What you need to know about the Nordic investment market in April 2020.

17 May 2020 Insights

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.

This digest was also sent by email to all Nordic 9 users. You can sign up for it here.

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

> See the entire list

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

> See more details

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

> See more details

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)

> See the entire list

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

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

This monthly digest was sent to more than 2000 investors and startup people interested in the ecosystem from the Nordics. You can sign up to get it via email here.

Please share it with people who may find it interesting - thanks!

Would you like to dig into more detailed data? Get instant access with one of the pre-paid options!

You can purchase access to a curated, clean database with 10k+ investors and companies from the Nordics valid for a day, 3 months or a year. Pay as you go, no strings attached. Do it now!

Menu