Mark Kugel

About

Founder, operator and investor, formerly in 🚀, now building in 🔋. Keynote speaker on innovation, space and climate tech. Author of The SpaceX Playbook. Strong believer in: 1. a world powered by solar, wind and batteries 2. a multi-planetary future (go Starship)

Experience

• Co-Founder & Managing Director at SONNTAG Energy
  Feb 2024 - Present · 2 yrs 5 mos

  Hofnahe Agri-PV mit Speicher 🍎🔋 Wir sind ein Climate-Tech-Startup vom Bodensee mit einer klaren Mission: den Hof der Zukunft elektrisch, unabhängig und wirtschaftlich stark zu machen. Gegründet von erfahrenen Startup-Unternehmern und unterstützt von Business Angels aus der europäischen Energiewelt bauen wir Agri-PV-Anlagen und Batteriespeicher mit echtem Impact. www.sonntag.energy

• Speaker & Author at Freelance
  Jun 2018 - Present · 8 yrs 1 mo

  Keynotes on innovation, startups and industrial transformation for Fortune 500s and SMEs. Author of The SpaceX Playbook. Learn more: www.markkugel.de

• Angel Investor at allunderground
  Jan 2025 - Present · 1 yr 6 mos

  Happy to back one of the most exciting hard tech companies in Europe.

• Co-Founder | Co-CEO at Yuri
  Jun 2019 - May 2024 · 5 yrs

  Yuri is a space biotech company that harnesses the uniqueness of space to develop bioproducts in oncology, synbio and tissue engineering. Built the company as Co-founder & Co-CEO from scratch to 40+ people with offices in 3 countries: 🚀 achieved 4 successful rocket launches (with 5 more in pipeline) 🌍 served customers in 25 countries across 4 continents (incl. NASA, GSK, MIT) 🤝 secured eight figures in customer contract value 💰 raised $6M from top VCs in Silicon Valley, NYC, Europe 🏆 earned numerous awards, incl. Deutscher Gründerpreis, EY 🧑‍🚀 assembled an incredible team that built the 🧬 world's most capable space biotech stack (go ScienceTaxi!)

• Project Manager at Rolls-Royce Power Systems AG
  Jun 2017 - Aug 2019 · 2 yrs 3 mos

  Supported in setting up the newly founded unit "Digital Solutions", which grew from 20 to 70 people within 2 years. My main outcomes: - Developed low-cost IoT solution (as product owner and project manager) to connect our global fleet of engines from idea to global rollout of 5000 devices. The project won the prestigious Sir Henry Royce Award. - Initiated one of the biggest internal digital projects called "component tagging" - Supported the agile transformation of Rolls-Royce through top management keynotes (Top 200, Top 70), the introduction of a regular inspiration event called "Breakout" and various Design Thinking workshops