Scale-up Money: Learnings that stayed with us

Last month at Pier47 one morning session brought together three different perspectives on scaling. Founders from two growing companies, Grandhood and Happy Helper, were joined by The Danish Growth Fund, that provided the view from the investor’s side of the table.
Grandhood, the pension challenger founded in 2017, has been moving fast and recently announced their strategic partnership with Saxo Bank. Neither a white labeling setup or co-branding, Grandhood’s co-founder and CEO, Jon Lieberkind, defined the collaboration as an “arms length business partnership”.
Contrary to a traditional investment, Saxo does not take up equity in Grandhood, but make their employees and specialist expertise available. This includes access to Saxo’s infrastructure and global capital markets. In other words, smart money going in with the objective of reaching a shared revenue.
Jon Lieberkind stressed that high-level leadership buy-in had pushed the partnership forward. Saxo Bank’s COO, Søren Kyhl, is the owner of the project within Saxo, which speeds up processes for Grandhood’s team. In that sense Lieberkind’s advice was tangible for entrepreneurs looking for corporate partners: Create a dialogue with top management instead of reaching out to a project manager in a digital unit.
Rather than teaming up with the industry at large, Happy Helper has explored another scaling vehicle altogether: Making an IPO. Debuting on Nasdaq’s First North earlier this year, Happy Helper co-founder and CEO, Dennis Forchhammer, summed up the paperwork-heavy preparations. Forchhammer described it as a process fundamentally opposite to an entrepreneurial culture, because it is so slow. Nevertheless, it has been a highly efficient marketing machine for Happy Helper.
“The IPO brought us a lot of publicity, both positive and negative. But even the critical voices have been good for us, because they compel you to stand up and say: This is who we are as a company.”
The Danish Growth Fund joined the conversation, as partner Jacob Bratting Pedersen shared insights from their VF Venture arm. Fittingly, after two very people-centric companies had shared the stage, he described how the fund had shifted focus, when they asses growth potential. In short: The skill set within the management team has become the single most important indicator. This a break from years of giving weight to the Intellectual Property in each investment case.
“When I look across cases, I can see that if you want to scale, you need good and flexible sales management early on,” Bratting Pedersen said.
And what about all the new investors out there — from Nordic Web Ventures to Futuristic.vc? Bratting Pedersen welcomed the competition, which happens at a point, where more established players also invest earlier than before.
“It is an exciting time with a lot of appetite for risk out there.”
