CONNECTING THE NORDICS & JAPANNewsletter #6
September 30th, 2020

Welcome to the Nordic Innovation Ecosystem newsletter #6
Who are the four most prominent Nordic and non-Nordic Series A investors in the Nordics? And
what is the regional spread of funds flowing into the Nordics? In this editorial we continue ourfocus on VC investments in the Nordics, this time based on two new analyses from Nordic 9 and areport published last week by TechBBQ and Dealroom. Please note: none of these reports included
data from New Nordic Estonia.
Last month, Nordic 9 compiled a list of the main Nordic VC’s, and it seems clear that Sweden dominates this part of the ecosystem: from the top-20 list, 12 are from Sweden, 3 from Norway andFinland (NordicNinja VC is one them) and 2 from Denmark (Heartcore and Vækstfonden).
The # 1 Nordic VC (according to Nordic 9) is Swedish EQT Ventures, “the most solid and aggressive
Nordic investors on international level” with a fund of EUR 1.2 billion. # 2 is Norwegian Northzone
who last year raised a new EUR 430 million fund to back European startups. # 3 is Swedish Creandum, who made an exit on Spotify in 2018. # 4 is Danish Heartcore, presently operating with aEUR 94 million fund.
Nordic 9 also published a list of the main non-Nordic series A investors active in the Nordics during
the last two years, and here UK leads the pack: from the top-20 list, 11 come from the UK, followedby Germany (4), USA (3), France and Austria (1).
The top-3 are all British: Draper Esprit, “one of Europe’s largest tech-focused VC firms” and aprominent investor in the Danish scaleup Trustpilot. Balderton, labeled as “one of the more active
non-Nordic investors in the Nordics”. And Atomico, with strong Nordic roots, as it was launchedby one of the co-founders of Skype, Niklas Zennström. Also # 5 on the list, GP Bullhound, is a UK
based VC with Swedish origins.
Not surprisingly, the geographical origin of VC investments to the Nordics are very near-shore.
According to a recent report by TechBBQ and Dealroom, 80% of all VC investments to Denmarkand Norway originate from Europe and Nordic countries. Sweden and Finland seem more internationalized, with just 60% of funds originating from Europe and the Nordics, and 30% from North
America - twice the level of Denmark and Norway.
Investments from Asian investors remain relatively low for all the Nordic countries except Finland.
Just 2-5% of all VC investments in Denmark, Norway and Sweden originate from Asia, while Finland excels at 12%. It seems very likely that this reflects Japan’s long and close relationship withFinland.

SHORT NEWS FROM THE NORDICS

FI

Solars Foods closed a €15 million series A funding round to build its first production facility, to create a source of food largely out of water, electricity andair.

ISThe Nordic game engine unicorn Unity, is the first Icelander founded company
to get publicly listed in the US, raising up to $100 million in its offering.

DKWorld Airplay Radio Monitor (WARM) raises €1.25 million in seed round. Adding
Sony to the list of its investors for their music recognition technology.

SETracklib, a startup that quickly finds and legally clears original music for sampling, raises $4.5 million from investors, including Sony Innovation Fund.

FIAttractive.AI announces closing a $1 million round from investors including
professional soccer player Keisuke Honda, to improve websites with a bot thatconducts continuous analysis.

NOEarth Science Analytics, developer of petroleum geoscience software solutions, fundraised $8.6 million.

EE

Sentinel raises $1.35 million for their technology that detects deep fakes andfake news.

INTERVIEW WITH BIRD & BIRD

What type of legal advice does your organization provide and in what markets do youoperate? Bird & Bird is among the leading international law firms specializing in providing legal advice to tech companies operating
across borders, aiding Nordic startups and larger corporations wanting to expand to the Japanese market. Bird & Bird also advises Japanesecompanies and investors that want to establish a presence in the Nordics and in the restof Europe. In addition to legal services related
to establishing corporate presence and structure in the Nordics and in other European countries, We provide assistance with compliance ofpersonal data regulations, cyber security, due
diligence examinations of IP and patents thatenable company’s the freedom to operate.
Name:

What gains have you seen / do you foreseefrom interaction with the Japanese innovation ecosystem? In the last decades the US,
Europe, and Nordics, have had a business culture driving innovation from the bottom up resulting in the creation of disruptive solutions.
The Japanese ecosystem is keen to learn fromthis experience, which I believe Nordic startups
can assist with. On the other hand, Japan has
experienced rapid technological development
since the 1950’s to now, being a frontrunnerin many technological fields. Therefore, I think
there is a lot of potential for knowledge exchange between the two Regions. To mention afew examples, I think the Japanese could learn
more about innovation driven by public-private
partnerships, rather than traditional corporate
innovation. In Japan, there is a lot of collaboration between Japanese companies and research institutions, which I think is something
we can learn from in the Nordics. There are a
lot of things to learn from each other within
healthcare as both Japan and the Nordics arein the forefront in robotics, AI and other technologies that seek to tackle changing societal
demographics.		

Martin von Haller Grønbæk

Position: 		Partner

Organisation:		

Bird & Bird

Ecosystem location:

Copenhagen, Denmark

Contact:

martin.vonhaller@twobirds.			com

What are the main barriers for Nordic techcompanies to enter the Japanese market
and vice versa? In the Nordics, establishinga company is straight forward due to an open
economy and transparency, in contrast to Japan, which is more characterized by formality.
In the Nordics, I think the biggest legal barrieris the compliance with local market regulations,such as anti-money laundering and customer
information regulations, which are extremelystrict. I do not think this is a particular Nordic
issue, but a part of how the world is developing
now. However, in general, I think that the cultural barrier of selling and developing products
to the local market and interacting with partners is a much bigger hurdle.

NORDIC EVENTS - ONLY DIGITAL• 07.10The TechBBQ organized event, Startup Capital, connects pre-seed, seed-stage,and A-series startups across the Baltics and Nordic with Global investors throughvirtually facilitated matchmaking activities.

• 19-21.10

Secure funding for your company at Arctic15, hosting a 3 day long pitching event
for Nordic and Baltic pre-seed to seed-stage startups held in Helsinki, Finland.

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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