In this blog post, Katapult Group CEO, Fredrik Winther assesses the fast-changing landscape of venture, and why venture investors need to re-think strategy. By Frederik Winther The venture capital industry broke all records in 2021, and it led to systemic changes as to how it operates. Not long ago start-ups fought for the investors, these days investors are fighting to …
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Norway’s Katapult VC gains two impact unicorns in one week
With Chilean insurance tech startup Betterfly now sharing prestigious unicorn status with fellow portfolio company, Esusu, Norwegian VC Katapult has gained its second accelerator-bred impact unicorn in one week. Katapult first discovered and invested in Betterfly at the early Seed stage in mid-2019 with further investment via their follow-on fund in mid-2020. With Betterfly already reaching Unicorn status and $1 …
Read More »SNÖ Ventures launch new $100m Nordic venture fund backed by Peter Thiel
Oslo-based SNÖ Ventures has launched its second fund to invest in visionary Nordic entrepreneurs and connect the Nordics with the US and broader Europe. The new fund targets $100M to invest in early stage, high-growth Nordic tech companies with the potential to disrupt, create or capture large markets through transformative technology or solutions. By Kremena Tosheva SNÖ Ventures is led …
Read More »Nordic and Baltic investments show progressive trend towards sustainability in 2021
According to reports from, European Capital, Danske Bank and i5invest, European VC and PE funds have been substantially gaining ground despite Covid-19, and a substantial margin in the Nordics are focusing on investments in energy and sustainability. Norway, Denmark, and Lithuania have a particularly strong focus on investments in these areas in 2021 compared to the rest of Europe, and …
Read More »“Unconventional Accelerator”: The first digital accelerator targeting underrepresented Nordic founders
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 …
Read More »Nordic startup funding – a deep dive into who funds whom
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 …
Read More »Japanese investors are favoring Finland and Estonia
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 …
Read More »Sweden’s Creandum wins VC fund of the year
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 …
Read More »An interview with Inka Mero, founding partner of first Nordic VC focused purely on deeptech
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 …
Read More »Accel raises $575 million for early stage companies in Nordics and Israel
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 …
Read More »The Nordics get a new €50M deep tech fund
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 …
Read More »€100M NordicNinja VC fund officially launches operations in the Nordics and Baltics
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 …
Read More »New €100m Japanese VC fund backs startups in Nordics and Baltics starting in 2019
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, …
Read More »Finnish startups attract the most VC funding in Europe
In 2016, Finnish startup and early stage growth companies raised the second highest amount of venture capital funding in Europe when looking at investments as percentage of GDP. The investment amount was almost twice as large as the European average. Sweden and Denmark are also among the top countries attracting venture capital. Finns can be proud of their rank in …
Read More »Crowberry Capital has sights set on early stage startups in the Nordics
Last week, Helga Valfells, CEO of NSA Ventures in Iceland, along with two of the funds’ investment managers, Jenny Ruth Hrafnsdottir and Hekla Arnadottir, announced that they have left NSA Ventures to start their own VC fund, Crowberry Capital. According to the team at Crowberry Capital, NSA has been reviewing its’ investment strategy since 2012 and will now become a …
Read More »Jeanne Sullivan on female entrepreneurship, from Oslo to New York
When visiting Oslo Innovation Week last October, long-time business development investor Jeanne Sullivan was intrigued by the commercial potential she found in the various presenters, taking note of one company in particular. Bubbly, founded by Marianne Hindsgaul from Oslo, is a startup introducing an IoT kiosk to the market that utilizes data that is collected from customers in a retail …
Read More »Pitching to American Investors – BookBuses’ demo day in New York
New York: In a few minutes, Danish BookBuses founder Oscar Aabech Jung will be entering the stage in front of 700 American investors. This is the day Oscar Aabech Jung and the rest of the Danish IT company Book Buses have been working towards the last months. “Demo Day” is for startup businesses looking to raise capital. Though similar events …
Read More »Infographic: What it takes to work with early stage corporate VC’s
SV House TV, aiming to help startups from all over the world learn the learn the know-how, mindset, and culture of Silicon Valley, hosted a Corporate Investor Panel to discuss the hottest investments in 2016. The investors pinpointed mobile technologies and Internet of Things (IoT) as the hottest investments in 2016, and discussed the role of big corporations in the …
Read More »Why women make better investors than men
In a male dominated industry women excel in the world of investing. Read on to learn why women make better investors than men. The world has changed a lot in the last 50 years; many industries that were once exclusively dominated by men have become more transparent and equal to both genders where applicants compete on their abilities. However as …
Read More »Venture capitalists in Nordics look for smaller, more secure investments
In the Nordics, venture capitalists (VCs) are looking for smaller investments that are more secure in comparison to Silicon Valley. There has been a staggering 30% decrease in the number of $10m+ rounds in the Nordic technology sector within the first six weeks of 2016 alone. This has helped to spur companies such as Capital on Stage, who aim to …
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