Cailin Greiner

Investment Manager

Cailin backs sales-obsessed founders turning complex technology into commercial traction.

Focus chips

Commercialisation & GTM

Energy storage & grid solutions

Autonomous & robotics systems

Complementary teams

Background

Cailin’s path into venture started at a deeptech startup in the YES!Delft ecosystem, before moving to YES!Delft itself. There, she helped very early-stage founders find co-founders, land their first customers, and eventually raise capital.

At FORWARD.one, Cailin has led deals end-to-end, from sourcing and first meeting through negotiation and documentation, including Voltfang and APEX Imaging. She also worked closely with Managing Partner Riemer Smink on the Fund III raise, independently managing relationships with several large-ticket LPs.

Her core strengths: scaling, commercialization, sales, fundraising, team-building, and ruthless execution.

You can tell if someone has a sales mindset. It shows in how they think, how they listen, and how they treat every interaction as a chance to move the company forward.

Focus & Thesis

Industrial tech with a sales engine. Cailin gravitates to founders who treat sales as a core technology. From battery storage and grid solutions to autonomous systems and infrastructure monitoring.
Execution-first teams. She looks for teams who obsess over customers, iterate quickly, and treat every conversation as a chance to sell: product, vision, and culture.
Commercialization as a discipline. From first pilot to repeatable revenue, she focuses on the full commercial stack: people, process, proposition, and performance.
Frontier meets market reality. While she loves foundational tech (like fusion or novel industrial hardware), she leans in when there’s a credible path from breakthrough to business.
Commercial diligence. As co-creator of FORWARD.one’s commercial due diligence framework, she brings the same rigor to every new investment and to post-investment scaling.

Boards & Notable Investments

The quality of your team is everything. You should work with the most ambitious possible ending in mind. Is this the team who could bring your company to IPO in six years? Set yourself up for success from Day 1. It makes all the difference.