Funderbeam Investment Partner: Louise Ertman Baunsgaard
From sushi-queen to business angel and now an investment partner with Funderbeam.
At Funderbeam, we are always excited to work with experienced partners to help businesses grow. This is why we would like to introduce one of our investment partners Louise Ertman Baunsgaard. Here’s her story on how she created her business and eventually became an investor.
Louise Ertman Baunsgaard is an experienced Danish entrepreneur, coach, and a business angel.
Louise Ertman Baunsgaard started her career as an entrepreneur back in 2003 when she founded a sushi takeaway LETZ SUSHI. Being only 27-years old, she left her job in the IT-sector and decided to travel to Australia. In Sydney, she became fascinated and inspired by the number of different sushi-restaurants. Back home in Denmark, she spent all her time making her dream of a sushi takeaway chain come true.
Louise knew nothing about making sushi but she was good at creating business concepts and marketing. She took an entrepreneurship course, created a business and marketing plan, found a sushi chef and a place for the restaurant in Copenhagen, and opened her first LETZ SUSHI in March 2003.
“When I started my business, people thought I was crazy to believe that I could create a sushi chain in a market where customers hardly knew sushi. But I was driven by my passion and happily didn’t listen.” — Louise Ertman Baunsgaard
Over 14 years the chain grew to 16 outlets and had approximately 150 workers and thousands of customers all over Denmark. In 2017 she sold the sushi business and stepped back from running it to focus on investing in startups, coaching businesses and eventually becoming an investment partner at Funderbeam.
During the time she was running LETZ SUSHI, she understood how important coaching is. Business owners shouldn’t be left alone with hard decisions, instead, they should have someone to discuss with. This is why she started her own coaching business Ertman.dk to help business owners and be a role model for young businesses.
Louise’s main expertise is in making business models simpler and easier to understand. This helps businesses to grow with the help of the right strategies and people. Although her main competence is in the restaurant business, she has experience in various other branches as well. She has a good connection with local Danish entrepreneur community and will help to connect Funderbeam with this community.
When it comes to coaching and support, Louise is passionate about empowering female founders. As a female founder herself, she has learned to juggle her time and set priorities, much like Funderbeam’s CEO Kaidi Ruusalepp. Read Kaidi’s experience here.
During her time running LETZ SUSHI, Louise had three children and therefore had to balance the time with her family and the time running a business. As a business coach, she wants to help female founders to manage both business and family through sharing her own experience.
Louise is also a business angel. She invests her own money and time to startups and small businesses in exchange for equity. As a business angel, she is sharing her own broad knowledge about sales, building a business, managing people, and more. She will use her skills and experience to help Funderbeam find companies in Denmark that need funding.
