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Since launching its report on who funds whom in the Nordics, together with partners like Startup Sweden and NVCA, the team at Unconventional Ventures have been busy. They recently launched the UV Syndicate, giving everyone the opportunity to co-invest in, by UV vetted, startups at pre-seed and seed stages. Today they announce the first digital accelerator targeting underrepresented founders based …

Finnish startup Flowrite, building an AI-powered writing tool on OpenAI’s GPT-3, has closed a pre-seed funding round of €550,000 from Europe’s leading early-stage investors Lifeline Ventures and Seedcamp, joined by angel investors including Unity founder David Helgason. Flowrite is among the first companies globally to launch and raise funding for a product built on top of OpenAI’s language model GPT-3. …

Linear, a company focusing on the digitalization of real estate brokerage, has closed €1.1 million in seed funding.  The company, founded in 2018, offers an AI-driven  digital ecosystem to facilitate the housing trade. They will use the latest funding round on future growth and expansion to new markets. Linear offers realtors a comprehensive SaaS (Software as a Service) automation tool for …

All male founding teams still get 92.9% of external capital in the Nordics, to build and expand their startups. However, a new report from Unconventional Ventures shows us how a shift towards a more equal distribution of capital can be accelerated.  Unconventional Ventures is a Nordic early-stage investment firm that invest in scaleable tech startups at the pre-seed and seed …

New report on Japanese Investments launched last week at Slush shows that when it comes to Japanese investments going in to the Nordic regions, Finland & Estonia is leading.  The report was made by Innovation Lab Asia, Nordic Ninja VC and Copenhagen Capacity. According to the report, since 2013, 22 of the 36 Japanese investments going into the Nordics has …

Whether or not a startup scales has a lot to do with their motivation. A new report -— published by Nesta as part of the Startup Europe Partnership -— shows that there is substantial variation in entrepreneurs’ motivations to grow and seek finance across Europe. How do Nordic startups fare compared to their European counterparts? By Charlotte Reypens The Nesta …

The Creandum funds won the “Venture Capital Fund of the Year” award at the 17th Investor Allstars event last night distinguished with the honors due to the outstanding performance over the previous year driven by exits from Spotify, iZettle, Small Giant Games, and Elastic. According to industry experts, the Creandum II fund is the best European institutional venture fund to …

The Copenhagen Metro is getting an extension, a 15.5km line called the Cityringen Metro. The Cityringen Metro is set to open soon, upgrading Copenhagen’s already efficient metro system. The expected opening date is September 29, 2019.  The project of Cityringen Metro uses modern technology, setting it apart as an automated metro line. The driverless trains will run continuously, 24/7 with …

Is your startup willing to be challenged by purchasers in the public administrations? If so, get in touch Innobrokers, an EU-funded project, aiming at facilitating the procurement of innovative goods and services by strengthening the links between public buyers on the demand side and innovative companies on the supply side. The project addresses startups and SMEs, organizations supporting innovation procurement …

This month, the first VC in the Nordics focusing purely on startups with a background in deeptech and science launched.  Headed by serial entrepreneur Inka Mero, Voima Ventures targeting a final closing of €50 million and has already announced commitments at €40 million. The fund’s press release states that their mission is to build a strong bridge between the scientific …

PINC is Paulig Group’s corporate venture capital unit. We sat down with the head of PINC, Marika King, for a Q&A to learn more about their investment thesis and how they’re shaping the future of taste. What is PINC? PINC stands for Paulig Incubator and is the innovation and venture arm for radical innovation within the Paulig Group. We were …

Accel raises a $575 million fund to back ambitious founders in Europe and Israel. The Nordics are a key market for this new fund.The Nordics will be a key market for investment Last week, Accel, a global VC firm, announced that it has raised a $575 million fund, its sixth to be invested in early stage companies across Europe and …

Serial entrepreneur Inka Mero launches Voima Ventures, the first VC fund in the Nordics with a focus purely on startups with deep tech and science background The first VC in the Nordics focusing purely on startups with deep tech and science background was launched officially today. Voima Ventures’ cornerstone investors are VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and European Investment …

NordicNinja VC by JB Nordic Ventures has officially launched its new €100M VC fund in partnership with Panasonic, Honda, Omron, and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC). The fund will help Nordic and Baltic scale-up companies enter the technology business ecosystem in Japan and across Asia. “Today, the Nordic startup ecosystem and Japanese blue-chip companies represent something of a …

The founder of the startup Colive wants to use premium Cypriot olive oil to spark global conversations about peace. He connects family farms on both sides of the UN Buffer Zone to create the first product in what he hopes will be an entire line of culturally significant ingredients and foods to encourage cooperation. That idea secured him the Startups4Peace …

BaltCap, together with JBIC IG Partners, a Japanese government backed private equity and venture capital firm, is establishing a new €100m fund focusing on venture capital investments in the field of industrial technology in the Nordic and Baltic region. The fund was announced at Slush 2018 and is launching this year. JB Nordic Ventures is a 50/50 joint venture between BaltCap,  …

The Future of Addiction Treatment Is Digital Kontigo Care follows the personal journey of its founder, Daniel Benitez, who during his alcohol addiction treatment struggled with alcohol relapses even though he received good treatment. He has not been the only case though. Finding out that traditionally 8 out of 10 patients will relapse into addiction, he decided to work on …

A Virtual Fight Against Corruption It’s estimated that 30% of money globally allocated is diverted through acts of corruption annually. Oslo-based social business EnlightAID has the goal to prevent fund misuse with its platform that reads, records, and reports on transactions that happen during fundraising and social and environmental projects. Founders Veronica Celis and Klaus Hatle met in Canada in …

Nightingale Health Enables Preventive Healthcare Teemu Suna and his company Nightingale Health want to help stop the more than 15.5 million deaths from heart disease each year, by focusing on testing and prevention. Nightingale Health says their screening is low cost and three times more accurate than current clinical tools for detecting early heart disease and diabetes. When we look …

Kara Connects Clients with Therapists in a Virtual Office Kara Connect is a startup that was founded in 2015 in Reykjavik by Thorbjorg Vigfusdottir, a former city councilor with a Master’s degree in Education. Building a dedicated team of programmers and healthcare professionals, she has focused on addressing a major challenge pressing the healthcare industry, as well as the education. …