Hey all,
it’s election day in Finland! The counting of votes is almost done and the two presidential candidates are that will go on to the second round of voting are clear.
January is always a time for accelerator applications as you can see from the quick notes, but this year it also seems to be the time for fund launches. Most impressively, Plural’s second fund of 400m€, if the fund isn’t familiar to you yet, we urge you to check it out.
As always, happy to hear from you, let us know what we missed, what we can improve on & what you’d like to read about!
All the best,
Funding rounds
🇸🇪 Enqlare raised 500k€ for maritime industry software.
🇫🇮 Vegemi raised 500k€ for their food education startup.
🇳🇴 Plaace raised 885k€ for their data platform on cities.
🇩🇰 Coana raised 1.6m€ to transform open source vulnerability management.
🇫🇮 Chipmetrics raised 2.4m€ for their test chip technology for e.g. semiconductors.
🇸🇪 Acorai raised 4.5m€ for their heart monitoring device.
🇩🇰 Reel raised 5m€ to rethink the B2B renewable power purchasing.
🇫🇮 CardioSignal raised 10m€ for their smartphone heart disease detection.
🇸🇪 TrusTrace raised 24m€ for sustainable supply chain solutions.
🇩🇰 Monta raised 80m€ for their EV charging startup.
🇸🇪 Aira raised 145m€ to accelerate clean energy in heating.
Did we miss something - send us a note!
Quick Notes
Plural raised an impressive 400m€ for their second fund.
TechBBQ Hero Academy is open for applications - read more here.
Norrsken Accelerator 2023 applications are now open - read more & apply.
Creandum published an investor outreach template - here.
2C launched their new 50m€ fund to support cleantech companies.
Feminvest is raising a new fund to focus on female ownership.
Opinion
byFounders published their Shape of the New Nordics 2023 report - check it out here.
Here’s a quick rundown:
💪 The region demonstrated impressive resilience in the face of a tough macroeconomic landscape. While the broader European startup ecosystem witnessed a 42% drop in funding, the New Nordics experienced a much milder decline of 9.7%
📉 Pre-seed funding took the biggest hit, with a 23% reduction in median pre-seed round sizes compared to 2022. This was an uncomfortable development for many founders, but we’ve seen time and time again how embracing these early-stage capital constraints and a positive “scarcity mindset” early on can really hone an entrepreneur's focus and instil discipline.
🏆 Sweden continues to lead the pack with the highest funding in the New Nordics, clocking in at €362 million, amounting to just over a third of the total funding in the region (€990 million). However, Estonia dominated in terms of funding per capita.
💸 Investors’ expectations have gone up - this comes as no surprise to those who navigated the fundraising landscape last year. 50% of funding rounds went to startups with at least one repeat founder, up from 41% in 2022. We’ve also seen an upward trend in the maturity of startups at the time of investment, especially in the seed stage, where the median age increased from 2.3 to 3.8 years.
🤦♀️ One area where progress remains mostly stagnant is gender diversity among founding teams receiving VC funding - this one’s almost an unfortunate staple at this point.
Thank you for reading Nordic Notes, your biweekly guide to the Nordic startup ecosystem. If you enjoyed this issue, please like it and share it with your friends.