What you need to know about the Nordic investment market in April 2020.
This is a dealflow summary for the Nordic private companies we tracked for the month of April. During April we added a total of 250 deals in our databases.
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Total investment transactions
68 deals | $202.93M value | 11 with undisclosed data
vs.
55 deals | $300.42M value | 9 with undisclosed data [March 2020]
65 deals | $272.72M value | 5 with undisclosed data [February 2020]
67 deals | $610.66M value | 12 with undisclosed data [January 2020]
vs.
83 deals | $266.16M value | 17 with undisclosed data [April 2019]
> See all the investment deals for April
Top 5 largest investment transactions
Templafy (Software Services) - $25M
LunarWay (Financial Services, Mobile) - $21.59M
Lendify (Financial Services, Marketplace) - $14.93M
Trialbee (Health services, Pharma) - $11.93M
Budbee (Logistics, Marketplace, Transportation) - $10.62M
How the investment deals were distributed by each country
Sweden - 26 deals
Finland - 21 deals
Denmark - 9 deals
Norway - 8 deals
Iceland - 4 deals
> See the entire macro summary
The investment distribution number
- < 0.5M - 14 transactions (20.6%)
- 0.5M - 1M - 6 transactions (8.8%)
- 1M - 5M - 25 transactions (36.8%)
- 5M - 10M - 6 transactions (8.8%)
- 10M - 20M - 4 transactions (5.9%)
- 20M - 50M - 2 transactions (2.9%)
- n/a - 11 transactions (16.2%)
- TOTAL - 68 transactions
The investment distribution value
- < 0.5M - 5.01M investment value (2.5%)
- 0.5M - 1M - 3.59M investment value (1.8%)
- 1M - 5M - 60.31M investment value (29.7%)
- 5M - 10M - 39.93M investment value (19.7%)
- 10M - 20M - 47.48M investment value (24.3%)
- 20M - 50M - 46.59M investment value (23%)
- TOTAL - $202.93M investment value
Top 5 Nordic cities by the number of investment transactions
Stockholm : 15 deals - Software Services (5), Health services (4), Mobile (3)
Helsinki : 9 deals - Software Services (6), Food Industry (2)
Copenhagen : 6 deals - Software Services (5), Big Data (2), Competitive Intelligence (2)
Oslo : 5 deals - Software Services (3), Marketplace (2), Ecommerce (2)
Gothenburg : 4 deals - Software Services (2)
Top 5 active verticals by the number of transactions
- Software Services : 28 deals - $56.72M value
- Manufacturing : 17 deals - $24.79M value
- Health services : 13 deals - $35.30M value
- Mobile : 8 deals - $46.23M value
- Ecommerce : 8 deals - $17.26M value
> See the entire list and the industry breakdown
Active investors (min 2 transactions)
Almi Invest - 5 deals
Maki VC - 4 deals
PreSEED Ventures - 3 deals
Seed Capital - 2 deals
Creandum - 2 deals
David Helgason - 2 deals
Inbox Capital - 2 deals
Ali Omar - 2 deals
Industrifonden - 2 deals
Schibsted Growth - 2 deals
Sisu Game Ventures - 2 deals
Norrsken Foundation - 2 deals
Vækstfonden - 2 deals
Henrik Lie-Nielsen - 2 deals
Number of active investors during the month: 125
> See all the active investors for the month April
Angel investors (min 2 transactions)
David Helgason - 2 deals
Ali Omar - 2 deals
Henrik Lie-Nielsen - 2 deals
Number of active investors during the month: 49
> See all the active angel investors for the month April
VC investors (min 2 transactions)
Maki VC - 4 deals
PreSEED Ventures - 3 deals
Seed Capital - 2 deals
Creandum - 2 deals
Inbox Capital - 2 deals
Industrifonden - 2 deals
Schibsted Growth - 2 deals
Sisu Game Ventures - 2 deals
Norrsken Foundation - 2 deals
Vækstfonden - 2 deals
Number of active investors during the month: 40
> See all the active VC investors for the month April
Non-Nordic investors
- Insight Venture Partners - 1 deal
- Dawn Capital - 1 deal
- Socii Capital - 1 deal
- Greyhound Capital - 1 deal
- MTIP - MedTech Innovation Partners - 1 deal
Number of active investors during the month: 31
> See all the non-Nordic investors for the month April
Interesting deals from April
digital marketplace for therapeuts | $8.4 million
gaming company | $4.7 million
secondary market operator for private, pre-IPO companies | £3 million
developer of a software platform featuring environmental data | €2.3 million
wearable for sports analytics | $1.4 million
subscription-based operation for pet food delivery | €500k
no-code platform developers>
food products based on insects
tech developer for precision agriculture
More money in the market
Icebreaker announced Icebreaker Fund II at €50 million.
Nordic FoodTech VC announced closing €24.5 million for investing in food companies.
Antler will start getting startups to the their incubator program from Norway, in addition to career people looking to start a company.
The big picture
- What are the top investment deals in in the Nordic countries for the first quarter of 2020
- What are the top venture investors from Denmark as of 2019?
- What are the top venture investors from Finland as of 2019?
- What are the top investors from the Nordic countries as of 2019
- What are the top angel investors from the Nordic countries in 2019
Other observations
In a survey made with 205 angel investors from Sweden, 24% said they’d continue to invest in startups just as before. The rest of 76% either stopped or they’re being more cautious.
Bad investment business made by the Swedes:
- raised $12M in 2018
- divested part of the company for $4.4M in 2019
- sold the rest for less than $6M in 2020.
Slush cancelled their November event from Helsinki. It was probably the best opportunity to take the pulse of what is happening in the Nordics. Pivoting is not going to be easy but the event has a strong local community around it.
Reasons for optimism
Situation room by byFounders
Norwegian’s only real option is to try to come back as a humble regional rival to Swedish and Danish-owned carrier SAS.
You can purchase a village in Sweden for just $7 million.
Investment notes
- Bored investors, dirty data and scaling Ben Thompson.
- Founders leverage, venture debt and audio-based social networks
- US versus Europe, why Euro VCs are fucked and how Americans are thinking about A rounds.
- Disruption in the VC industry, company bailouts and platforms vs startup accelerators
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