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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.

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.

Buildit Latvia

Buildit Latvia is a hardware-focused accelerator in Riga, Latvia. They invest into many startups in their program. Among its usual benefits the program acts as a due diligence for both sides to see if it’s a good time to work together for a longer term and make and take the investment.

They invest €20-50k initially from their pre-seed fund on companies. They can later follow up with up to €250k with their seed fund. For the pre-seed investments, the teams need to incorporate in Latvia. At the seed stage, they don’t need to stay there. All the companies they take in have to be willing and able to move into Latvia.

They have a preference for B2B, but take in companies with all client types.

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.

3 Months to Live: MVP Bootcamp

A technology-building accelerator by Producement, founded by ex-Transferwise engineers. They invest software-building for startups at a discount and possibility to pay half by equity, convertible debt or similar.

Revenue is not mandatory but preferred. They look for customer validation of demand, and are focused on helping make the technology work and be scalable.

They are also able to help the best startups attract funding.

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.

Northbound Startups

Northbound Startups is a cross-border accelerator program between Finland (Turku), Sweden (Västerås) and Estonia (Tallinn). They help startups build their business and get an investment from local and international investors. They connect startups to investors, mentors, buyers etc. from all three areas, boosting the startups’ ability to work across the Baltic sea. The program is free for startups.

The two-year project offers two comprehensive acceleration programs. one per year. Application period for autumn 2020 program is open from 15.6.2020 until mid-August and the program begins in September 2020 and ends in March 2021. The dates for the second batch are approx a month earlier in 2021.

The program collaborates with institutional investors, investor networks and other accelerator and incubator programs, such as Turku BusinessUp.

Previous similar programs, like Springboard, ignited multiple startups that got a great international start in 2 or 3 countries and cities through the program.

Elisa Finland Startup Partnerships

Elisa seeks startups to purchase innovations from as an early customer. They’re also seeking mature startups to acquire.

Their focus is on solutions that help them sell more connectivity solutions or additional services to their current customers. E.g. automation, industry 4.0, health care, entertainment, smart homes etc.

They’re happy to connect with startups that are interested in Finnish or Nordic-Baltic market.

Jätkäsaari Mobility Lab

Jätkäsaari Mobility Lab offers ways to pilot solutions in real-life city context in Helsinki, Finland. Their sweet spot is solutions that are ready to be tested, but they’re happy to discuss also with idea stage projects to see about future collaboration potential. The solutions should be related to safe and sustainable smart mobility.

They have 1-2 agile piloting calls per year, but also ongoing applications, so feel free to contact them any time.

The most recent call is open until 18.8.2020 with a maximum cost of one agile pilot being €15 000.