# 99 - A Conversation with Adrian Locher, Co-Founder and General Partner of Merantix Capital

<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianlocher/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Adrian Locher</a> co-founded <a href="https://www.merantix-capital.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Merantix Capital </a>in Berlin in 2016 with machine-learning researcher <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rasmusrothe/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Rasmus Rothe</a>. </p><p>What started as an AI studio has become one of Europe&#39;s most distinctive AI organisations: a venture studio that incubates companies from scratch, a campus hosting an entire ecosystem, and — as of June 2026 — a €100 million plus fund backing AI ventures across the continent.</p><p>In this conversation, Adrian traces his path from founding his first company at fourteen and selling the Swiss flash-sale platform DeinDeal to Ringier in 2012, to building Merantix&#39;s combined studio-fund-campus model. </p><p>We discuss what it actually means to build AI-native companies in Europe, where the structural obstacles remain, how to evaluate teams when technology moves faster than any due diligence, and what a thriving European AI ecosystem could look like by 2031.</p>