How World Cup champion Mario Götze built a parallel career as an angel investor

Mario Götze will go down in soccer history as the player who scored the winning goal that made Germany the 2014 FIFA World Cup champion. But he is also an increasingly seasoned angel investor.

Companion M, Götze’s personal investment vehicle, now has a portfolio of more than 70 companies, two of which became unicorns in 2025 — Danish fintech Flatpay and German AI startup Parloa. But the athlete also learned some lessons along the way about vetting opportunities. “I only agree to invest if the startup and its founders check all the boxes,” he told TechCrunch.

The boxes can be quite subjective at the stage at which Götze invests — typically pre-seed and seed rounds, with ticket sizes between €25,000 and €50,000 ($29,000-$58,000). To address this, Götze says Companion M “focuses on specific areas where we have built profound network and expertise.” Surprisingly, sports isn’t one of those areas — at least not directly.

According to Götze, Companion M primarily focuses on B2B SaaS, software infrastructure, and cybersecurity, as well as health and biotech. While that’s not sports tech per se, health and biotech are a natural niche for an athlete interested in human performance and wellness — and who has the freedom to pursue unconventional opportunities in those fields.

In 2020, Götze made headlines for investing in German cannabis startup Sanity Group when most European institutional investors wouldn’t touch cannabis with a 10-foot pole. Since then, Germany has liberalized some aspects of its cannabis laws, creating tailwinds for the startup that claimed a 10% share of the German medical cannabis market in 2024.

With cannabis still forbidden for athletes in competition, Götze will have to wait to try the stuff himself: The 33-year-old is still playing professionally at the top league level with German club Eintracht Frankfurt. But rather than waiting for retirement, he is taking cues from American athlete-investors such as NBA champion Kevin Durant.

Götze is not the only active European soccer player who also invests in startups — for instance, Cristiano Ronaldo and Kylian Mbappé also do. But as the father of two young daughters, he has to balance his various commitments. “I have to schedule calls before or after practices and align meetings with weeks when I don’t have away games or play Champions League,” Götze wrote.

Götze isn’t doing it all himself, but he is not simply entrusting others with his money either. Instead, he created Companion M as a small team that supports him with angel investing, partnerships, and other tasks. “These are important for myself as a brand, particularly in the long term, after [my] active career,” he explained.

There is an undeniable branding aspect to these efforts. When Götze became Revolut’s first-ever brand ambassador for Germany, the fintech company cited his track record as an angel investor as an incentive. But while preparing for his post-soccer career, Götze has found what he describes as “another passion apart from sport.”

This passion may be less unexpected than it seems. While Götze and his brothers all became soccer players, their father Jürgen is a professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology of TU Dortmund University, and the family spent time in Houston, Texas, when Jürgen was visiting Rice University as a postdoctoral researcher.

Not coincidentally, Götze mostly invests in Europe and in the U.S., with past investments including Miami-based Arcee AI and Frankfurt-based Qualifyze. Several portfolio companies went on to raise significant amounts of follow-on funding, and he has already exited some, such as Berlin-based KoRo.

Exits give Götze capital to reinvest, but he’s also focused on long-term wealth consolidation. As a limited partner, Companion backed more than 20 venture capital firms on both sides of the Atlantic, including 20VC, Cherry Ventures, EQT Ventures, Planet A, Merantix, Visionaries Club, and World Fund.

Götze is still under contract with his club and is reportedly discussing an extension. But whenever he finally retires, these venture firms could count him as a peer. “After my career ends, I plan to focus on my investment activities,” he told Bloomberg. But even then, don’t expect him to publish his anti-portfolio of startups he passed on and that later became huge successes.

“There are plenty of new startups every year, and there will be some that you miss out on. But regretting past decisions leads to making uneducated or impulsive decisions in the future,” he told TechCrunch. Spoken like a true sportsman: Dwelling on what you missed won’t help you score the next goal.