Meet the Speaker: Collaborate your way to success.

Collaboration is one of the main opportunities for local B2B and special interest media, says Julian von Eckartsberg, MD: Europe, Burda Principal Investments.

Julian will be one of our speakers at Media Makers Meet (Mx3 Berlin) on 19 & 20 October, where he will speak about trends and investment opportunities in media and tech, including what media can learn from tech businesses. Below, he answers five quick questions as part of our Mx3 Berlin Meet the Speaker series.

First, allow us a quick advertising break!

Save 20 per cent on Mx3 Berlin tickets

You can now sign up for the event with our special Mx3 Berlin Speaker Offer, giving a discount of 20 per cent on the standard rate.

• Sign up here (note: places are limited to just one hundred attendees, so if you want to attend, we advise not to leave registration too late).
• Use the discount code “Di5rupt_20“. (When you click on “Tickets” on the registration page, note “Enter promo code” in blue font directly above the header “General Admission”. Enter the code there for the discount).
• Note that tickets are limited to one hundred, so ensure you get a pass by signing up early!

With that done, let’s get back to our questions for Julian.

Tell us a little more about yourself.

I’m a German guy who has lived half of his life outside my home country in Mexico, Spain, Colombia and the US. Apart from travelling, I love doing sports and spending time with my family and friends at the lake. While I’ve been working in media for many years, I now am a venture capital investor, (unfortunately) mainly investing outside of media.

Tell us about your earlier career.

I started my career in management consulting, focusing on developing digital transformation strategies for media companies. It brought me to several European broadcasters, media, publishers, advertising agency networks, telcos and online companies. After founding a startup with mediocre success, I joined ProSiebenSat.1, where I became responsible for the group’s strategy department after a few years. Before moving into venture capital, I was the CEO of Stylight, a venture of ProSieben and General Atlantic.

Tell us about your current role.

As a venture capital investor, I constantly look for exceptional management teams and scalable, high-growth companies with the potential for global category leadership. While I look for investments all over Europe, I personally currently am focusing on the German and Baltic markets. Burda Principal Investments has invested in companies such as Vinted, Bloom& Wild, Carsome, Nord Security and Zapp.

What are the main challenges for B2B/special interest media verticals?

Challenges that I often see as an investor include the dependency on giants like Meta or Google to attract audiences, the competition from these and other giants with typically deep pockets for the same audiences, a really sustainably differentiating user value proposition, and challenging monetisation that often is even additionally threatened by European regulation.

What are the main opportunities for B2B/special interest media verticals?

There are plenty of opportunities, but one that instantly comes to my mind is the cooperation among the local media companies that have valuable, unique and attractive content but individually lack scale and currently don’t even talk to each other.

About Media Makers Meet (Mx3 Berlin)

Mx3 Berlin is an English-medium international event on 19 & 20 October, hosted at Fabrik23 in Berlin, Germany. 

It is off-the-record, allowing participants to freely speak their minds about challenges, opportunities and solutions for the sector. It will include fireside chats, panel discussions, round tables, and networking opportunities. 

• See the draft agenda here
• See the speakers so far confirmed here

Attendance will be limited to just a hundred participants to ensure a highly interactive, participatory event where speakers and attendees contribute alike to the success of the event.

Di5rupt organises and hosts the event with Deutsche Fachpresse, the German B2B Media Association, and MVFP, the German Free Press Media Association (previously VDZ), as the local media partner. Read more about the organisers here.

For more and to sign up

For more about the event and to sign up, go to mediamakersmeet.com. Don’t forget to use the discount code Di5rupt_20 to claim your 20 per cent off the standard ticket rate!