Hybrid accelerator / fund. Looking at triple top line benefit: people, planet, profit.
Prefer B2B and software. Others are possible in especially strong cases.
Active investor. Putting time into each company. Comfortable with minority stakes. Prefer to co-invest.
Focus on B2B, especially light-touch sales model SaaS for SMEs. B2C, B2B to large enterprises and B2G are also possible in strong cases.
Geographically focus is on CEE, but elsewhere in EU is also possible. Non-EU companies are investable if they establish an office in EU.
Focus on software and valuations below €20M, but occasionally invests in hardware, or especially strong cases with higher valuations.
Active investor. Normally doesn’t take a board seat.
Doing sustainability and impact investing: mobility, food and agriculture, energy (renewable, efficiency, storage), water, waste etc. Looking for indications of repeat demand.
Looking for defensible market positions. Technology is not necessary, if the position of the company is otherwise strategically defensible.
Investing globally with a focus on Europe. Also investing actively in Africa and Asia.
Focus on B2B across all their funds.
Prefer to lead or co-invest. Prefer to take a board seat.
Interested in hardware and deep tech software. Solutions should be hard for competitors to copy, and if they are, it’s not a must that they’re technological. They prefer companies having customer validation and preferably revenue, but in exceptional cases can invest in a proof-of-concept stage as well.
Companies can be based anywhere, but have to have some operations in Eastern Europe, for example considering Poland as an important target market.
In most cases they only co-invest or lead invest. For startups related to construction industry and chemicals, a CVC investment is possible.
Focusing on digital entertainment (esports, gaming) and consumer tech. Social media, fitness etc. work well. No hardware. Interested especially in infrastructure and new genres of games and other formats.
In business models main focus is on B2C, can do also B2B or B2B2C.
Geographically North America, Europe and Southeast Asia are their main focus areas.
Sparkmind.vc is the first Nordic venture capital company focused on the learning sector. They invest in teams transforming early childhood, K12, higher, secondary and vocational education as well as corporate and lifelong learning. Their geographical home field is Europe, especially North Europe, but they also selectively do investments outside the region.
They often join the boards of their portfolio companies.
Open Circle is based in Lithuania and they have partners in Finland and Denmark. Most of their investments are in Lithuania, but they can invest anywhere in the European Economic Area.
Their ideal case is to co-invest or lead a round into a software company. This is the 3/5 year of their investment period and they look forward to making a couple more new investments. They’re stake size agnostic.
Their usual minimum ticket is 100ke. In exceptional cases they have done 50ke, and in very exceptional cases can consider even smaller tickets.
They prefer applying startups to contact the partner whose experience best matches their area.
Grid.vc invests into early-stage energy companies.
They’re often the first fund investor of a company and the only one on a round with angels and other non-institutional investors, leading the round. On later rounds they often co-invest with other funds.
They have a global mandate, but focus on investing into companies in the New Nordics and Germany.
Impact fund. Focuses on continental Nordics: Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, with some emphasis also on Baltics. Prefers co-investing outside Sweden, but has also led rounds outside their home market.
Invests €0.5-1M on early stage companies. They exceptionally invest up to €2M initial tickets on later stage companies. Looking for a 5-10x return.