We turn generations of substance into your next growth chapter.
Venture building, startup partnerships and investing for family businesses – led by the next generation, backed by the owners.
The model European family business was built on is wearing thin.
The next generation inherits a legacy – and a flattened growth curve.
Growth from quality and brand is thinning. Margin sits in new offers.
AI, data and regulation change who can sell, and how fast.
Three routes to growth beyond the core.
We run all three.
Build
Turn an opportunity the core has already seen into its own business.
Learn more +Close ×Partner
Become a startup’s customer, not its investor – and solve a key problem fast.
Learn more +Close ×Invest
Put family capital into companies that matter to your future.
Learn more +Close ×From the first question to a business with its own P&L: a new product, business model, spin-off or unit. AI makes it faster and affordable for a company your size.
→ Your core is stable, but growth has flattened.
→ You own something others would pay for that isn’t a product yet.
→ The next generation wants something of their own to run.
Explore
Map the opportunity space against what you already own.
Incubate
Test the riskiest assumptions with real customers, before anything gets built.
Accelerate
Build the first version, put it in market, find what people pay for.
Grow
Hire the founding team and turn it into a business with its own P&L.
Scale
Operational hand-off to the family. The venture runs without us.
± 3 months: one concept your board can decide on.
From a problem you can’t solve internally to a startup working inside your operation. No acquisition, no equity: you get the solution, they get the market.
→ You meet startups that could matter, but nothing gets past the first meeting.
→ A capability you need would take years to build, and someone already has it.
→ The next generation wants to work with startups and has no route in.
Frame
Turn a business problem into a searchable spec.
Scout
Map the market, shortlist the companies that can actually deliver.
Pilot
A paid pilot with real users, real data, and a decision at the end.
Integrate
Commercial terms, rollout, and the internal owner who runs it.
2–3 months: a shortlist of startups you can pilot.
Family capital put to work where the family has an edge: one participation or a full investment function, without risking the core.
→ Family capital sits in funds while the operating know-how sits in the company.
→ You want a standing investment arm, not deals by chance.
→ The next generation wants to learn investing on real deals.
Thesis
Define where the family’s capital has an edge the market doesn’t.
Source
Scouting, network, and inbound from the operating business.
Diligence & close
Commercial, technical and operational diligence, then terms, structure and governance.
Support
Operators in the business, not just a board seat.
1–2 months: an investment thesis your family can sign off on.
We don’t stop at strategy.
We stay until things exist.
Every route – Build, Partner or Invest – runs in one of four formats. Most start as a scoped project.
Scoped project
Defined, time-bound projects: a portfolio review, a set of opportunity fields, a market validation, an investment case.
A clear recommendation you can act on – for example your corporate venturing mandate: where to renew and who decides.
Embedded leadership
We take an operating seat in the business, fractionally and for a named period, while the work defines the role your own hire will step into.
A defined role ready for your own hire – for example a 40% Head of Growth building a venture’s external revenue engine.
Strategic mandate
We own one project end to end: a venture to market, a clienting program with startups, or a dealflow from sourcing to signing.
A venture taken to market, a clienting program run with startups, or a deal process from sourcing to decision – each with a board-ready case.
Family Incubator
We run the family’s renewal engine as a function: a standing pipeline of ideas, managed vehicles across build, partner and invest, a place for the next generation to build, and a mandate the family re-signs each year.
A named annual budget, ideas in build, and a mandate for the next generation.
Four seats at the table.
Owners
New growth, without everything running through you.
NextGens
Build and renew. Don’t just manage.
External executives
Growth with a timeline, a budget and clear criteria.
Trusted advisors
You advise the family on the big topics. We add renewal and growth execution.
Corporate-trained, entrepreneurial & AI-native.
Lisa grew up between Swiss and Turkish family businesses, first as a niece and a daughter, today as a partner to owner families. She studied innovation and corporate venturing at the University of St. Gallen (HSG) and practiced it at SIX Group, where building new business is a function with a mandate and rules. In 2024, she founded Dawn Ventures to bring that discipline to family businesses. In the past 3 years, Dawn has worked with 12 family businesses, from CHF 5m to 1.4bn in turnover. Half of them came through the next generation. Twice a year, she brings together the Dawn NextGen Circle.
Senior advisors
Owners, executives and board members who advise us and the families we work with.
Operators
Hands-on specialists who join our mandates and build with us.
Questions, answered
Three ways to grow beyond your core. Corporate venturing is the umbrella term for all of them.
You start the new business yourself. New offer, new customers, its own P&L. Most control, most effort.
You don’t build it. You find the startup that already has it and become their first serious customer. Faster, and your capital stays where it is.
You take a stake. No operating load, and no control either.
We operate. We take ownership of the work – the venture, the pilot or the deal – and hand over something that runs without us.
Owners, NextGens, external executives and the advisors they trust – in family-owned and legacy businesses across Europe.
In phases. Every phase ends in a decision – continue, change course or stop – and you keep what each phase produced.
A first conversation. Usually followed by a scoped project: about three months from a shortlist of opportunities to one concept your board can decide on.
Every family business was once a venture.
Let’s keep that entrepreneurial capability alive.