Dirk Kanngiesser is a technology entrepreneur and investor in Germany and Silicon Valley.  He has more than 25 years of startup, operational, company building and investing experience in Europe and the US.

He is a co-founder and CEO of Cryptowerk Corp., a Silicon Valley headquartered start-up for enterprise data integrity solutions, based on proprietary blockchain technologies. Dirk is an active angel investor and a board member of technology companies both in the U.S. and in Europe.

He was also the co-founder and CEO of the German Accelerator program, a German-government sponsored accelerator which supports German start-ups to enter the US market via the Silicon Valley, New York and Boston ecosystem.

He was a founder and Managing Director of PolyTechnos, a Venture Capital firm based in Munich, Germany with $200 million under management. He also was a partner of one of the first pan-European Venture Capital groups, Baring Brothers Hambrecht & Quist. He has been actively involved in many European venture capital investments and IPOs. Dirk also served on the task force of Deutsche Börse for the creation of a new stock market.

Dirk received his degree (Dipl. Ing.) in electrical engineering from Dortmund, Germany, and his MBA from UofM, Ann Arbor, Michigan. He served at the German Airforce Headquarters and holds a U.S. commercial pilot license. Dirk is a German and U.S. citizen.