serial entrepreneurs Petra Vorsteher and Ragnar Kruse receive GABA Award of Excellence (FOTO)

San Francisco / Hamburg (ots) – German American Business Association (GABA)
recognizes “Outstanding contributions to transatlantic business relations and
their inspirational success stories on both sides of the Atlantic. “

The two German serial entrepreneurs and investors Petra Vorsteher
(https://www.linkedin.com/in/petravorsteher/) and Ragnar Kruse
(https://www.linkedin.com/in/ragnarkruse/) are this year’s winners of the
prestigious GABA Award of Excellence (https://gabagala.org/award/) . The award
was presented to them by the German American Business Association (GABA
(https://www.gaba-network.org/) ) at a ceremony in San Francisco on Friday. The
two tech and AI pioneers were honored for their life’s work and their “
outstanding contributions to transatlantic business relations and their
inspirational success stories on both sides of the Atlantic.” Vorsteher and
Kruse are currently supporting German AI start-ups in particular with their
various initiatives to mobilize private venture capital, including from the USA.
The GABA organization has been promoting the transatlantic exchange of knowledge
between US and German business and technology circles since 2003. The award has
previously been presented to well-known German entrepreneurs, including SAP
co-founder Hasso Plattner, Sun Microsystems co-founder Andreas Bechtolsheim,
Sebastian Thrun, co-founder of the online academy Udacity, LinkedIn co-founder
Konstantin Guericke and the former president of Stanford University Gerhard
Casper.

Their passion for technological progress and sustainable business practices made
Vorsteher and Kruse driving forces in shaping the future of innovation and
entrepreneurship early on. Even in the early days of online shopping, they
recognized the potential of e-commerce. In 1996, they played a key role in
developing Intershop from a start-up to a listed company with a market
capitalization of 12 billion US dollars. In 2005, they founded the leading
global mobile advertising platform Smaato in San Francisco, which has since been
successfully sold. Today, Vorsteher and Kruse are at the forefront of the
integration of AI in companies with their company and growing ecosystem AI.GROUP
(https://ai-group.ai/) and are committed to the promotion and development of
young AI companies in Germany and Europe with initiatives such as AI.HAMBURG,
the AI.STARTUP.HUB, AI.IMPACT, the international AI.SUMMIT and the first
European AI fund AI.FUND. Vorsteher and Kruse have both lived in San Francisco
and Hamburg for decades.

“The USA is the epicenter of innovation and technology. It is therefore