OP Lab is the startup collaboration unit of OP, a major Finnish bank. They seek startups to purchase innovations from as an early adopter, while also seeking for more mature startups to acquire.
Their focus is on solutions that are linked to fields of banking, insurance & finance in general. Fields such as fintech, insurtech, AI, biometrics, customer experience, and loyalty etc. are of interest to them.
They’re happy to connect with startups that are interested in the Finnish market.
AI4Cities is looking for solutions that use articial intelligence to reduce carbon emissions and energy consumption. The participating cities are Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Paris region Stavanger, Tallinn.
They’re seeking 40 consortiums to participate in phase 1 (up to €40k per company), of which 20 continue to phase 2 (up to €80k) and three to phase 3 (up to €240k).
An applying consortium can consist of one or more companies. The emphasis is on European companies (main applicant of consortium and at least 50% of the budget expenditure).
Companies can seek others to form consortiums with through the matchmaking of two pre-events as well as the form on the website.
Their applications are open from 1.12.2020 to 28.2.2021.
Contact through website and email: info@ai4cities.eu.
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:
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.
They have three main programs: B2B (SaaS), Cyber Security, Fintech, and a pre-accelerator for idea stage companies. The applications are ongoing, but the programs are done in batches.
Strong focus on B2B. B2B2C is possible if it’s B2B focused. B2G is possible in especially strong cases. They invest in software and marketplaces. Hardware is ok, as long as the main value in the software side.
Main acceleration programs take companies from proof-of-concept stage onwards. Idea stage companies can apply into the pre-acceleration program.
Initial ticket almost always solo, follow-on is a co-investment with possibility to lead.
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.
Karma Ventures invest into early-stage deep tech software in Baltics, Nordics, and in especially strong cases also elsewhere in Europe.
They’re looking for companies with technological advantage. Doesn’t have to be IPR, but something valuable and very hard to imitate. They look for companies with traction, first clients validating the demand, but in exceptional cases pre-revenue can also be considered.
In terms of sectors, life sciences are not their focus, but deep tech B2B health software can be interesting.
They prefer to lead, co-lead or invest solo.
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.
Maki is an early-stage industry-agnostic global fund from Finland. Their main geographical focus is developed Europe, especially Northern Europe.
They look at all kinds of companies, especially those with scientific advances and customer understanding. This includes strong deep tech and/or brand-driven cases.
They invest also in very early stage, if the team and case is especially promising.