Your pitch is awaited.
We are Jan and Matthias, the two founders of devowl.io. Our software runs on 250,000+ websites. Now we invest our own money in early-stage software startups from the EU: equity at business-angel level and founder-to-founder support.
Software in legal tech first, tech for sustainability second. Two people, not an institution.
Jan Karres
Founder of devowl.io, the business side
Matthias Günter
Founder of devowl.io, the developer
Who are you two?
Two founders who still run the company they built, and now invest a part of what it earned.
Our products run on more than 250,000 websites.
Every one of them has people behind it who rely on it.
Jan Karres
The night owl · business informatics
Started as a techie and moved to the business side: market analysis, product conception, product management, marketing and leadership. He built software independently for more than ten years, founded a few startups along the way, ours among them, and once ran an award-winning YouTube channel on a social topic.
Matthias Günter
The early bird · thoroughbred developer
He spent years in the SAP field and wrote WordPress plugins as a hobby from 2015 on. The first, Real Media Library, sold more than 12,000 times before our company existed. Today he owns the technical architecture behind every product we ship. He takes each problem apart until he sees the whole of it, and only then builds.
What we built that worked
- Real Media Librarysince 2015Turns the WordPress media library into well-organized asset management.
- Real Cookie Bannersince 2020Consent management for WordPress under the GDPR and ePrivacy rules.
- ComplyforceSoonsince 2026In-depth legal analysis of any public website for data-protection compliance.
How did you get here?
We met as teenagers, when Matthias played on Jan’s game server. Soon we were building things together: a browser game that never launched, then a social network for learning languages and vocabulary, which we gave up after a year and a half. We lacked the structures for that much code, and the project descended into chaos. So we kept trying, together and later each on our own, and every attempt left our structures a little better. That is why we ask about structure early today.
Then we lost touch. The last thing Matthias told Jan was that he wanted to invent folders for WordPress. Jan found it handy but doubted anyone would pay for it. Four years later Matthias was back with Real Media Library. It had no logo and a description Jan did not understand. Still, more than 12,000 people had bought it. Jan thought: there has to be something good in this!
In 2020 we founded our company, planning a whole portfolio of WordPress plugins. Then our own website needed a cookie banner. Jan tried 17 of them, spent two full days and still could not tell whether the site was compliant. Hundreds of website owners told us in surveys that they were stuck the same way, most of them with no budget for legal advice.
So Real Cookie Banner became our second product. We gave it six months, and it turned into years down the rabbit hole of legal tech, first with a law firm at our side, today with our own legal counsel in-house. Somewhere on the way the plugin company became a legal-tech company. That is where we come from when we read your pitch.
Matthias builds software with heart and soul. With someone that reliable at my side, I could finally throw myself into everything else a startup needs.
Jan Karres
The dates behind it
- 2011Our first projects together: a browser game and a social network for learning languages.
- 2015Matthias starts writing WordPress plugins, and we lose touch.
- 2019We meet again over his first plugin, Real Media Library.
- 2020We found our company to build many plugins. Our own cookie banner sends us into legal tech instead.
- 2026Complyforce goes live. Website owners finally see where their site stands on data protection, instead of guessing the way Jan did.
What do you invest in, and what not?
So you can tell in a minute whether writing to us makes sense.
Early-stage software startups from the EU, mainly from Germany. We invest our own money at business-angel level, equity only, and come in early, once there is at least an MVP and the first business is getting going, so you can grow and focus on building something real.
What fits
- Software, built as a productSomething many people use and pay for, built to scale and to bring in recurring revenue month after month.
- Legal tech, and tech for sustainabilityLegal tech is the field we know best. Tech that makes the world more sustainable interests us too.
- At least an MVPPre-seed or seed, with a product people can use and a first business getting going.
What does not fit
- Businesses without software at their coreHardware, agencies and services sold by the hour, where the software is not the product.
- Companies outside the EUWe do not invest outside the EU, because we build on European values and want to strengthen Europe’s sovereignty.
- Anything but equityWe take a share in your company. We do not lend money, and we use no other instrument.
What comes on top
If you build around law or for WordPress, you also get the industry knowledge of years of daily work in it.
Law (data protection above all)
Legal tech taught us to square what the law demands with what software can do and what users really need.
WordPress
We have built our own plugins for it since 2015, and they run on more than 250,000 websites.
What do I get besides money?
Two founders who have been where you are, as close as you want us to be.
We share what we learned, founder to founder. We built our own company from zero, so we know which structures a startup needs early and which mistakes cost the most:
From Jan
- Market analysis and product conception for your go-to-market
- Legal-tech and data-protection expertise, with our in-house legal counsel close by
- Positioning, pricing and marketing for products with recurring revenue
- Structures a bootstrapped company needs in its first years
From Matthias
- Architecture decisions talked through together while they are still cheap to change
- Code reviews from more than ten years of shipping
- How to build to real quality standards with a small team
- Inside knowledge of the WordPress ecosystem since 2015
From both of us
- Honest feedback, also when it is uncomfortable to hear
- Our virtual office, open when you need a second opinion
- How a small team ships big with agents, while people set the intent and own the result
- Introductions where we have them, a plain no where we do not
What we do not do: take over your day-to-day, which stays yours to run. And we do not sell advice, because our advice is for the founders we invest in.
Both of us can read your code. Only one of us will comment on your landing page.
What do you stand for?
These four values carry our own company, and we look for them in every startup we back.
Built to last
Companies that grow on a model that carries them. We are in no hurry to get out.
Check: years on, we still run our own company, profitable and not sold.
European by conviction
Built under EU law, where digital sovereignty is what sets a product apart.
Check: based in Germany, not in a tax haven.
Privacy by design
Data protection decided at the drawing board, not patched in before launch.
Check: Real Cookie Banner puts data protection into practice.
Founders at eye level
We have been in your shoes, so you get direct answers in plain language.
Check: the hard questions are answered below.
What happens when I pitch?
At every step you know where you stand and what comes next. No gatekeepers: you write to two people, and two people write back.
1
Send your pitch
Use the form behind every “Pitch to Awaited” button: your vision in one sentence, and your deck as a link or a file, whichever you have at hand. Tell us your stage, from MVP to seed, and add a website if there is one yet.
2
We read it, both of us
No analyst and no filter in front of us. The two people you would work with read your pitch themselves and decide on it together. You get a reply from one of us within one to two weeks, also when the answer is no.
3
If it fits, a video call
You pitch live, in a 60-minute video call. So you can prepare: who you are, what problem you solve and for whom, how big the market is, why now, how you earn money, what you have built so far and what the money is for.
4
Investment plus support from founder to founder
Equity at business-angel level, on a standard term sheet without side letters, and each side pays its own advisers. From then on you have two founders at your side who built a company from zero.
Awaited<Reply> resolves with a human.
What happens to my pitch deck?
We want to be transparent about how we handle your deck, before you send it.
Three commitments you can hold us to. They are also in our privacy policy, but you should not have to go looking for them there.
Who sees it
Jan and Matthias read it, sometimes our in-house legal counsel too. That is the whole list.
Where we store it
Never public, never shared with third parties. Only our login opens an uploaded PDF.
How long we keep it
If we do not invest, we delete your deck within three months of the process ending.
Questions founders ask us
Now it is your turn to question the investor. Here are our answers to the questions founders usually ask us.
How much do you invest?
Equity at business-angel level, from our own money. We do not name a fixed amount, because it depends on your round and on what the money is for. That is something we talk about in the call.
Who decides, and how long does it take?
The two of us decide together, with no committee behind us. You get a reply from one of us within one to two weeks of your pitch, and if it fits, the 60-minute call comes next.
Does your investment qualify for the INVEST grant?
INVEST is a BAFA grant that pays private investors back 15 per cent of what they put into a young, innovative company with a registered presence in Germany. Whether ours qualifies we check for your case in the call, so do not plan with it before that.
How many startups do you back a year?
A handful at most. We invest our own money and our own time, and both are finite, which is exactly why each founder gets real attention.
My company is not a German GmbH. Does that work?
We know the paperwork of a GmbH best, and we look at a company in another EU country as it is. Which legal form it has is a question for the call, not a reason to hold back your pitch.
Investment awaited?
Then tell us what you build: your vision in one sentence, shorter than an elevator pitch. Your deck does the rest.
Jan and Matthiasread every pitch themselves
We read every pitch and reply to each one. If it fits, we invite you to a 60-minute video call to get to know you, your company and your vision.