Nordic early-stage investor Voima Ventures, focusing on science-based companies, announced its first closing with a new €90 million fund. With the new fund, Voima Ventures’ mission is to support Nordic and Baltic early-stage deeptech companies with globally scalable solutions, with the initial investment ticket size ranging from €200K to €3 million and beyond.
Helsinki-based Voima Ventures invests in companies tackling pressing global challenges with science-driven entrepreneurship. The investment thesis focuses on the highest value-creating opportunities in the venture capital domain; solutions that accelerate global green transformation, cutting-edge life science and health technologies, and groundbreaking new technologies, such as quantum, that are changing entire industries.
Investors of the Voima Ventures Fund III include among others European Investment Fund EIF, Finnish Tesi and its fund of funds KRR, VTT of Finland, Saminvest from Sweden, and pension funds Nordea Life and Elo, as well as established foundations, and family offices. With the new fund, Voima Ventures continues identifying and supporting the most promising ideas, scientists, and entrepreneurs at an early stage.
“Now is the time to scale science-based solutions into action and global markets. People want to preserve the planet and societies need to urgently fix the challenges of aging and health-challenged populations. Science-backed growth entrepreneurship is the only fast enough way to solve pressing global issues and it is generating a massive value growth opportunity for deep tech startups and VCs,” says Inka Mero, Founding Partner of Voima Ventures. “Also, science-driven innovation is a crucial driver of new economic growth and a way to build European technology sovereignty. As we move forward, we believe that technology and science-based companies will form the backbone of the Nordic region’s next-generation unicorns, economic growth, and talent attraction.”
As an early-stage investor, Voima Ventures supports founders throughout their journey, in scaling their solutions from research laboratories to global markets and eventually becoming unicorns. With a €90 million fund and a target hard cap at €120 million, Voima Ventures team also has firepower on the long course of deeptech company building.
“We know what it takes to scale from the lab to global markets. Investing in science startups requires also a different perspective, network, and expertise than most VCs are capable of offering. It goes beyond money: it involves an understanding of various domains and research commercialization while developing diverse and multidisciplinary teams,” Mero says.
Founded in 2019, Voima Ventures has had a strong track record in investing in high-potential science-based solutions by being an early investor in successful companies and next-generation unicorns like game-changing novel protein developer Solar Foods, AR pioneer Dispelix, carbon-neutral construction material company Betolar, and AI-based cancer treatment provider MVision. The previous two funds have 30 active companies of which several have grown into globally scaling companies, including 5 exits and one IPO.
Over 70% of the portfolio companies are direct spin-offs or originate from the research ecosystem. To step up in talent attraction for its portfolio companies, the team has launched several initiatives such as “Women-to-Boards” to provide diverse talent for the leadership teams and boards of deep tech companies.
Voima Ventures’ strong networks within both the research community and the industrial sector have laid a firm foundation for growing the best ideas into successful companies. The fund actively collaborates with all Nordic universities and is backed by one of their anchor investors, VTT of Finland, the second-largest research institute in Europe, and also a pioneer in deep tech startup spin-offs.
Read the orginal article: https://www.eu-startups.com/2023/06/finnish-vc-voima-ventures-launches-third-e90-million-fund-to-back-nordic-and-baltic-deeptech-startups/
