Financial Analyst Intern, Rocket Internet

Unlike other Venture Funds, Rocket are operationally active and infamously will often start with a startup idea that has been copied from another market, then staff operators to execute, while it has over 50% equity, making founders more akin to employees of the fund.

The firm recently de-listed itself from the stock exchange in a buy back deal. In turn, they are building a new abstracted version of Rocket, launching a pre-seed fund - Flash Ventures, a venture fund - GFC, and a debt fund - Global Growth Capital.

The challenge for Rocket is staying relevant amongst its own more narrow creations. While the ‘copycat’ model fuelled its early success, the current climate of widely available capital has troubled this high-equity business. It remains to be seen whether this side of Rocket will re-emerge, or the Samwer leadership will be content with its more conventional subsidiary funds.