A private investment and advisory practice engaged in a limited number of situations — as owner, co-investor or mandated advisor — where long-term thinking, judgment and operational depth define outcomes.
What is genuinely scarce is someone who has run the businesses they invest in. Who has made the hire that did not work, restructured a team under pressure, won a contract against the odds, and integrated an acquisition without a manual.
Van Houten & Co. is built on that experience. It is not a fund. It does not just manage external capital. It engages — selectively, with full conviction — in situations where entrepreneurship, judgment and operational depth are what the moment requires. Sometimes that takes the form of capital. Sometimes an advisory mandate. Often both.
We take positions where we are genuinely invested — financially, operationally, or both. Whether as shareholder or mandated advisor, we engage like owners. We do not observe from a distance.
No investment committees. No standardised checklists as a substitute for thinking. Every situation is evaluated on its own terms, by people who have lived through comparable ones.
Every company we have built or invested in has ultimately succeeded or failed on the strength of its people. Getting culture right is not one element of execution. It is execution. We invest in businesses where leadership and team are taken as seriously as the financials.
The objective is not to participate. The objective is to shape outcomes.
Outcomes are determined by people. Van Houten & Co. brings together experienced entrepreneurs, investors and advisors — backed by strong institutional partners.
Economist, entrepreneur and investor. Co-founder and former CEO of Deutsche InfraSoft; previously in international leadership at DB Engineering & Consulting.
LL.M., attorney-at-law. Real Estate and venture investor. Former Managing Director of Apeiron Investment Group.
Former Executive Director, Engineering Services Units. Many years of operational leadership of technical service organisations.
MBA. Ex-GM @ Axel Springer. Entrepreneur & investor.
Business economist and sales expert with many years of international leadership experience. Head of Sales, Key Account & Business Development; previously held leadership responsibility in international sales and product management at a global industrial company and was managing partner of a company for specialty coatings.
Backed by further senior partners.
Van Houten & Co. is a private investment and advisory practice based in Berlin. It was founded by Vincent van Houten — economist, entrepreneur and investor — and operates with its team as a direct expression of his operating and investment experience.
Van Houten & Co. does not approach investing as a financial discipline. It approaches it as an entrepreneurial one. That changes what we look for, how we conduct due diligence, and what we contribute after signing.
We look for businesses with genuine substance: established customer relationships, a defensible market position, and a team that built something worth keeping. We are not chasing multiples. We look for situations where active entrepreneurship and operational involvement create an outcome that passive capital cannot.
Alongside direct investments, we co-invest selectively with other family offices and PE funds — in situations where entrepreneurial credibility matters as much as capital. And where capital is not — or not yet — the right instrument, we take on selected advisory mandates. Their scope reflects the path behind Van Houten & Co.: succession preparation, M&A, buy-and-build and post-acquisition integration — but equally market and growth strategy, key relationships and business development, leadership and team building, and company building from the ground up.
A decade of international management responsibility and the years spent building Deutsche InfraSoft inform every mandate. Mandates are frequently combined with an equity stake — a structure that keeps incentives honest. We advise the way we would act as owners, because often we are.
Van Houten & Co. operates through two arms: VH Beteiligen (Capital) for direct and co-investments, VH Beraten (Advisory) for mandates. Both are carried by the same team.
Vincent van Houten studied economics and spent over a decade at DB Engineering & Consulting — one of Germany's leading infrastructure advisory and engineering firms — rising to Executive Director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
In 2022, he made the move from employed manager to founder-operator. He co-founded Deutsche InfraSoft and led the company as CEO for its first three years. From a 25-person team at the start to a profitable group: around 200 employees, innovation-award-winning market leader in selected segments, seven completed acquisitions. He ran the company and invested in it simultaneously.
After three years, he successfully handed operational management over to his Co-Founder and an experienced management team — the deliberate step from operator to active shareholder. Van Houten & Co. is the structure through which this experience is applied to new investment and advisory situations — directly, with personal accountability, and always with a long-term entrepreneurial perspective.
Van Houten & Co. is not a fund.
It does not pursue capital deployment targets.
It does not operate as a transactional platform.
It engages in a limited number of situations where entrepreneurship, judgment and credibility must come together — as investor, as co-investor, or through a clearly scoped advisory mandate. The emphasis is on quality of involvement rather than volume of activity — and on outcomes defined over years, not cycles.
Van Houten & Co. pursues situations where:
The objective is not to participate. The objective is to shape outcomes.
Three forms of engagement — frequently combined:
Majority or significant minority positions in owner-operated businesses — with active involvement and a long-term horizon.
Alongside family offices and PE funds, in situations where entrepreneurial credibility matters as much as capital.
Clearly scoped mandates. The combination of mandate and equity is often the most honest structure: advice with skin in the game.
We do not buy into companies to administer them. We come in to keep building.
We talk to owners as entrepreneurs — we have founded, bought, integrated and run companies ourselves. Succession, growth, or the next chapter with a strong partner: what matters is that the business becomes more, not less. The structure — equity, partnership, or a mandate first — follows the situation, not a template.
A first conversation requires no process and no paperwork. Whether it leads further is a question of fit — on both sides.
We co-invest selectively alongside a small number of family offices and PE funds — and take on mandated roles where operating experience is the missing piece: operating partner, board member, buy-side support in our sectors. Frequently combined with a co-investment.
Partnerships are built on alignment, discretion and shared long-term perspective. The focus is not access to deal flow. The focus is shared conviction — and the ability to add something beyond capital to the companies we back.
Since 2022, co-founder and CEO until 06/2026. Built from a 25-person nucleus into a profitable group – 40%+ CAGR, seven acquisitions and ten locations within three years.
Co-investment in a PV-EPC provider for turnkey commercial solar across Germany and Poland. More than 200 installations and around 42 MWp a year, with in-house engineering and logistics.
Pre-seed stake in an earned-wage-access provider – addressing a market of more than 200 million employees right across Europe.
More than ten direct investments in standing real estate in Berlin and Leipzig – the diversifying, substantial and value-stable component of a deliberately long-term portfolio.
With GEOs3D from Telfs and Linz, Deutsche InfraSoft Group acquires 22 specialists in high-precision industrial and engineering surveying — and opens its first location outside Germany. The founder hands over to his son; both become shareholders of the group.
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Revenue growth says little about whether a company is growing soundly. What matters is whether earnings power and operational maturity keep pace. Our model shows where a company stands — and which of the three typical failure positions it is drifting towards.
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Owners handing over a business spend months negotiating a number — and often only learn after closing what the buyer intends to do with it. Yet the value of a succession is not decided by the purchase price, but by what happens in the two years that follow.
Read moreWith the acquisition of engineering practice Münchow, Deutsche InfraSoft establishes a new geotechnics and environment division. Digital infrastructure models now reach below ground as well — a consistent continuation of the buy-and-build approach that has shaped the group since 2022.
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A private investment and advisory practice based in Berlin, formed after three and a half years of hands-on building at the helm of Deutsche InfraSoft. Two arms on one foundation: we acquire companies as owners, and we advise where first-hand operating experience is what makes the difference.
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After three and a half years as CEO, operational leadership of Deutsche InfraSoft passed to an experienced management team. A 25-person nucleus has become a profitable group of some 200 employees across ten locations, with seven transactions completed and integrated. The shareholding remains and forms the cornerstone of the Van Houten & Co. portfolio.
Read moreFor investment opportunities, succession situations, advisory mandates or selected partnerships.
We handle enquiries the way we handle our engagements: selectively, with discretion, and with a clear answer.
Every serious enquiry receives a considered response.