As a free-market capitalist country, Denmark offers a comprehensive social welfare system to its citizens. The country ranks among the best places to do business in the world, with public and private organizations and accelerators supporting and accelerating entrepreneurs in Denmark. This way, young startups can skyrocket with pitch competitions, investment funds, collaborative research centers, and more. According to the Global Competitiveness Index 2018, Denmark is among the world's top 10 most competitive economies. Danish businesses are highly competitive due to such factors as an efficient labor market, access to skilled talent, and dynamic business environments.
As we've explored numerous VC funds from European countries, such as France, Italy, Switzerland, and others, so it's time to learn more about Denmark.
SEED Capital Denmark
Geography: Denmark
Preferred industries: sector-agnostic
Investment ticket: undisclosed
Company stage: seed-stage
SEED Capital Denmark supports scalable businesses and driven entrepreneurs, offering investments, business development, management support, and strategic and organizational planning. In addition, it provides marketing, operational, legal, and hiring assistance. SEED Capital Denmark invested in such companies as Trustpilot, a review platform, Veo, a team sports camera producer, Vivino, an app providing ratings, reviews, prices of the best wines, and more.
Vaekstfonden
Geography: Denmark
Preferred industries: agriculture
Investment ticket: from DKK 1M
Company stage: multistage
Vaekstfonden (VF) collaborates with local and private investors and banks to help businesses grow. The firm can supplement a loan or provide a guarantee of getting loans from banks, offers convertible loans for young scalable enterprises, and makes equity investments in Danish companies with global ambitions for growth. VF manages several growth funds to contribute to the development of the Danish economy. The firm has backed ShOUter, an online service allowing to book local services, Captego, an all-in-one solution for field data collection, Neurons, a platform predicting human behavior for products and brand experience improvement, and others.
Sunstone Life Science Ventures
Geography: Europe and the UK
Preferred industries: life science, therapeutics
Investment ticket: undisclosed
Company stage: early-stage
Sunstone Life Science Ventures is an independent European VC investment firm that supports innovative companies operating in the life science therapeutics sector. It offers business, operational, and financial assistance through collaborating with international Life Sciences executives. Sunstone supported over 45 companies, including F2G, a biopharmaceutical company that develops drugs to treat life-threatening fungal diseases, OxThera, which develops novel therapy for primary hyperoxaluria, Cantagria, a company developing antibody-based treatments for life-threatening diseases.
Novo Holdings
Geography: global
Preferred industries: science
Investment ticket: undisclosed
Company stage: multistage
Owned by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, Novo Holdings manages a broad portfolio focusing on long-term returns. The holding investment company involves Life Science Investments and Novo Capital Investors teams, which deliver strong financial returns. Operating worldwide, Novo Holding invested in more than 70 private and public companies, including AFYX, which specializes in mucosal disease treatment, Freeline, a biotech company that develops transformative gene therapies for patients suffering from inherited systemic debilitating diseases, Inogen, a portable oxygen concentrators manufacturer, and more.
NorthCap
Geography: Northern Europe
Preferred industries: ICT B2B, B2B2C
Investment ticket: €1 – 5M and follow up
Company stage: seed, early-stage, late-stage
NorthCap focuses on startups specializing in cloud computing (SaaS), mobile, communication, e-commerce, and online services that aim to expand internationally. The firm helps with strategy development, internationalization, organization, recruitment, and sales processes. NorthCap invested in Connected Kerb, an electric vehicle charging solutions provider, Tokenplace, an online trading platform for crypto exchanges, Masref, a swiss security platform, and others.
byFounders
Geography: global
Preferred industries: sector-agnostic
Investment ticket: €500K to €4M
Company stage: early-stage
byFounders helps to bootstrap, raise capital, and find alternative funding sources thanks to its extensive global ecosystem. It supports startups with a software-based business model, using its unique, so-called “8 Ts” approach, a framework for evaluating companies in terms of scalability and potential. Byfounders invested in companies like Cobalt, a Pentest as a Service (PtaaS) platform uniting a community of testers, SaltoX offers an alternative to stock options to remote companies, PipeBio, which engages the scientific community to develop new drugs, and more.
Innovationsfonden
Geography: Denmark
Preferred industries: healthy food, effective health care, clean environment, climate change solutions, green transport
Investment ticket: undisclosed
Company stage: multistage
Innovationsfonden invests in researchers, entrepreneurs, and businesses with added value for Denmark's economy and society. The fund supports only those who contribute to improving social welfare, societal wealth increase, and emission reduction. Innovation Fund Denmark provides access to technological advances and a dynamic international network, business development assistance, and growth. It invested in Heyhack, an automated penetration testing platform, HandyHand, an app for outsourcing home services, Hololink, which offers a.o. thousands of 3D models.
Accelerace
Geography: Nordics, Baltics
Preferred industries: business financing, sustainable societies, health and care, technology and services, smart manufacturing, leisure and heritage experience, corporate real estate
Investment ticket: DKK 750K
Company stage: pre-seed
Accelerace helps startups, scale-ups, university students, c-level executives, and entrepreneurs through funding, partner programs, and corporate matchmaking. The firm offers help from its extensive community of serial entrepreneurs, business innovators, and investors. Also, additionally to investments, Accelerace provides convertible loans and legal fees during its 7-week acceleration program. The firm has backed Templafy, a document generation platform, Penneo, a platform for document transactions and regulatory-compliant workflows, and Actimo, an interactive mobile employee platform with training exercises.
Damgaard
Geography: global
Preferred industries: B2B, SaaS, B2C
Investment ticket: undisclosed
Company stage: multistage
Damgaard is an investment company and a business angel that invests in medium-sized and small software businesses developing disruptive technologies and business models. It offers management coaching, operational assistance, and access to its vast network, which helps acquire local and global growth. Damgaard assists companies with a scalable business model, a global market potential, and real customers. It invested in companies like Dixa, which generates customer and brand value, OrderYOYO, an online payment, ordering, and marketing software solution, and Saxo Bank, which unites fintech specialists, investors, and traders.
Blazar Capital
Geography: global
Preferred industries: sector-agnostic
Investment ticket: undisclosed
Company stage: multistage
Blazar Capital builds online companies by offering full-scale business support. The company helps develop brand concepts, business growth, and comprehensive e-commerce support in the fields of marketing and sales, supply chain, and procurement. Also, it launched an OneBetterFuture network for its network and portfolio companies to share knowledge and experience in creating a sustainable business based on Nordic values. Blazar Capital helped Copenhagen Cartel, a Danish clothing brand, Chamberlain Coffee, a coffee products manufacturer and retailer, and Scandinavian Biolabs, which produces products against hair loss.
Lehrmann Ventures
Geography: Nordic region
Preferred industries: SaaS, e-commerce, online marketplace
Investment ticket: undisclosed
Company stage: multistage
Lehrmann Ventures is a venture fund financing scaleups and startups with growth potential. It collaborates with Vaekstfonden, which helps the fund match its equity investments with bank loans. Lehrmann Ventures backed Vuffeli, a tailor-made dog food seller, HOLIDU, a Spanish digital marketplace for renting holiday apartments, Wavell, a seller of headphones, speakers, adapters, and electronic accessories.
Willmach
Geography: Europe, Asia
Preferred industries: sector-agnostic; preferably enterprise IT, SaaS, consumer Internet, e-commerce, and healthtech.
Investment ticket: undisclosed
Company stage: early-stage
Willmach is a global VC firm that supports companies with global reach. It offers investment for early-stage businesses, but for late-stage startups, Willmach offers institutional co-investors onboarding from its extensive business network. The company provides long-term support to startups with scalable potential, like MessyWeekend, a sunglasses brand contributing to clean oceans, Nordgreen, a Scandinavian designer watch company, and Jamie Looks, a fashion eyewear brand.
theView
Geography: global
Preferred industries: sector-agnostic
Investment ticket: undisclosed
Company stage: early-stage
theView finances startup companies with high growth potential, offering business plan optimization with a value proposition, market validation, business model, and budget. In addition, it provides matchmaking with investors within private and public sectors, VC firms, business angels, and capital funds. theView takes care of the management and commercial services, like strategy development, operational planning, sales, and marketing. It backed Funds Tower, a data-driven investment modeling tool, Dogley, which allows booking a dog sitter, and Veridens, which facilitates compliance and certification.
Concentric
Geography: Europe
Preferred industries: financial services, mobility, real estate, industrial, logistics
Investment ticket: €0.5M - €5M
Company stage: early-stage
A family office and a VC firm, Concentric supports sector-defining businesses that solve crucial problems through automation. The firm is founded by Kjartan Rist and Denis Shafranik, active VC investors with over 20 years of experience. In addition, Concentric cooperates with European businesspeople who help with supporting portfolio companies. The VC firm has invested in BVNK, a digital bank, Tesseract, which offers digital asset landing, HomeHero, allowing tracking of household bills.
Promentum
Geography: Nordics
Preferred industries: enterprise productivity, digital consumer experience, robotics, and automation, entertainment, fintech, legtech, agritech
Investment ticket: undisclosed
Company stage: early-stage
Promentum invests in businesses with strong value propositions, large market opportunities, and a strong entrepreneurial spirit. A wide global and local network of technology and venture experts makes up the firm. Promentum backed such companies as AskCody, a meeting management platform, Justt, a platform offering collective procurement and supplier negotiation, Movi, a software development kit with interactive video materials, and more.
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