Invest in country: Estonia

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.

 

LitCapital

LitCapital is focusing on funding small cap growth companies with proven traction and a scalable solution. They prefer B2B companies, but are interested in especially strong B2C or B2G cases as well. Their home market is Lithuania, and they’re also looking at companies from nearby EEA markets. A connection with Lithuania is a plus.

Most often they are the lead investor of a round. They seek a stake of 20% or more and will actively participate on the board level in growing the company.

Practica Capital

Practica Capital is a Lithuanian fund investing especially into early-stage companies, focusing especially on tech companies in the Baltics. They also invest into companies in some nearby areas or with Baltic founders elsewhere in Europe.

They have an especial liking for marketplaces, SaaS, space tech, mobility, fintech, big data, AI, and interdisciplinary life science startups, including health tech and biotech. Drug discovery and other solutions with very long development time spans are out of their focus. They prefer tech solutions but are also interested in especially strong non-tech solutions as well. Idea stage companies are only interesting with founding teams that include serial entrepreneurs.

They are an active investor, helping the deals happen by getting the rest of the needed investors on board.

They have invested in more than 50 companies, leading to more than 20 exits.

If they lead the investment they often take a board seat, especially in fields where their experience is helpful.

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.

Spring Capital

Spring Capital manages two funds: a small cap growth fund with €300k – 700k tickets, and a startup fund with €50k – 200k tickets on rounds of €300k – 1M, with a maximum total allocation of €450k into one very successful company over the lifetime. The growth fund can invest up to €1M into a company altogether.

The growth fund is focused on making solo investments into profitable companies, occasionally also co-investing on rounds of up to €2M. The startup fund makes co-investments into startups with traction, typically with €5-20k/mo in revenues, seeking to become profitable later.

The startup fund invests into software and marketplaces, and the growth fund into hardware and traditional manufacturing SMEs. They prefer applied technological solutions instead of very deep tech, but in the growth fund they also look into non-tech cases.

In their growth fund, Spring Capital is looking for innovators of traditional fields. The startup fund specializes in SaaS and marketplace solutions.

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.