Jochen is the Co-Founder & Managing Director of Cosmonauts & Kings. He has always been enthusiastic about the impact of digitalization on politics and democracy since he joined the Berlin start-up ecosystem in 2007.
He was a campaign manager for a social democrat candidate in the 2005 general election in Germany, when he was still in high school. In 2007 he moved to Berlin and co-established the first social network for pupils in Germany for the social network group studiVZ. He became the head of political affairs for the biggest social network group in Germany and was responsible for the first digital outreach campaign to mobilize millions of young voters via a social network for the general election in Germany and the European election in 2009.
During his master degree in professional public decision making at the University of Bremen, he became a consultant for the Swiss publishing house Ringier in Africa to develop an expansion and investment strategy for digital ventures in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2014 he joined DCM in Berlin as the portfolio and investment manager for seed- and early stage start-up investments. The portfolio included investments like delivery hero or seerene.
After nearly 10 years of academic and professional experiences at the intersection of politics and digitalization, Jochen co-founded Cosmonauts & Kings together with Juri Schnöller in 2016. The first political tech start-up in Germany to enable the usage of technology and data as political capital for cititzens and political actors.
