CONNECTING
JAPAN &THE NORDICS
Newsletter #9
November 26, 2020

Welcome to the Nordic Innovation Ecosystem newsletter #9
Two days ago, Copenhagen Fintech – one of the main Nordic Fintech hubs – hosted the first part ofthe initiative: “Elevating New Nordic Fintech Innovation to Japan” together with The Royal Danish
Embassy in Tokyo and Fintech Association of Japan.
At the conference, Japanese stakeholders experienced 18 Nordic Fintech startups demo theirnewest digital solutions, especially focusing on:•••••

ESG and Sustainability (2021.AI, DigiShares, Doconomy, Greater Than, Normative)
SME/Enterprise Financial Solutions (Roger, Smallbrooks, HelloFlow, Softpay.io, Swiipe)
Financial Inclusion (MakerDao, MyMonii, Pie Systems)
Anti-Money Laundering, KYC and crime prevention (Chainanalysis, Codesealer, NewBanking)Open Banking (November First, Subaio)

The event also included key notes on the recent trends in Nordics design thinking, and new approaches to open innovation and user-oriented fintech solutions - ever more important in theongoing covid-reality.
In December, the event will be followed up by an Individual Corporate Demo Day, where the Japanese attendees will be offered a curated meeting with 4-8 hand-picked Nordic Fintech startups
for a 2-3 hour demo session based on their specific needs and challenges.
The overall purpose of the event is to spur innovation, partnerships, and collaboration between
Nordic startups and Japanese corporations to shape the future of financial services together.
Nordic Fintech should be relevant for Japanese stakeholders. The Nordic Fintech founders areamongst the most successful in Europe. 16% of all Fintech scaleups are located in the Nordic region, including Kaching, Anyfin, Tink, Pleo and Billogram, and the Nordics boast several Fintech
unicorns, including iZettle, Klarna, Transferwise, Tradeshift and Bambora.
Now, another unicorn seems to be in the making, with Chainalysis expecting to raise USD 100 million venture capital at a USD 1 billion valuation next week. Chainalysis raised USD 6 million fromSozo and Mitsubishi UFJ in 2019.
Part of the strength is derived from the fact that the Nordic societies are highly digitized and open
to new technologies. Nordic countries were the first in Europe to set up real-time national payment
infrastructures, laying the foundation for innovation in e- and m-commerce for the new generation of Nordic Fintech companies. This in turn has geared the Nordics into becoming some of theworld’s most cashless societies: In 2016, cash was used in less than 20% of all Swedish transactions. The Bank of Finland has calculated that the use of banknotes in Finland will end by 2029, atthe latest. In Norway, the issue of creating a cashless society by 2030 has been brought up as apolitical goal.
For further information on Nordic Fintech, contact Chief Innovation Officer at Copenhagen Fintech, Simon Schou.

SHORT NEWS FROM THE NORDICS

SENorthvolt, the manufacturer of electric batteries has raised a whooping EUR
513 million.

SENilar, producer of battery and storage technologies received a loan of EUR 47
million from the European Investment Bank.

NOCognite, developing industrial Saas for asset-intensive industries, closes a series A round of EUR 64 million.

DK

Kaffe Bueno producing cosmetic, food and beverages and other products fromout of coffee waste, secures EUR 1.1 million.

DK

Lifeline Robotics creates the world’s first automatic COVID-19 throat swab
tester and receives EUR 270.000 from Vækstfonden.

EE

Sales CRM software company Pipedrive is the newest European unicorn as
they take majority investment from Vista Equity Partners.

FI

IQM, the Finnish quantum computing hardware maker, pulled in another EUR
39 million for its ongoing Series A funding round, led by the German VC MIG
Fonds including Tencent joining in.

INTERVIEW WITH TERA VENTURES

What type of tech solutions, startups andmarkets do you invest and operate in? Tera
Ventures is industry and business model agnostic however, we gravitate towards somethemes such as; AI and Machine Learning overthe last decade. We have a high-conviction andhands-on investment model that allows us tobuild knowledge across various industries as
our portfolio companies mature. Our home market is Estonia, we are also investing in Nordic
countries, Baltics, Poland and Czech Republic.
Why has there been so much interaction
between the Estonian and Japanese innovation ecosystem? Japan and Estonia have
many similarities, not least is the journey of digital transformation. Over the last five years wehave noticed significantly more interest in Estonia, which has built one of the most digitallyadvanced societies. This has laid the framework
for a thriving innovation ecosystem. One of thelargest Japanese corporations actually sent a
representative to live and work here in Tallinn,
citing “Estonia is living in the future” as the reason. At Tera Ventures, we have welcomed thisinterest in our corner of the world and turned
our focus to building strong relationships withsignificant Japanese partners. For Tera Venture
Fund II, we have two such stakeholders fromJapan; Itochu Corporation and Mistletoe. This isa result of our efforts to build Japanese partnerships and our portfolio companies’ tractionin Japan; such companies include; Lingvist (Rakuten), Fits.me (Rakuten), Realeyes (NTT Docomo, Global Brain, NEC), Cleveron (POCs withvarious large Japanese corporations), Jobbatical (Mistletoe). Beyond our portfolio companies
there are many other deals between Estonian
startups and Japanese investors and corporations.

Name:		Andrus Oks

Position: 		Founding Partner

Organisation:		

Tera Ventures

Ecosystem location:

Tallinn, Estonia

Investment ticket/size and type:

EUR 200,000 – 1.5 million			equity and convertible
Fund size: 		EUR 28 million

Contact info:

andrus@tera.vc

What are the main barriers for getting Japanese companies to invest into Nordic startups? Fundamentally, the largest obstacle is thelack of awareness between ecosystems and thepotential value they can add to each other. In
general, it takes time to build strong relationships and then it takes longer to build trust thatcan lead to an investment. Building trust between cultures takes even longer and requires
more effort due to physical distance. As previously mentioned, the Estonian and Japanese
ecosystems have been putting in the hours
over countless trips and business deals. Manymarket players have contributed to this, incl.
Estonian Government which has accelerated
the process of creating awareness about ourecosystem to Japan and vice versa. Furthermore, I think there is a significant fit in terms ofbusiness culture between Japan and Estonia.

BULLETIN BOARD
EVENT

26 November - Nordic Digital Transformation (DX) and the New Japan online pitch showcase of 7 exciting Nordic startups tackling a wide variety ofindustries in digital transformation facilitated by Nordic Innovation House
Tokyo, incl. a keynote by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry about digitalization in Japan.

EVENT

1-3 December - TOKYO X DENMARK WEEK 2020, is an online festival exploring the future of connecting design, health, branding and smart cities in a
Danish-Japanese context organised by Ayanomimi.

ACCELERATOR

X-Hub Tokyo Global Accelerator program for all fintech, mobility and LifeScience startups looking to expand to Tokyo. Deadline is 30th of November.

ACCELERATOR

Food Tech Studio Bites, an open innovation initiative led by Japan’s foodindustry giants. Focus areas are wellness & health, next-gen foods, foodsustainability, and more. Deadline is 30th of November.

EDITORSPeter Johansen
Project Manager
pj@asia-house.dk
Julian Morié Hara Nielsen
Japanese Consultant
jni@techbbq.org

Innovation Lab Asia is a project collaboration
between Asia House and TechBBQ funded by
the Danish Industry Foundation.
For more information:

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