Gunnar Berning
Start-up Coach and Mentor @Heartfelt
Signup · Get unlimited contacts
WORK HISTORY
Start-up Coach and Mentor @Heartfelt
Coaching and mentoring of founders and start-ups (Strategy, Business Model, HR, Internationalization, PR, Financing) who take part in the APX program (formerly Axel Springer Plug N\' Play Accelerator)
EDUCATION
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
Diploma / Master, Business and Engineering
SKILLS
ABOUT GUNNAR BERNING
The energy transition won\'t happen in boardrooms. It happens on rooftops, in basements, and on construction sites – wherever skilled tradespeople install heat pumps, climate systems, and refrigeration units. The bottleneck isn\'t demand. It\'s capacity.That\'s why I co-founded SHK Ventures. We\'re building Germany\'s most modern trades group for heating, air conditioning, and refrigeration – acquiring excellent craft businesses, preserving their identity, and elevating them with shared resources, talent development, and digital tools.Our approach: We buy proven, profitable heating, cooling, and climate technology companies. We keep their names, their teams, their customers. Then we unlock what no single shop can build alone – a centralized back office, professional recruiting, a proprietary training academy, group purchasing power, and end-to-end digitization from quotes to invoicing.In September 2025, we acquired our first company in Berlin – a refrigeration and climate specialist with 30+ years of market presence and 24 employees. The founder stays on as Managing Director. That\'s not a footnote – it\'s the model. We don\'t replace entrepreneurs. We empower them. We\'re now scaling toward 10 companies across two regional clusters.What drives me: 25% of German trade business owners need a successor by 2030. Skilled workers are desperately short. Digitization barely scratches the surface. These aren\'t just problems – they\'re the greatest opportunity in a generation to reshape an entire industry.The road here: 19+ years as serial entrepreneur and senior tech executive. Founded and led multiple companies, raised $60M+ backed by top-tier VCs and corporates, managed successful exits and scaled teams from zero to 100+ employees. As CEO of fromAtoB: 40M€+ revenues and a triple-digit team. As founder of twago: Europe\'s leading freelancer marketplace built from scratch. At Siemens: PMI lead for the €18bn Nokia merger with Siemens. My teams won the Red Dot Award and the Diversity Award, and built software rated 4.9 across reviews.Beyond work: Climbed Kilimanjaro. Explored Galapagos post-lockdown. Tracked four cheetah brothers sunrise to sunset in the Masai Mara. Trained with Kenyan pro athletes at altitude. And found a new mission while visiting a local kindergarten: building a school in Kenya – a project I\'m still pursuing.Professional Education:KIT – Business & Engineering (Wirtschaftsingenieurwesen)| INSEAD – Executive MBABusiness owner, investor, or talented professional who wants to build something meaningful? Let\'s talk.
This profile is compiled from publicly available professional sources. Unifers is not affiliated with or endorsed by LinkedIn. Request removal of this profile.