marco Schmid, Johannes Ditterich, Dr. Alexander Haines, Daniel von Devivere, Marc Müller