INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The Nordic Web Ventures, the ‘pre-seed’ investment firm founded by Neil Murray in late 2017, has raised a second fund to continue
backing very early-stage startups within the Nordic ecosystem.The remit of the new “Fund II” is largely unchanged from the first fund,
promising to write the first cheque of between $50,000 and $75,000 for the most promising founders in the region.In total, the size of The
Nordic Web Ventures’ second fund is $1.5 million, which should see it have enough capital to make another 20 or more investments across
the next 18-24 months, making the firm one of the most active investors in the region
Existing portfolio startups from Fund I include Engaging Care, TPH, Uizard, Meeshkan, SafetyWing, Confrere.In addition to an all-star
investor line up of Fund I LPs who are returning for a second bite — such as Index’s Martin Mignot, Point Nine’s Christoph Janz, and
Philipp Moehring and Andy Chung of AngelList — Fund II sees a number of new LPs join
Most notably, perhaps, Skype and Atomico founder Niklas Zennström has invested, in addition to Atomico partner Sophia Bendz, who was
previously an exec at Spotify and is already a very active angel investor in the Nordics and beyond.Revealing that The Nordic Web Ventures
plans to raise a much larger fund in the future, Murray tells me the plan for Fund II is to “fundamentally change” the early-stage
landscape in one of Europe’s most interesting regions
He says the fund is also a great example of how Europe’s investment landscape is changing, with individuals from major European venture
capital firms invested, as well as receiving backing “from some of the Nordic’s most successful entrepreneurs”.Cue a statement from
Atomico’s Sophia Bendz: “Neil and I share the same passion for entrepreneurship and both care a lot about the early stage ecosystem…
The Nordic Web Ventures can, through their LP networks and expertise, provide dealflow, hands-on support and advice for Nordic pre-seed and
seed companies, something that is super helpful for the founders and that’s what it’s all about in the end, being valuable to the
entrepreneurs in a meaningful and relevant way”.To that end, I’m also told that having raised Fund II, The Nordic Web publication and
The Nordic Web Ventures will merge into a single entity, with TheNordic Web’s core focus moving forward “to support and strengthen the
Nordic ecosystem through investment, analysis and community”.
