Greater Oldenburg Area
I’m an inventor, innovator and investor. I turn real problems into real companies. My career changed the moment I realized most innovations fail for the same reason: everyone talks about ideas - almost no one builds them. In boardrooms and workshops, I watched brilliant concepts suffocate under politics, process and PowerPoints. The spark in people’s eyes faded the moment reality entered the room. I couldn’t unsee it. So I stopped helping people discuss the future and started building it. Over the past 15 years, I’ve created products, ventures and business models that didn’t exist before. What began as engineering evolved into a practice: recognizing real unmet needs, inventing the solution and forming a company around it. Today, I operate where invention, innovation and investment meet. I don’t manage portfolios — I create the companies they’re built from. How I work: • real-world problems • physical + digital products • validated demand • scalable models • long-term ownership What drives me: If you can see a better future, you’re responsible for building it. I work with people who believe progress comes from creating, not talking — and who want to bring things into the world that should already exist. That’s why I build. More: grannyandsmith.com
At Granny&Smith, I lead the creation of new ventures based on real-world problems and validated market needs. We don’t deliver innovation services. We invent solutions, build products and form companies around them — physical and digital, always with ownership in mind. My role is to identify meaningful problems, shape the right invention, assemble the venture architecture and guide each company toward market traction and long-term value. I work with leaders, founders and investors who prefer real progress over presentations — and who want to build companies that should already exist.
Mission Innovation: Inspiring people to be innovative in order to shape the world of tomorrow – that’s my mission.
"Get Real Innovation" is about how to build a truly innovative company and why it's so incredibly hard. Innovation is the main driver of business success today. What do the most innovative companies like Google, Amazon, Tesla and many startups have in common? What methods do they use? How can you be successful, too? And what, in practice, has proven to be a mistake? Using real, short, concise & practical examples based on more than 15 years of practical experience in innovation development, Lars helps his readers discuss these questions and find answers.
Berenfels is the single family office of the founders of Granny&Smith. We do not invest in unknown founders with funny ideas. We build validated ventures ourselves, using our own operational infrastructure, and open selected deals to co-investors before they ever hit the market. We start at 100% ownership at cost of production. Most investors buy in at a fraction, at million-dollar valuations. That is the difference between leverage and hope. Proprietary dealflow. Skin in the game. System over lottery.
INSTARIDE - Synchronizing mobility demands with the help of AI. The revolutionary social driving startup - still in stealth mode.