The state of Nordic impact investments
Can an impact startup offer investment value as well as a real world change? A newly released report by Dealroom in partnership with Danske Bank highlights the challenges and opportunities in the Nordics and broader impact ecosystems. The report clarifies some myths.
The Nordics have a strong reputation for creating innovative startups working to create a sustainable impact in the world. Therefore, venture capital in the Nordics is significantly more impact-focused compared to other regions. The potential is great, but the Nordics are still lacking behind the UK that alone receives more impact investment than all the Nordic countries combined.
"Everyone who has the privilege of influence on the society’s development, like investors, has a responsibility to use this power wisely. Impact investing combines the possibility of monetary returns while also contributing to businesses that contribute to a greater good succeed.", says Sigrun Syverud, CEO and Founder, Fjong.
A myth is that impact startups are not much likely to scale. During the pandemic, the job openings increased by 10% and new startups are more likely to be creating impact jobs. Also, seed-stage impact startups were more likely to raise a Series A round within 36 months, than a non-impact startup. The Nordics have now already four impact unicorns and the potential is emerging. There´s no evidence of impact startups lacking the scalability required for traditional VC.
If we look at industry within the impact, deep tech startups have a higher and more rapid scale than non-impact startups. They are a “safer” bet compared to other companies and also raise more capital at most funding stages.
Katapult is an investment company, focused on highly scalable impact tech startups. Katapult currently has 50M USD under management, invested in 138 companies across 35 countries.
"Investors no longer have to sacrifice profits for impact. Profits come BECAUSE of impact. Solving the world’s biggest problems means generating the world’s biggest companies - this is where both talent and smart money is going and that’s where you should be going as well”, explains Jørn Haanæs, Investment Director Katapult Climate.
In Oslo, now, we officially have 5 unicorns and 2 of them joined the pack in 2021. However; we do not have an impact startup unicorn yet but the report shows that the snowball effect in the Nordic startup ecosystem is on and the growth companies’ stories are leading the way.
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Katapult is an investment company, focused on highly scalable impact tech startups. Katapult currently has 50M USD under management, invested in 138 companies across 35 countries. Katapult is now established as one of the leading players within early phase impact investments, and has also put the Katapult Future Fest on the map as the event to go to for impact and tech in Europe.
FJONG is transforming the word’s second most polluting industry by introducing a convenient way to rent and share clothes. They reinvent the way people consume by introducing clothing rental and subscription from an unlimited shared digital wardrobe.
