About Us
Gentian is an early-stage investment company founded by the Entrepreneurs Elian Kool and Gerhard Gerner.
We focus on investments in SaaS platforms, Mobile, Robotics/Drones and adjacent areas we have a passion for.
Based in Switzerland, most of our investments are in the DACH region, but with a clear focus on a global market.
We invest exclusively in enthusiastic teams, which we support with our experience as Entrepreneurs, as board member or advisor.
Who we are
Elian and Gerhard are Entrepreneurs who jointly founded Netcentric, a global leader for Customer Experience solutions in 2012. We have grown the company to 400+ employees across Europe, before selling the company to Cognizant in October 2017. During this time, Netcentric was awarded as EMEA Partner of the year by Adobe multiple times and won large multinational clients across Europe.
Elian Kool

Elian started his career as a software engineer and worked as Architect for many large Customer Experience platforms before founding Netcentric in 2012, which he led as CEO until 2019.
Currently he focuses on a new venture, winemaker.com, where he builds a new way to discover wine.
Elian serves as a member of the board with multiple of our portfolio companies (Alaya, Nomoko, Swiss Ocean Tech) and as president of Make Me Smile International (Switzerland), which supports Make Me Smile Kenya, a NGO for development collaboration, child care and help to help themselves and Make Me Smile Colombia, a fund with a focus on reforestation of formerly tropical rain forests in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia.
Gerhard Gerner

After studying Mathematics and Computer Science, Gerhard started his professional career in the innovation lab of a German software company. In 2000, he went to Asia and Australia to build up the local SAP support and consulting business of that same company. This experience fostered a passion for customer service, which has endured throughout his career. Gerhard returned to Germany in 2004, and focused on building content management and customer experience solutions. The majority of his work was focused on larger European enterprises, with teams based onsite and offshore.
He earned an MBA in 2006, and this enabled him to co-found Netcentric in 2012. Since this time, Gerhard has worked as COO and since 2020 as CEO, successfully guiding the company through its considerable growth.
Our Portfolio
Our investments are focuses on robotics and B2B platforms, but leaves space for other ventures, where both the founder team, the venture and the growth potential convince us.