Domain: AI / ML

Tera Ventures

Tera Ventures specializes in early stage deep tech software companies. They’re often the first institutional investor, helping to get other professional investors in for bigger funding rounds.

They prefer B2B companies, but are willing to consider B2B2C ones as well. They can consider investing into hardware-software companies if the value is mainly in the software side. They’re fine with health tech.

They look to have a board seat in the companies they invest in. They commonly syndicate so that they’re the lead investor.

They can be reached at tera@tera.vc.

Insta Ventures

Prefer B2B, certain B2C niches are also interesting. Prefer cases with over €15k monthly revenue.

Only co-invest in rounds that already have a lead investor. Majority of deals (70%) from Nordics and Baltics, especially Finland, Sweden, Estonia and Lithuania so far. 15% from Central and Eastern Europe and 15% elsewhere from the world.

Does not invest in mobile gaming or hardware. Hardware-enabled software is interesting.

Contrarian Ventures

Contrarian Ventures is a European fund investing into companies transforming the energy sector, including where and how it is used, with an emphasis on sustainability. They are also interested all energy tech, e-mobility, automation, AI, hydrogen, energy grids, and energy storage. They have an especial liking for software and hardware-enabled software.

They focus on B2B, but are interested in especially strong B2C and B2G cases as well.

The partners have extensive expertise and networks in energy and its associated sectors in addition to startups and venture capital. They have a singular focus on helping the best energy-related startups succeed.

They prefer to lead or co-lead in deals. They’re an active investor, seeking to add value through their network, expertise and services for all portfolio companies. They often look for a place on the board, at least as an observer. Their HQ is in Vilnius with partners based in London and other key European cities.

Helen Ventures

Helen Ventures is the €50M energy CVC fund of Helsinki energy company Helen. Their investments are connected to energy: production, storage, transmission, usage, saving, carbon neutrality, digital and other operational solutions for a large energy company, and related solution areas like mobility and circular economy.

NordicNinja

Nordic Ninja is funded by large Japanese technology companies, but investment decisions are made locally. They have connections to large companies especially in Japan, having partnerships with global giants such as Panasonic, Omron and Honda.

They don’t invest in games, crypto or pharma. They’re widely interested in everything else, including but not limited to robotics, automation, health tech, AI and mobility.

They prefer to co-invest with a local investor, but can also lead or be the sole investor on a round. They’re often willing to serve on company boards.

 

Wave Ventures

Wave Ventures specializes in millennial solutions, but not exclusively. In terms of sectors they look at everything except games and pharma. Their investment focus is further described here: https://link.medium.com/tXSCKREFN4

They prefer contacts at team@wave.ventures.

Iron Wolf Capital

Iron Wolf Capital invests in EU, with a focus on Baltics and nearby countries.

They prefer deep tech and other solutions with solid, defensible competitive advantage and teams that can show ability to sell the current solution (traction, e.g. crowdfunding sales).

Their preferred channel for new contacts is partners@ironwolfcapital.com.

Apex Ventures

Apex Ventures is a deep tech fund headquartered in Vienna. Their home markets are the German-speaking DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). They’re happy to lead investment rounds into companies from these countries and co-invest in companies from elsewhere in Europe.

OpenOcean

OpenOcean invests into digital data-intensive solutions with significant indications of ability to sell and scale. B2B is a big plus, other business models are possible with very strong traction.

They have invested in open source solutions such as MySQL, MariaDB and RapidMiner. Other areas of especial interest include AI/ML, application-driven infrastructure and development tools, marketing technology, and automation and recommendation engines.

They look for cases that have a ready product + early revenue, a proven product-market fit. Typically they like to see companies already have €50k MRR (€500k/year recurring revenue).

They require a board seat as a condition of investing.  They’re often the lead investor of a round.