After helping to found Speedinvest as the first business angel fund in Austria and being a startup founder herself, Maria is now general manager of Speedinvest Heroes, building a network of talents to match suitable candidates with the right opportunity within the Speedinvest portfolio. Maria’s personal working history already starts in 1992 in the early internet area. As the GM of one of the first big dot.com success stories coming out of Austria (Datenwerk/Blue-C), she sold her stake early enough before the bust. Maria continued her entrepreneurial path that included managing a research think tank on Artificial Intelligence (long before the hype), spending time in Silicon Valley and eventually coming back to Vienna.