About

Founding partners

AI.HAMBURG was founded in 2019 by Petra Vorsteher & Ragnar Kruse — serial entrepreneurs who previously built and scaled Smaato from Silicon Valley to a global mobile advertising platform.

Co-founder · AI.HAMBURG

Petra Vorsteher

Founder of AI.HAMBURG and Smaato · Board International | Hamburg@work

Petra is founder of AI.HAMBURG and vice-chairwoman of Hamburg@work, responsible for international activities. Previously she was co-founder and CAO of Smaato — one of the first women worldwide to build a mobile company in 2005 and grow it into a leading global mobile ad and RTB exchange.

Before mobile, she helped scale Intershop from startup to a publicly traded company. With over 30 years of experience across the U.S., Europe, and Asia, she serves on several boards and was appointed Hamburg Ambassador in San Francisco.

Co-founder · AI.HAMBURG

Ragnar Kruse

Founder of AI.HAMBURG and Smaato · AI advisor at Hamburg@work

Ragnar Kruse is founder of AI.HAMBURG and AI Invest, and previously co-founder and CEO of Smaato. From 2005 to 2019 he led the company into a leading global real-time mobile advertising platform serving more than one billion unique mobile users every month.

As a serial entrepreneur with over 30 years of IT experience, he understands the challenges of bringing new technologies to market — building companies from the ground up in both the USA and Europe.

In July 2019 they left Smaato to dedicate themselves fully to AI.HAMBURG — connecting industry, startups, research, and talent around artificial intelligence in Hamburg and beyond.

Meet the advisors