NordicNinja VC

Heading to Gothenburg next week and glad to join GoWest - Nordic Venture Capital Forum hosted by wonderful Sofia Hjelmberg and her team. If you are around, we will be co-hosting with NordicNinja VC a mingle Wed. 29th at the newly opened Karlatornet (Nordic's highest skyscraper), so we should have a good view over the deeptech landscape together with:   > Intel Capital & Pippa Chick > Kvanted & Maria Wasastjerna > Navigare Ventures & Salla Franzén > Norrsken Launcher & Anna Fredrixon > Nordic Science Investments & Alexandra Gylfe PhD If you are around, please give me a ping! The registration link in the comments. #startups #Gothenburg #Nordics

We are excited to announce our investment into SEEQC - the first company to create digital chips to power full-stack quantum computing systems. We’ve led the $30 million round together with Booz Allen Ventures with participation from SIP Captital, alongside existing investors EQT Ventures, M-Ventures (Merck), BlueYard Capital, FAM and Asset Management. Current quantum computers are limited by physical hardware challenges and cryogenic requirements. Existing architecture requires complex, expensive and power-hungry mixed analogue and digital hardware and wiring, to manage control, readout, data processing, and error correction. SEEQC’s solution replaces today’s bulky, mixed analogue/digital room temperature quantum hardware with a single digital chip that, together with qubits, forms a full-stack quantum/classical processor.  SEEQC has become a go-to digital infrastructure partner for some of the industry's biggest players, including NVIDIA and BASF as well as NASA, the US Department of Energy, and leading academic institutions. As our Managing Partner Marek Kiisa says, “SEEQC’s digital architecture is the missing link for scalable quantum computing. This capability will unlock quantum’s full potential for quantum AI, enterprise applications, and beyond. We’re delighted to be supporting John Levy, Oleg Mukhanov, Shu-Jen Han, Matthew Hutchings, and the whole team and we look forward to working closely with them as they scale up their impact and help expand their partnerships and customer relationships with Japan and other Asian locations”. You can read more from the TechCrunch article; link in the comments! #QuantumComputing #Investment #SEEQC

For Nordic and Baltic startups interested in entering the Japanese market, our good friends from Kiraboshi Bank Co., Ltd. are hosting a new accelerator program! 🗼🚀 Find closer details below, and please indicate your interest in joining by this Wednesday, the 15th! #startup #Japan #expansion #accelerator

Sometimes you know this moment will shape the future: Meta's AI Lab + VSPARTICLE join forces to launch world’s first and largest catalyst database. What an amazing feat: as a result of 20+ million simulations, Meta’s AI Lab, VSParticle, and the University of Toronto have synthesized 525 unique materials in months — a feat that normally takes decades. This long-anticipated announcement, following NordicNinja VC and Plural investment in VSParticle earlier this year, is breaking barriers in AI-driven material discovery and helps to accelerate the clean energy transition. Proud to support Aaike van Vugt, Tobias Pfeiffer, Tobias Coppejans and the whole VSP team in their pursuit for a sustainable future! 🌍✨ Also big thanks to Larry Zitnick from Meta Fundamental AI Research! #Deeptech #Climatetech #AdvancedMaterials #AI

We are supercharged to announce our latest investment: @tozero - battery recycling technology. 🔋 The company was founded by Sarah Fleischer and Dr. Ksenija Milicevic Neumann in 2022 and has since then made rapid progress in developing a sustainable way to recover critical raw materials from lithium-ion battery waste for reintegrated use. The global demand for lithium is expected to quadruple to 3.1 million metric tons by 2030, when the lithium mining production yielded only 180,000 metric tons in 2023. This means that recycling will have a critical role to play in servicing the increasing demand. With tozero poised to industrialise its technology following the new funding, the company is on track to process 30,000 tonnes of battery waste annually by 2026 onwards, setting a new standard for sustainable battery recycling. “tozero's innovative approach to battery recycling is exactly what Europe needs to secure key supplies in the global electrification race and Japan would love to collaborate. Sarah and Ksenija, two exceptional founders, have the expertise and drive to transform the landscape for sustainable battery solutions. We're excited to support the tozero team in scaling its technology and commercial operation and contributing to a more sustainable and independent energy future for all.” Shinichi Nikkuni, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at NordicNinja. We are especially happy to lead the round with participation from Honda, JGC, and IQT (In-Q-Tel), and joined by previous investors Atlantic Labs, Verve Ventures, and Possible Ventures, bringing the total funding raised to €17M, including a €2.5M EIC grant. Find TechCrunch article in the comments, and more news coming soon! #Battery #Recycling #Renewable #Energy #Startup #Investing

We are supercharged to announce our latest investment: @tozero - battery recycling technology. 🔋 The company was founded by Sarah Fleischer and Dr. Ksenija Milicevic Neumann in 2022 and has since then made rapid progress in developing a sustainable way to recover critical raw materials from lithium-ion battery waste for reintegrated use. The global demand for lithium is expected to quadruple to 3.1 million metric tons by 2030, when the lithium mining production yielded only 180,000 metric tons in 2023. This means that recycling will have a critical role to play in servicing the increasing demand. With tozero poised to industrialise its technology following the new funding, the company is on track to process 30,000 tonnes of battery waste annually by 2026 onwards, setting a new standard for sustainable battery recycling. “tozero's innovative approach to battery recycling is exactly what Europe needs to secure key supplies in the global electrification race and Japan would love to collaborate. Sarah and Ksenija, two exceptional founders, have the expertise and drive to transform the landscape for sustainable battery solutions. We're excited to support the tozero team in scaling its technology and commercial operation and contributing to a more sustainable and independent energy future for all.” Shinichi Nikkuni, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at NordicNinja. We are especially happy to lead the round with participation from Honda, JGC, and IQT (In-Q-Tel), and joined by previous investors Atlantic Labs, Verve Ventures, and Possible Ventures, bringing the total funding raised to €17M, including a €2.5M EIC grant. Find TechCrunch article in the comments, and more news coming soon! #Battery #Recycling #Renewable #Energy #Startup #Investing

It's finally time for wave energy, and we are therefore thrilled to announce our latest investment into CorPower Ocean! 🌊🔋 Corpower is the leading technology company in its field and our investment follows the breakthrough results from CorPower Ocean’s commercial scale device surviving the biggest Atlantic storms while efficiently generating power in regular ocean conditions. We had the pleasure to lead the EUR 32 million round (kudos Marek, Tomosaku, Taiga & the whole team) and co-invest together with SEB Greentech - the cleantech investment arm of the SEB bank, and EIT InnoEnergy – one of the most active cleantech investors in Europe. The investor consortium also includes Santander Asset Management, a major financier of renewable energy assets, Iberis Capital, a leading Portuguese Venture Capital and Private Equity investor, and Cisco Investments. We are very excited and look forward to being even more energised! ⚡️🌊 More highlights in the comments. #investment #energy #startup #sweden #CorPower

The new report "JAPANESE VC IN THE NEW NORDICS" has just been published! 🇯🇵 We're glad to have supported the inspiring work by Nordic Asian Venture Alliance, which has collected investment data covering all the investment activity of Japanese VCs in the New Nordics between 2013-2023. The report provides a detailed analysis of the most prolific Japanese investors in Europe and the 12 funds that have executed most of the 163 investments into the New Nordics. Some highlights: ✅ Japanese VC investments have consistently grown, with a notable increase in both frequency and scale since 2017. Finland, Sweden, and Estonia have emerged as the leading recipients, securing over two-thirds of all Japanese investments since 2013. ✅ The report identifies a preference for Seed and Series A investments among Japanese VCs, with a strong focus on sectors such as Energy & Climatetech, Deeptech, AI, Fintech, and Life Sciences, aligning with the Nordic region’s strengths in innovation and sustainability. ✅ The analysis also highlights the strategic motivations of Japanese investors, who are increasingly seeking to tap into the New Nordic region’s entrepreneurial spirit and technological expertise to support global expansion efforts. Check out the full report, and all the other interesting highlights, gathered by NAVA on their website – direct link in the comments. Great job Oliver Hall, Peter Johansen and the whole team! 👏

We’re glad to announce our latest investment - and our first one in the Netherlands🇳🇱 - we led a new €6.5 million funding round into VSPARTICLE! 🎉 VSParticle is accelerating the development of advanced materials from years to weeks. VSP’s revolutionary technology enables materials to be broken down to the size of nanoparticles and produced at the push of a button, allowing university researchers and commercial R&D teams to experiment to create new materials that will power next-generation products. There is no greater impact that the discovery of new materials will have than in the race to net zero. 🌎🌱 The new funding round is joined by the existing investor Plural Platform and brings the total raised capital to $23.5 million. The investment will be used to scale up production and reach new markets, including Japan and industrial customers. Rainer Sternfeld, Partner at NordicNinja: “VSParticle’s technology is transforming material innovation and, combined with AI, this will be the basis of world-changing discovery and synthesis over the next few years and decades. We’re delighted to be supporting the impressive VSParticle's team to capitalise on the drive to scale the development of green hydrogen. We can’t wait to see what they achieve next.”    Taiga Ueta, Senior Associate at NordicNinja: ‘VSParticle has tremendous potential to revolutionise the discovery and production of new high-performing materials. These new materials will help in solving the many challenges that people are facing across de-carbonization and the use of precious metals. NordicNinja, as the largest Japanese fund in Europe, believes that given Japan’s history in manufacturing, Japan represents a huge potential market for VSParticle.’ If you’re interested in learning our technology to supercharge material discovery or want to learn more, please get in touch.

Great news from Griffin!! 👏 Announcement here: https://lnkd.in/dMRi6PDc w/ comments from our Jesse Saarela and Marek Kiisa.