Finnish VC firm Maki has raised its third fund, of €100m, to invest in startups in the Nordics and Estonia. It’s particularly keen on companies focused on deeptech or brand-driven startups – regardless of the industry or business model.
The fund has 50 LPs, which include the Finnish state-owned investment company Finnish Industrial Investment (Tesi), insurance company Ilmarinen, pension funds Varma and Elo and regional banks Nordea and OP. A significant portion of the new fund comprises family offices, founders and operators of some of the region’s successful startups, including Skype, Wise, Aiven, and Supercell.
“We don’t share our exact returns, but it is common knowledge that the third fund is typically the toughest to raise because you need to be able to show that you’ve done good work,” says Maki partner Pauliina Martikainen.
Compared to its previous two funds, this one is classified as an Article 8 fund, which promotes environmental and social objectives. Article 8 funds are also dubbed “light green” funds, and must show that they “promote” ESG characteristics. The regulation has yet to set minimum thresholds for qualifying as an Article 8 product.
“Some LPs definitely value these aspects,” Martikainen says, “however, looking at our existing portfolio, we are already somewhat aligned with these goals.”
Maki was founded in 2018 and invests initial tickets of €300k-3m in pre-seed or seed-stage startups. The firm has backed companies such as Ultimate, a customer support automation platform acquired by Zendesk, Revela, a biotech startup acquired by Oddity, as well as quantum startup IQM, animal-free egg whites startup Onego Bio, the anti-laundering platform Strise and cloud-based payment startup Enfuce.
Finland is home to several early-stage VCs, and Maki, like Inventure and Lifeline Ventures, is often one of the first institutional investors for startups. Maki’s third fund, for which the team began fundraising in the autumn of last year, has already made seven investments, and as with its previous funds, two-thirds of the fund will be reserved for follow-on investments.
“We reserve a substantial amount for follow-on rounds, which is a definite selling point for founders, as there are other pre-seed funds out there, but many have much narrower shoulders than we do,” Martikainen says.
“We aim to be there for the long term and, in the beginning, either increase or at least protect our stake. At a certain point, that’s not feasible anymore. But with those companies we believe have the potential to become massive, you want to stick around and see what happens. I suppose that’s where the skill of a VC eventually comes into play — making smart decisions about when to exit and when to continue.”
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/maki-vc-fund-nordic-news/
