Valuation: €20-49 M

SGS

SGS is a Swiss inspection company with worldwide operations. They seek startups to collaborate with and/or buy, which could help their inspection operations.

They’re especially interested in AI, machine vision, target recognition, IoT (e.g. humidity measurements), 3D mapping of bulk cargo, 3D modeling of buildings and construction sites, safety regulation management software – in general anything that helps make inspections faster, with lower manpower costs, and with more evidence of what was inspected.

OBOS

OBOS is the largest housing provider company in Norway, investing into startups related to their areas of operational excellence: real estate and construction. They can be either an investor, a client, or both for a startup.

They seek software startups, but don’t mind them using hardware assets. Marketplace companies can also be interesting if there’s an especially well-demonstrated product-market fit. Even though Norway and Sweden are their home market, their startup investments tend to be to companies that are internationally scalable.

They prefer to invest into startups that have some traction, ideally already some customers lined up.

They haven’t been interested in blockchain startups due to their low levels of success so far.

Most often they invest as part of a syndicate. They usually do not lead the investment rounds to avoid creating too much dependency, typically being already a client and an investor.

Their typical ownership stake in a portfolio company is 5-10%.

They also have a separate team making later stage investments. They sometimes describe their investments range as “From startup to stock exchange.”

byFounders

ByFounders is a Nordic fund, investing into both Nordic and Baltic startups. They’re focusing on being a founder-friendly fund that the founders, and their term sheet is available on their website. For example they invest into common shares instead of preferred ones and with limited downside protection, similar to founders themselves.

They invest mostly into software companies, but have also invested into hardware-only companies in exceptionally strong cases. They’re industry agnostic, but have a preference for impact.

The founders of the fund have a background in building, growing and selling tech companies, with experience from companies like Skype and Tradeshift. Their investors include founders from many other very successful tech companies as well, such as ZenDesk, Vivino and TrustPilot, supporting portfolio companies.

The companies they invest into don’t have to be located in Nordics or Baltics, but a strong connection (such as founder being originally from the New Nordics) is required.

DYNAX Invest

DYNAX Invest is a angel syndicate from Bulgaria that focuses on supporting selected startups through investments, fundraising the rest of the funding round and advisory. They focus on European startups, and have done especially many investments in the CEE region.

They are industry-agnostic. Having a tech element is a plus, but not mandatory. They have a strong preference for startups with traction, either revenue or otherwise. In expectional cases, for example a deep tech startup, could be interesting also before traction.

Their team has extensive experience with M&A and investment banking, including fundraising.

They can help find a lead investor, but are not leading rounds themselves. They normally don’t seek a board seat.

Exerte

Exerte Partners is a family office from Cyprus. They invest generalistically, but have a slight emphasis on food, biotech, energy and SaaS solutions. Their expertise includes scaling and internationalization, as well as optimizing at scale.

They invest typically as a co-investor, but have occasionally lead rounds in cases they know especially well (e.g. food). They don’t generally do convertible notes.

Specialist VC

Specialist VC invests into companies based in, or founders from the Baltics, Finland and Ukraine. They focus on B2B software companies, marketplaces, and software-enabled hardware companies. They have also invested in some B2C and hardware companies through their previous fund, United Angels VC.

The fund’s partners have built companies like Civitta and Fortumo, followed by a decade of angel investing. Their network also includes many advisors, including a scientific advisor in biotech.

For SaaS companies they seek initial traction, e.g. €10k MRR. For deep tech companies this is not as much of a requirement.

They often co-invest, occasionally also lead. They haven’t done any solo investments so far.

They have supported some portfolio companies through participating in their boards, but this has not been a requirement to invest.

They also do secondary investments, where early employees and investors sell some of their shares and receive the money to themselves, as opposed to the company issuing new shares.

Swiss Post Ventures

Swiss Post Ventures is the fund of Swiss Post, who operate a multi-billion euro business in fleet management, public transportation (buses), postal offices, communication services etc., mostly in Switzerland. Swiss Post has 60k employees, Swiss Post Ventures has three people.

They’re looking for startups especially in mobility, logistics, cyber security, communication platforms, and digital health.

The startups they invest into should have some link into Swiss Post’s value chain and ecosystem.

They are often a follow investor, and prefer to invest less than 50% of the round. They have occasionally been a lead investor for a startup whose market they understand exceptionally well.

Runa Capital

Runa Capital is a US-European software fund focused on helping European companies enter the US market and vice versa. They focus on deep tech, B2B SaaS, and regulated industries, like fintech, education and digital health.

The founders of Runa Capital are serial tech entrepreneurs. Before their work as investors, the founders of Runa Capital built companies like Acronis, that raised their last round of $250M at a $3.5B valuation, as well as Parallels and Acumatica, also very successful software companies.

They mostly invest B2B and B2B2C. They rarely do invest in exceptional B2C companies as well.

Invests as solo, lead or follow. More likely to be a follow investor at earlier stages, and lead in the later stages. They typically join the company boards in later stage investments.

Hanover 16

Hanover 16 is a UK-based family office investing European, US and Israeli companies. They focus especially on health tech, including digital health and pharmaceuticals, agro and food tech, including biotechnologies, next gen farms, and livestock, but are open to other businesses as well. They occasionally review especially interesting hardware cases, but are generally more focused on software, marketplaces and pharma.

They prefer companies with a commercial traction, ideally over 500ke annual revenue. They are typically a co-investor (not lead). They analyze startups in multiple different stages, with a preference for later stages all the way up to pre-IPO rounds.

For deal flow and cooperation please contact: invest@hanover16.com

Fund Fellow Founders (FFF.vc)

Fund Fellow Founders is an angel network investing together in interesting deals. Angels in their network have been responsible for business development, sales, technology, legal and other parts of turning tech startups into unicorns. They do investments starting from small rounds up to very large rounds with their VC network.

They are especially interested in health tech, food tech and green tech / cleantech, as well as deep tech. They are interested in other fields as well. They strongly prefer companies that have a clear and reasonably short path to profitability. They prefer companies whose main tech value is in the software side.

Geographically they have no limitations, but seek Nordic-Baltic deals most actively.