Christophe Maire
Head of Maps & Explore / Nokia Services, Nokia Ltd

Christophe has more than 15 years entrepreneurial and investing track record in Media- and Mobile communications-related technology areas. He has consistently delivered product innovation and has led the build-up of disruptive businesses (through both up- and downturns).

In 2000, Christophe founded and co-headed gate5 AG, the Berlin-based pioneer in mobile mapping & community service before selling the company to Nokia in late 2006. He led the company through multiple phases of venture financing and in turn grew gate5 to Euro 18 Mio in sales. As head of Maps and Explore, Christophe contributed to grow a very successful worldwide service business for Nokia (Ovi Maps). The former gate5 unit today employs more than 300 highly qualified developers in Berlin alone.

Before that, Christophe led Filmstudio Babelsberg FX Center, one of Europe’s largest digital media production venture at the time, raising equity from Bertelsmann, Vivendi and Deutsche Telekom. He also initiated Cyber-Cinema, the first European network of electronic cinema venues and co-founded 20/20 Vision, a Film production company focusing on feature films made in Europe and emerging countries. Christophe started his professional life as innovation & product design manager for Toto K.K. in Tokyo, Japan.

Christophe is one of the founders of Atlantic Ventures, a small outfit specializing in booting-up companies and supporting audacious entrepreneurs. Past and current engagements include, SoundCloud.com (Lead), StudentSN.com (Lead), Txtr.com (Lead), PlayAll.com (Lead), TooStep.com (joint lead with Accel India), Brands4Friends.de (co-invest only), StudiVZ.de (co-invest only, sold to Holtzbrinck) and Plazes.com (Lead, sold to Nokia). Christophe is on the board of European start-up organisation www.seedcamp.com and of the alternative investment fund Berlin Atlantic http://www.berlinatlantic.de/.

A Swiss citizen based in Berlin, he studied business at the Universities of St. Gallen and Barcelona and attended executive education curriculum in New York University and Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.