Salo IoT Campus is a community of high-tech companies, researchers and educational instutitions working together on a daily basis. They have over 100 companies and 2 000 people on working and studying on their campus.
They offer versatile premises, comprehensive services and an active expert community. They are seeking more companies and partners to join them in making a smarter future.
They’re based in Salo, Finland, approximately one hour from Helsinki.
Sampo Accelerator is a no-equity 3.5-week acceleration program ran by Mike Bradshaw, who was the Head Coach of Startup Sauna when that acceleration program was active. The program includes follow-up meetings and checkups after the program to support the founders’ growth path.
The program is optimized for first-time growth company founders. They’re looking for companies around launch, with a working demo but without significant customer numbers. The solution will be evaluated too when applying, but teams are the main focus. Teams typically have to have background in design or product development (ability to build a solution and generate interesting ideas).
The program is free until the company generates €1M of revenue profitably, at which point the company is suggested to make a small contribution to the accelerator’s founder community.
The coaches each have over three years of experience in building startups. They’re not investors, which enables them to offer an independent point of view.
Sampo Accelerator is ran three times a year, starting typically around October, January and April. They also organize a social gathering for alumni and coaches twice a year: the week before midsummer and around the time of Slush.
The Founder Institute runs two pre-seed acceleration programs in Finland: a general one for all founders, as well as a Global Center of Excellence for Food Ecosystems, interested in all food-related solutions.
Their program works for all founders, even those who don’t have an idea yet, until the stage of having good sales and the first professional investor on board.
The programs cost €599/€799 (early bird/regular fee), with a possibility to get a stipend to cover the costs. The participants also commit to a 4% warrant.
Spring Capital manages two funds: a small cap growth fund with €300k – 700k tickets, and a startup fund with €50k – 200k tickets on rounds of €300k – 1M, with a maximum total allocation of €450k into one very successful company over the lifetime. The growth fund can invest up to €1M into a company altogether.
The growth fund is focused on making solo investments into profitable companies, occasionally also co-investing on rounds of up to €2M. The startup fund makes co-investments into startups with traction, typically with €5-20k/mo in revenues, seeking to become profitable later.
The startup fund invests into software and marketplaces, and the growth fund into hardware and traditional manufacturing SMEs. They prefer applied technological solutions instead of very deep tech, but in the growth fund they also look into non-tech cases.
In their growth fund, Spring Capital is looking for innovators of traditional fields. The startup fund specializes in SaaS and marketplace solutions.
Equinor & Techstars Energy Accelerator seeks innovative startups within four critical areas of the energy sector: oil and gas, new business models, digitization and renewables. Equinor is a leading energy corporation in Norway, and the program’s physical parts take place in Oslo.
Techstars is a leading startup accelerator that has invested into over 2,100 companies and helped them raise $9.3B since 2007. They run approx. 50 programs every year, each investing into 10 companies.
Their application period for 2020 program is open until 11.10.2020, and the next application period will be open from July to October 2021, for the program that will take place in February 2022.
Techstars acceleration programs include a $20k stipend for running expenses and an optional $100k convertible loan in addition to the programs’ coaching and the network membership, in exchange for a 6% stake in the company (or higher based on the conversion rate on next round).
Techstars Ventures also does follow-on investments into their best performing portfolio companies, having co-led an investment round with Equinor of €4M. Many other funds also invest into Techstars companies.
Vitosha Venture Partners invests into startups that have a connection with Bulgaria, or willing to establish one. For example a sales team’s office or a development unit.
They do not invest into gambling or similar types of startups.
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.
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.
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.
SET Ventures focuses on early growth stage companies furthering the transition of the energy sector. Their customer and investor network and expertise in growing companies helps you be ready for scaling your business.
SET Ventures invests into companies doing smart energy solutions, mainly software and services. Hardware is ok as well, as long as the solution has a software or service component.
Companies have to have an impact on the energy system, furthering its transition. For example electric mobility solutions are relevant, but old-fashioned energy solutions would not be.
SET Ventures has excellent expertise in energy sector. “Many companies can skip through the first half of their presentation as we are already familiar with the basic problems and very well embedded in the whole European energy system.”
They’re looking at companies below €25M valuation pre-money (€30M post-money). The companies have to have the potential to be worth over €200M on exit.
SET Ventures seeks to hold a significant minority stake of typically 20% or more. typically takes an active board position but never sit on the management team. Fund lifetime is 10+2 years, they’re in it for the long haul (typically 4-7 years), not seeking to exit in a short time frame.
Contact to info@setventures.com goes to three people and they go through and respond to each case.