Ecotype: Investor

Startup Lions / Whitecoach

Startup Lions / Whitecoach invest into very early stage Finnish startups and helps them get more funding from banks, the state and other investors. They’re often the first investor, who helps the company get the business and further investments going.

Sector-wise they’re not investing into games, pharma or other very capital-intensive areas, but almost everything else is interesting for them.

Startup Lions and Whitecoach are two separate investment companies who share many key people and operating models. They seek a 10-50% ownership stake and board chairperson position in the companies they invest in.

Kiilto Ventures

Kiilto Ventures is the family office of Kiilto Group. Kiilto develops, manufactures and markets chemical industry solutions in four business areas: construction, industrial bonding and hygiene solutions, professional cleanliness and hygiene, and consumer business. Kiilto Ventures is seeking B2B and B2G companies disrupting and innovating the way things are done in these sectors.

They prefer to invest into companies they can have a business collaboration with, for example as a client, sales channel or RDI partner.

They value sustainability and appreciate alternative solutions to achieve the desired results with a better environmental impact. Other interest areas include for example hygiene validation and management with data, and identifying invisible dirt, bacteria or viruses, especially automatically from surfaces, and hygiene as a service.

Kiilto Ventures prefers ownership stakes between 10-20%. They appreciate getting a board seat.

Kiilto’s aim is to be carbon neutral by 2028.

SCM Advisors

SCM Advisors is the UK-headquartered investment arm of the Ukrainian SCM conglomerate. SCM’s main industries are metals (especially steel), mining, and energy,. They also have a broad range of other investments e.g. in banking, retail and real estate.

They have a preference for B2B and data. About a third of their portfolio companies use AI or machine learning. They are interested in hardware investments too, especially on companies related to their group’s businesses. Health solutions like process automatization are interesting, but not pharmaceutical drugs.

They’re a co-investor, often the 2nd to 4th biggest investor on a round.

Frontier Growth Capital

Frontier Growth Capital company is the early stage angel investment company of Mikko Silventola, focusing on pre-seed or seed stage tech companies. The earlier the stage the better, and software is preferred.

Mikko has invested into three unicorns and many companies that are valued at over €100M. He can help opening doors, fundraising (incl. attracting strategic angels) and other crucial growth company tasks.

Nexit Ventures

SET Ventures

SET Ventures focuses on early growth stage companies furthering the transition of the energy sector. Their customer and investor network and expertise in growing companies helps you be ready for scaling your business.

SET Ventures invests into companies doing smart energy solutions, mainly software and services. Hardware is ok as well, as long as the solution has a software or service component.

Companies have to have an impact on the energy system, furthering its transition. For example electric mobility solutions are relevant, but old-fashioned energy solutions would not be.

SET Ventures has excellent expertise in energy sector. “Many companies can skip through the first half of their presentation as we are already familiar with the basic problems and very well embedded in the whole European energy system.”

They’re looking at companies below €25M valuation pre-money (€30M post-money). The companies have to have the potential to be worth over €200M on exit.

SET Ventures seeks to hold a significant minority stake of typically 20% or more. typically takes an active board position but never sit on the management team. Fund lifetime is 10+2 years, they’re in it for the long haul (typically 4-7 years), not seeking to exit in a short time frame.

Contact to info@setventures.com goes to three people and they go through and respond to each case.

Redstone

Redstone has six funds and 50 CVC partners. Their funds and sectors are listed in https://www.redstone.vc/sector-funds/. They are especially interested in industry 4.0, fintech, proptech, mobility, bio materials & agrotech.

Finnish Business Angels Network (FIBAN)

One of the largest business angel networks in the world with 650 members.

Ticket range of most angels is €5-100k, median ticket size is €20k. Syndicates may invest up to €1M. Median syndicate size is €200k.

 

Expon Capital

Expon Capital invests in tech for good, things that help develop the society as a whole while doing a good business. They do not invest in gaming, esports, marketing, advertising tech. They’re not an impact investor, but they do value UN sustainable development goals in framing the investment impact.

Their investments include Spire, Glovo, Catalyte, companies that are taking on the world’s biggest challenges.

They typically co-invest. They prefer to have a board seat but are flexible.

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.