Impresses investors: Codesphere founder Elias Groll. Codesphere
The careers of founders often start from a similar starting point: academic training at renowned business schools or years of experience in management consultancies. But Elias Groll, a 24-year-old founder from Karlsruhe, breaks with this pattern.
He started programming at the age of ten. And at fifteen, he hacked the school server – an early sign of his unconventional and extraordinary career. Now he has not only convinced big VCs with his cloud startup Codesphere, but also stars like Mario Götze.
Initially, Groll attracted the attention of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), which is known for its computer science courses. He was invited to a trial course while he was still attending high school and began studying for a bachelor’s degree while he was still at school. Later he worked at Google in Zurich and Silicon Valley, where he was already earning a five-figure salary at a young age, as he told Gründerszene last year. He then founded Codesphere.
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He hacked the school server when he was 15 and is now the founder of a coding startup
The startup aims to replace development operations (devops for short) with an innovative tool that makes implementing code easier. Only founded in 2020 with his long-time friend and programming competition partner, Codesphere has now received considerable financial support – with a company valuation of 20 million euros in the past year.
In its most recent funding rounds, Codesphere has raised a total of $8.1 million. Investors in previous rounds included 468 Capital, 42CAP, LEA Partners. One of the early supporters since the company was founded is Mario Götze, whom CEO Groll says he met through business angels.
At the end of March 2023, Groll received its most recent financing of $2.5 million. You can find out what the 15-page pitch deck with which he was able to close the million-dollar round looks like here. By the way, there are more presentations on our pitch deck topic page.