The top 19 most active venture capital investors in Sweden in 2020/2021 by investment stage
UPDATE 2022: Find the most active investors in 2021/2022 here.
Venture capital in Europe and Sweden has yet reached another level during the last 1.5 years — just to give you a taste, here, some quick facts:
- Europe has 2x VC funding: European tech companies have received more venture capital in the first half of 2021 than the entire 2020 or 2019. Article here.
- Stockholm #1 per capita: Stockholm crushed it in 2020 and received the most capital per capita in Europe — $1703 per capita ahead of London with $981 per capita. Article here.
But who are the VC investors actually investing early on?
Similar to last year (in a post here), we’ve gathered publicly available data to answer just that! But before we jump in — first:
A data disclaimer and some self-critical reflections
- We consider the period Jan 2020 to Mid August 2021
- This is based on public data — which we know is fairly inaccurate
- Quantity of rounds is not a great measure of quality per se — but it should allow founders to estimate their odds of landing a round at a specific stage — fundraising, like most things, is about focus
- This post does not distinguish between lead investors, small participants in a round — neither does it distinguish between first investment rounds and follow-on investments in an existing portfolio company
- We have only included what we perceive to be firms purely focused on venture capital investments, — so no incubators, accelerators, corporates etc. that might equally contribute to a well functioning ecosystem
- In conclusion, this is a good quick cheat sheet but needs to be considered with a pinch of salt
Criteria to be included as most active VC firm:
- Independent, not affiliated to one entity with its own commercial or personal agenda
- Dedicated to venture capital investments only
- Active, with a minimum of 6 investments in Sweden during the period (including announced follow-on investments)
- Leading rounds, at least some of the rounds must have been led by the VC
- Investment for Equity only, equity for incubation programs are excluded
So here it is:
The 19 most active VC firms in Sweden in 2020/2021 by number of transactions
Below are the 19 most active independent VC firms sorted by the number of transactions in brackets with a minimum of six, e.g. (6).
- Antler (27)
- Luminar Ventures (25)
- Industrifonden (24)
- Brightly Ventures (17)
- EQT Ventures (17)
- J12 Ventures (15)
- Bonnier Ventures (11)
- Inbox Capital (11)
- Creandum (10)
- eEquity (9)
- Spintop Ventures (8)
- Inventure (8)
- Schibsted Growth (8)
- Blq Invest (7)
- Wellstreet (7)
- Backing Minds (7)
- Novax (6)
- Alfvén & Didrikson (6)
- Northzone (6)
At what stage do these VC firms typically invest?
The below graph shows you the 19 most active VC firms in Sweden in 2020/2021 ranked by the median round size in which they participated, as a proxy for the stage at which these firms typically invest at.
- Median (blue mark) — an overall indicator of the stage the investor typically invests at
- Minimum (red bar on the left) — smallest round participated in, an indicator of how early they invest
- Maximum (red bar on the right) — largest round participated in
The long tail of investors during 2020/2021
Finally, there are of course many more investing in tech companies, again, reviewing public data — there were 518 different investors that have done at least 1 investment since January 2020 — and 32 at least 6 which we have been considered the “most active” investors in this post. Below is the full picture:
Fundraising is like everything else: Work hard and focus on the right things.
#venturecapital
