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Hasso Plattner Ventures at Berlin Half Marathon

Well, we did not send a team of Hasso Platter Ventures Athletes to the Olympics yet, but we definitely kindled the athletic spirit in our portfolio companies and in-house team when Eran and Rouven, both regular runners in their own right, spread the idea around that the HPV family should not let this year`s Berlin Half-Marathon on 6 April 2008 go by without a group of us giving the famous 21.1 km flat inner-city course a shot. Was it the early morning runs that we did on this year’s Elite Academy of Entrepreneurs at Schloss Liebenberg (7 through 9 March 2008), where we ran with our good friend Christian Schenk, the German decathlon champion and Olympic gold medal winner?

Or the competitive spirit of the promising entrepreneur group that has joined our portfolio family in the last two years? Or simply the urge to earn one of the stylish runner’s shirts that we had designed for the occasion? We can’t say for sure but soon after the idea was launched we had a sizeable group of competitors together, ready to take on the challenge. Runners from datango, d-labs, Facton, Inchron, OpenSynergy, sMeet, VoIPFuture and of course HPV heard the  firing of the starter’s gun, set out on the race course and between 1:36:02 h and 2:55:26 h later, after one big loop through the streets of Berlin and past many of its famous sites crossed the finish line - a little less crisp than everybody had started, but infinitely richer in experience, stronger in character and happy to be part of the team. In keeping with that spirit we may very well try to round up an athletic crowd for the 2009 Berlin Half-Marathon again. Catch us if you can!