DN Capital was founded in June 2000 by Nenad Marovac and Steve Schlenker, two Harvard Business School classmates who built the firm into a genuinely transatlantic early-stage investor spanning London, Berlin, and Menlo Park. Marovac's own path - born in Croatia, raised in San Diego, advising on East German privatization in Berlin before Advent International and Harvard - gave the firm an unusually early foothold in Germany's DACH technology scene, reflected in a portfolio heavy with category-leading German companies like AUTO1 Group, HomeToGo, and Mister Spex. Four portfolio IPOs have returned more than €400 million to DN Capital, led by AUTO1 Group's 2021 Frankfurt debut at approximately €7.9 billion - Germany's largest tech IPO at the time - and the firm closed its most recent $350 million Fund V that same year.
AUTO1 Group's 2021 Frankfurt Stock Exchange IPO at approximately €7.9 billion - Germany's largest tech IPO at the time, with DN Capital exiting 95% of its stake