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.
Nordic FoodTech invests, as the name implies, in food-related technology. Not brands, not production, but for example new production and packaging technologies.
Focusing more on B2B and B2G. B2C is possible, if the business model is practical to scale.
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.
Open family office: network of family offices and angels. They do financial investments and prefer co-investing alongside existing investors.
They invest in solutions that customers like and have demand for. Solution doesn’t need to be technological, but it can be if lead investor has done technological due diligence.
Also offer loans for companies with any business types, including B2C.
They’ve invested €41M in four years.
Impact investment fund by a group of angels. FIIL = Finnish Impact Investment Limited (Vaikuttavuussijoitus in Finnish). Investments have to fulfill UN SDG (sustainable development goals) criteria.
All members are active angel investors, who see themselves more as co-founders than just financial investors.
Prefer companies with traction and product-market fit (or very close). Occasionally also do pre-revenue investments.
MVP with traction (seed): €50k-200k, rounds €50k-€400k. Valuations below €2M.
Pre-seed (idea testing stage) €5k-20k, rounds max. €50k.
When lead investing, they take board chairperson position. When co-investing, prefer board membership.
Innovestor offers co-investing (syndicate forming) as a service. They also do solo investments.
Prefer B2B, but open to any business types. Drug development is not currently interesting for them, but digital health and medical technology is.
Funding applications can be filled at https://innovestorgroup.com/growth-companies/#applyfunding.
Contrarian Ventures is a European fund investing into companies transforming the energy sector, including where and how it is used, with an emphasis on sustainability. They are also interested all energy tech, e-mobility, automation, AI, hydrogen, energy grids, and energy storage. They have an especial liking for software and hardware-enabled software.
They focus on B2B, but are interested in especially strong B2C and B2G cases as well.
The partners have extensive expertise and networks in energy and its associated sectors in addition to startups and venture capital. They have a singular focus on helping the best energy-related startups succeed.
They prefer to lead or co-lead in deals. They’re an active investor, seeking to add value through their network, expertise and services for all portfolio companies. They often look for a place on the board, at least as an observer. Their HQ is in Vilnius with partners based in London and other key European cities.
Wave Ventures specializes in millennial solutions, but not exclusively. In terms of sectors they look at everything except games and pharma. Their investment focus is further described here: https://link.medium.com/tXSCKREFN4
They prefer contacts at team@wave.ventures.
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.