Venture Capital (VC) firms provide capital to startups with long-term growth potential. Estonia's vibrant startup community and history of building world-class tech companies like Skype, Wise, Bolt, and Pipedrive make it one of the most enticing locations for venture investors, private equity, and angels.
This article was last updated on 17 October 2022. If I'm missing a venture capital fund, please let me know and I'll add it.
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Alesco Ventures
Alesco Ventures is a Tallinn-based Japanese founded venture capital firm managed by a team of accomplished Japanese entrepreneurs and business leaders. They invest predominantly in seed and early stage startups in the finance and construction industry.
For their seed investments they primarily look to partner with successful, serial entrepreneurs who are working on their next big ideas in their key focus areas and geographies. Their seed stage check size ranges from $50k to $1m.
BaltCap
BaltCap focuses on building businesses that increases the quality of life in our societies, and are the largest private equity fund manager in the Baltic states. They are the only multi-strategy fund manager in the Baltics covering buyout, growth, venture, and infrastructure investments.
To date, they've invested in over 100 companies across a wide range of industry sectors and raised aggregate capital of over €650 million.
However, as long as the technology is innovative or deemed of high value to society. we do not limit ourselves to these segments.
Change Ventures
Change Ventures is the first pan-Baltic seed fund. They invest €400k-2M in teams building global scale businesses at the pre-seed and seed stages, along with follow-on capital in later rounds.
EstBAN
EstBAN (Estonian Business Angels Network) is one of the most active business angel networks in the Baltics, seeking investment opportunities in Estonia and its neighbouring countries with an aim to grow the quantity and quality of local seed-stage investments.
EstBAN syndicated investment rounds allow investors to shadow invest along with some of the most experienced business angels in the region.
Karma Ventures
Karma Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm that specialises in late seed and A round investments in Europe's most promising deep-tech software startups. They back companies with strong ideas, unique technology, customer traction, and global ambition with up to €5m per round along with follow-on investments in later rounds.
Lemonade Stand
Lemonade Stand makes early stage tech investments in Baltic and East European founders, investing €25-300K into strong teams, technology or traction.
Their focus is on B2B, and they're happy to invest in the pre-revenue, pre-product phase or join a larger round at the seed stage.
Siena Secondary Fund
Siena Secondary Fund provides liquidity to early investors, founders, and employees of high-growth startups in the "New Nordic" (Baltics & Scandinavia) region. They target companies which are usually post series A with a solid business model still in the high growth phase.
Their investment criteria is:
- 100% secondary deals, no primary investment to the company;
- focusing primarly on the Baltics and Finland, but are open to deals from the rest of CEE and Scandinavia;
- preferably post series A, but not a must if company is already in scale up phase;
- proven business model;
- scaling phase;
- exit potential in 3-5 years timeframe;
- always aiming for a discount from the fair market value.
Specialist VC
Specialist VC is a venture capital fund supporting forward-thinking founders from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, and Ukraine. They focus on pre-seed to Series A but also invest in secondaries in A+ rounds. Their typical ticket size ranges from €0 to 3m.
Their primary focus is in B2B, SaaS, fintech, platforms, software-enabled hardware, and deep tech, but they don't limit themselves to those areas.
Spring Capital
Spring Capital invests in exceptional teams in the Baltics and Nordics. They invest in seed stage startups and high-growth SMEs. With their seed fund, they invest €75-200K, typically as part of a larger round that gives at least 18 months of runway.
Their growth fund invests €300-700K in exchange for minority shareholdings in high-growth SMEs in Estonia. The investment allows companies to realise a market, an M&A opportunity, or provide a partial exit possibility to the shareholders.
Startup Wise Guys
Startup Wise Guys was started in 2012 and has invested in more than 300 early-stage startups in more than 40 countries. They are the most experienced accelerator in the region with 35+ programs to date and the strongest footprint in CEE and CIS countries.
They're a passionate team that wants to see Baltics and wider CEE region boom with local startups going globally, while keeping the talent and operations at home.
Superangel
Superangel provides early stage funding for industry changers in AI, robotics, mobility, logistics, fintech, and SaaS. Their typical ticket size is between €100k and €500k.
The fund is founded, run, and backed by tech entrepreneurs. They've seen the good, bad, and ugly, and know how to help.
Tera Ventures
Tera Ventures is an Estonian venture capital firm backing ambitious founders and their compelling visions at their seed stage. Estonia is their home market, but they also invest in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Czech Republic.
They're industry agnostic, but have preferences based on what they've learned from portfolio companies. They like fintech and automation, and have invested in AI/ML for more than ten years.
Trind Ventures
Trind Ventures is a seed-stage venture fund focusing on startups with a consumer or community component. They initially invest €0.1-1.0 million and have a follow-on capacity of up to €5M per company, and are happy to lead a seed round or be a syndicate member with both angel syndicates and VCs.
Yolo Investments
Yolo Investments is a venture capital fund that focuses on seed- and A-stage investment opportunities across gaming and fintech. Based in Estonia, Yolo's mission is to partner with unique individuals building great companies.