Our Focus

2017 was Nordic Makers’ first full year of operation and we now have 14 investments. We met many of you at events, talks and in meetings as we continued to search for our product-market-fit (we will always be in beta). We learned a lot and now we know that:

• We still have a lot to learn
• We have great indications that the core of our model (invest early and work closely with founders) helps in building new category leaders
• As a group, we should focus on the early — but not earliest stages — of a company

Nordic Makers structure stands on three pillars:

• Angel collective — this is where we came from. We came as a group of founders that had started angel investing wanting to create the early-stage investor that was not there at the time we started our companies. As our structure evolved, we decided to increase our commitments and, unlike a traditional angel collective, everyone in Nordic Makers now always invests once we say its a Nordic Makers’ investment.
• Non-VC — we are not a fund. We don’t think in terms of reserves, vintages, mandatory board seats, fund returners or downside protection. We have VC friends that we like, respect and view as natural follow-on investors where we share the view of wanting to see really big companies that move exponentially.
• Family Office — we invest not just our own, but also our kids’ money. We do so as we want the Nordics to have a stronger tech ecosystem where our kids’ generation can thrive.

When our group started investing in the summer of 2016 after nearly a year of discussions, we knew that after a beta phase, we would probably see some changes to the team, because we all had to test if the set-up would work for the investment style each of us had — and we wanted new people to join as we went along. We are designed to be a fluid group with a shared mindset. All of us are used to transition, from starting-up to investing and back again, or to other projects.Therefore, during 2017 we saw plenty of changes:

• Lars stepped down from his operational role at Sitecore which freed up more time to spend on Nordic Makers.
• Michael Seifert joined Nordic Makers. Michael is along Lars one of the co-founders of Sitecore and lead the company as CEO from inception until just recently when he stepped down as CEO and relocated back to Denmark from the US. Michael brings a wealth of experience and a strong US network.
• Tommy left Nordic Makers as he set out to start a VC fund (ByFounders) which is great news for the startup community and fills an important gap. Thomas, Lars and David supported Tommy with an investment.
• Thomas increased his commitment at his own startup TwentyThree and initiatives CPHFTW and Techfestival, with less time for Nordic Makers and so Thomas left the group.
• Hampus (after nearly 75 angel investments) decided to focus thematically, joined Blueyard Capital in Berlin as a Venture Partner to invest in decentralization and anti-monopolies, but remains close in the network.
• Erik ended the year by concluding to spend less time on investing and more time helping the startup community through StartupDocs and other projects. Erik remains involved in the network.
• Esben Gadsbøll joined Nordic Makers and is one of the founders of Whiteaway, the Nordic e-commerce star, and has since become an experienced angel investor. He is also the Chairman of Danban and the Rising North Foundation. Esben brings a pan-Nordic network and drive to help Nordic Makers forward.

We are also excited to start formalizing our Network of angel co-investors where names from above will reappear and be joined by many more.

Economists are predicting 2018 to be “As Good it gets” and with the first quarter just closed, a few of our portfolio companies are already contributing to make the prediction come true with a strong 2018 start:

• Corti — published an early, small-scale study, where Corti’s machine learning model analyzed 911 emergency calls and predicted which callers where describing symptoms of a heart attack. Another study, which analyzed 170,000 calls, will soon be published.
• Peergrade — closed $1.5 in new funding where we welcome Tommy as ByFounders joined the round along Berlin’s Project A as Peergrade are busy conquering the US.
• Minut — building a friendly and non-intrusive home alarm, just closed a $2.5M financing round led by Karma Ventures and their new product Point 2 had over 2000 backers on Kickstarter with over $300K in pre-sales.
• Tech Will Save Us — closed a major partnership with Disney, will open up thousands of new retail locations and raised another $4.2M.
• Scrimba — launched their first course where you can now (for free) learn CSS Grid along the 10 000 others that enrolled in the course.

Except several other updates from the portfolio companies in soon as a lot is cooking behind the scenes.

Given what we learned in 2017 we know that this year we will focus on:

• Continue to develop our Service Level Agreement on how we service the companies that we invest on strategic and tactic levels
• Engage with more pre-scale companies (i.e before companies start to execute plan for marketing, selling and servicing customers in a repeatable way) and aim to invest around €1M in slightly larger rounds
• Influence the community around us to raise the bar for making early stage investments on founder-friendly terms and option programs for employees to create the next-generation of angel investors.
• Build out our network of founders etc

Upwards and onwards,

Nordic Makers