Stephanie Heller

Managing Partner & Founder of the technology growth debt fund at Bootstrap Europe

Speaker

Before co-founding Bootstrap Europe to support ground-breaking tech businesses, Stéphanie’s career includes founding, building and sitting on the board of several successful technology and financial companies in Zurich and London, such as the award winning fintech start-up Fractal Labs (sold).

Stéphanie takes her experiences as a founder and parlays that into working with Bootstrap Europe’s portfolio founders in a pragmatic and compassionate way. Bootstrap Europe’s philosophy of providing debt financing for growth companies was nurtured between 2008 and 2012, when Stephanie, the managing partner for Bootstrap Europe was responsible for the private equity assets of Cape Capital AG - a Zurich-based multi-asset manager and family office, investing in a whole spectrum of companies, from start-ups to mature businesses.

Driven by the belief that more capital should be directed to entrepreneurs and innovation, Stephanie founded The Real Economy Effect (TREE) in 2012 to help family offices manage their private equity investments. TREE managed a portfolio of c. $350M in more than 30 growth equity and technology investments. Stephanie initially built her financial foundation and expertise in the London based M&A team of Deutsche Bank, where she specialised in the Industrials Sector. She also worked in Paris for French investment bank Calyon, within the Credit Risk Ratings team.

Stephanie is fluent in French, English and German, and is a graduate of HEC Business School in Paris where she majored in Finance and took executive business law classes at Universität St Gallen Management School.