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.
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
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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
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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)
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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
Graph explanation: On the left is the name of the firm in question, in brackets the number of transactions that they have been involved with from 2020 to mid-2021. To their right, you see the range of investment round sizes that the firms have participated in, in grey, see horizontal axis, from €0.0 to €20.0m. The red lines mark the minimum and maximum size of the transactions participated in, respectively. The black marks the median. The dark gray part is intended for visual help and marks the area halfway between the median and the min- and max mark respectively.
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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.
