Invest in country: Austria

Rocket Cluster

Lithuanian cluster of engineering, design and production companies, specializing in products of at least one cubic meter in size and orders from €30k upwards. They’re especially able to orchestrate complex offerings, up to 50 suppliers for one project. Their focus is in metal and plastic production.

Their ideal customers are from the following sectors:

  • Micro- and macro-algae
  • Aquaculture & marine
  • Industry & offshore
  • Indoor and outdoor marketing

Their offering is most often used by companies with a TRL of 4-8, but sometimes as early stage as 2.

They are also happy to help in the technical part of writing applications for Horizon and other grants. They’re also interested in discussing helping companies where management team wants to simplify their involvement or move on to something else.

Access 4 Future

Access 4 Future is a market entry program for startups wishing to help people in the target countries get better access to healthcare: India, Niger, Philippines, Egypt, Thailand.

The program’s support includes connections locally (piloting), regionally and globally (scalability) and covers startups’ piloting costs. Each location has a different challenge for startups to help in, and they have different application periods during autumn 2020. Challenges include for example furthering the education and training of doctors.

The chosen solutions have to be scaleable. For example a solution that will be piloted in two hospitals might later expand to the state, then the country and finally internationally.

 

Aria Fund

Aria Fund is a generalist multi-family office, looking to invest €1-5M tickets into companies with proven ability to sell.

They prefer technological hardware and software B2B and B2C solutions, but are interested in looking at marketplaces, non-tech, or B2G solutions in especially strong cases.

They have often been the lead investor, but are interested in co-investment and solo investment opportunities as well.

Salo IoT Campus

Salo IoT Campus is a community of high-tech companies, researchers and educational instutitions working together on a daily basis. They have over 100 companies and 2 000 people on working and studying on their campus.

They offer versatile premises, comprehensive services and an active expert community. They are seeking more companies and partners to join them in making a smarter future.

They’re based in Salo, Finland, approximately one hour from Helsinki.

Marubeni Ventures

Marubeni Corporation is one of the oldest ones in Japan with over 160 years of history. Their CVC arm is looking to co-invest €0.5M – 3M tickets into companies raising rounds of €3 – 50M. They look for scalable business models, and have invested into software, ecommerce, marketplaces, among others.

They are interested in smart city infrastructure (energy, EV charging etc.) and digital solutions (cyber security, entertainment, commerce, but not specializing in communication software).

Sampo Accelerator

Sampo Accelerator is a no-equity 3.5-week acceleration program ran by Mike Bradshaw, who was the Head Coach of Startup Sauna when that acceleration program was active. The program includes follow-up meetings and checkups after the program to support the founders’ growth path.

The program is optimized for first-time growth company founders. They’re looking for companies around launch, with a working demo but without significant customer numbers. The solution will be evaluated too when applying, but teams are the main focus. Teams typically have to have background in design or product development (ability to build a solution and generate interesting ideas).

The program is free until the company generates €1M of revenue profitably, at which point the company is suggested to make a small contribution to the accelerator’s founder community.

The coaches each have over three years of experience in building startups. They’re not investors, which enables them to offer an independent point of view.

Sampo Accelerator is ran three times a year, starting typically around October, January and April. They also organize a social gathering for alumni and coaches twice a year: the week before midsummer and around the time of Slush.

The Founder Institute Finland & Global Center of Excellence for Food Ecosystems

The Founder Institute runs two pre-seed acceleration programs in Finland: a general one for all founders, as well as a Global Center of Excellence for Food Ecosystems, interested in all food-related solutions.

Their program works for all founders, even those who don’t have an idea yet, until the stage of having good sales and the first professional investor on board.

The programs cost €599/€799 (early bird/regular fee), with a possibility to get a stipend to cover the costs. The participants also commit to a 4% warrant.

Equinor & Techstars Energy Accelerator

Equinor & Techstars Energy Accelerator seeks innovative startups within four critical areas of the energy sector: oil and gas, new business models, digitization and renewables. Equinor is a leading energy corporation in Norway, and the program’s physical parts take place in Oslo.

Techstars is a leading startup accelerator that has invested into over 2,100 companies and helped them raise $9.3B since 2007. They run approx. 50 programs every year, each investing into 10 companies.

Their application period for 2020 program is open until 11.10.2020, and the next application period will be open from July to October 2021, for the program that will take place in February 2022.

Techstars acceleration programs include a $20k stipend for running expenses and an optional $100k convertible loan in addition to the programs’ coaching and the network membership, in exchange for a 6% stake in the company (or higher based on the conversion rate on next round).

Techstars Ventures also does follow-on investments into their best performing portfolio companies, having co-led an investment round with Equinor of €4M. Many other funds also invest into Techstars companies.

Ericsson Ventures

Ericsson Ventures is the CVC arm of Ericsson, the network company. They’re interested in everything very network-related: cloud technology, cyber security, AI, 5G etc. They’re focusing on B2B software, but will look at B2G and hardware cases as well. They look especially for companies who want into the telecom market.

 

APX

APX invests into early stage software companies in Europe and Israel and offers them a 100-day tailormade acceleration program. After the program they usually invest more pro rata.

They’re backed by Porsche, the luxury car manufacturer, and Axel Springer, the biggest media company in Europe. They have an extensive network of industrial connections in Germany, including the globally leading companies in multiple fields.

Their main value add is in business development. They focus on companies who are ready to sell at least a pilot version to customers already.

Their initial investment is always €50k for 5% ownership stake. They also offer office in Berlin for four months for free. They invest into over 40 companies per year.