This year the Goldene Aurora was awarded to Dr. Mariana Bozesan. Nominated ladies have been Amorelie founder Lea-Sophie Cramer from Germany, Francesca Fiore from Italy and Victoria Hernandez from France.

Spyridon Linardakis, CEO of NDC Datacenters, one of her portfolio companies, describes Mariana as a lady who inspires and leads people to integral sustainability. Dr. Ahrens, the founder of Surgitent, says that Mariana has encouraged them to focus on the exclusive use of materials that are environmentally sound and meet social and regulatory aspects.

Mariana drives the Investment Turnaround implementing the UN Sustainable Development Goals within Planetary Boundaries through investing in integral sustainable start-ups.

According to BAND “the angel investment ecosystem has been on a steady rise throughout Europe in recent years. However, women entrepreneurs acting as business angels still seem to be somewhat underrepresented. In 2017, Business Angels Netzwerk Deutschland e.V. (BAND) decided to put an end to that and shed light on the important contributions of Female Angels to the economy by awarding the first-ever European Female Angel of the Year with the Golden Aurora Award. Our official partner of the award is Business Angels Europe (BAE).”

Why Golden Aurora?
“In Roman mythology, Aurora opens the gates of the sky to allow the sun to rise. Female Angels also open gates for their start-ups that may result in golden opportunities. Also, the award is able to shed light on the contributions of Female Angels like Aurora sheds light every dawn.” (BAND)

Read more about the nominations in the Venture Capital Magazin, on the BAND website and the Startup Valley News.

DR. MARIANA BOZESAN: Dr. Bozesan is an integral impact investor, serial entrepreneur, philanthropist, author, and researcher. Based on Ken Wilber’s integral theory, she developed the Theta model, a de-risking framework to implement the parity between people, planet, and profit in early stage investing through the integration of financial, ecological, and social sustainability with cultural, behavioral, and human consciousness factors. She is a full international member in the Club of Rome and serves as a strategic advisor on integral finance and sustainability to various funds, businesses, and nongovernmental organizations. She is co-founder and president at AQAL Capital and the AQAL Foundation, as well as co-founder of AQAL Group, a Munich-based investment conglomerate. Educated at Stanford University and KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology), Dr. Bozesan holds a M.S. degree in Artificial Intelligence from KIT and a Ph.D. in psychology.