Trind VC raises new €55M fund to invest in startups with a consumer or community component in Europe
Photo: Team Trind
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Photo credit: Reuben Teo/ Unsplash; Trind
Trind VC is proud to announce the closing of their €55M second fund. They aim to invest in 30–40 startups with proven traction in four years. The fund is backed by institutional investors such as European Investment Fund, Tesi (Finnish Industry Investment), LHV Pension Funds, and Swedbank Investment Funds.
“We were targeting to raise €50 million, but as we already have more commitments, we will go slightly above that in the second closing. Most of our LPs from Fund I joined Fund II, a sign of trust we truly appreciate. We are honored to have top-tier institutions from the region investing in the fund, alongside our expanding angel investor community,” says Reima Linnanvirta, Partner at Trind VC.
“Estonia and Finland form one of the strongest startup ecosystems in Europe, and the region has produced excellent startups. While the funding environment has been getting tougher, we want to offer continuity in the availability of funding by investing through the cycle as we believe that great founders should get funded in all market conditions.”
Their strategy is to invest in companies with B2C and C2C business models, alongside consumerized B2B software. The CCC strategy, meaning startups with consumer or community components, have a lot of small transactions, enabling them to gather much more data than many B2B companies with only a few bigger clients. This gives an advantage in truly being data-driven and gives much more accurate insights into customer behavior.
“Our investment thesis is actually quite simple. We are looking for startups with clear traction from a big enough market – general hype or buzzwords won’t get us excited. We are using the data for both when making our investment decisions, but more importantly in developing the companies. There’s a clear bottleneck for funding for consumer startups in the area compared to B2B equivalents,” says Joel Aasmäe, Managing Partner at Trind VC.
Trind can act as a lead investor, but especially with European cross-border investments, Trind is happy to co-invest, with a local VC leading the round. They will also continue their strategy of co-investing with prominent angel syndicates in order to bring more expertise to the startup via board positions and advisory work, compared to just its own resources.
The new fund will make initial investments sized up to €1M, with a minimum ticket size of €100,000. Follow-up rounds will be joined with tickets up to €5M. For the potential portfolio companies, Trind will conduct ESG due diligence before investing and continue to monitor and require periodic reporting to make sure that they are ESG compliant. They are also aiming to invest part of their newest fund into startups that have a positive impact on the environment.
“The selection of funds offered by Swedbank is one of the widest in the market in terms of both II and III pillar pension funds. Cooperation with the Trind Ventures Fund II means that our clients will take part in the growth of rapidly developing economic sectors, investments in local companies will increase, and at the same time the client can be sure that their money has been invested sustainably,” commented Ene Õunmaa, portfolio manager of Swedbank Investment Funds.
“We have been investing with Trind VC for 4 years and are very pleased to continue our journey with them. Nordic startup community has produced a considerable amount of successful companies and exposure to Trind funds gives our pension clients unique access to exciting growth stories in tech,” commented Kristo Oidermaa from LHV Pension Funds.
“We were targeting to raise €50 million, but as we already have more commitments, we will go slightly above that in the second closing. Most of our LPs from Fund I joined Fund II, a sign of trust we truly appreciate. We are honored to have top-tier institutions from the region investing in the fund, alongside our expanding angel investor community,” says Reima Linnanvirta, Partner at Trind VC.
“Estonia and Finland form one of the strongest startup ecosystems in Europe, and the region has produced excellent startups. While the funding environment has been getting tougher, we want to offer continuity in the availability of funding by investing through the cycle as we believe that great founders should get funded in all market conditions.”
Their strategy is to invest in companies with B2C and C2C business models, alongside consumerized B2B software. The CCC strategy, meaning startups with consumer or community components, have a lot of small transactions, enabling them to gather much more data than many B2B companies with only a few bigger clients. This gives an advantage in truly being data-driven and gives much more accurate insights into customer behavior.
“Our investment thesis is actually quite simple. We are looking for startups with clear traction from a big enough market – general hype or buzzwords won’t get us excited. We are using the data for both when making our investment decisions, but more importantly in developing the companies. There’s a clear bottleneck for funding for consumer startups in the area compared to B2B equivalents,” says Joel Aasmäe, Managing Partner at Trind VC.
Trind can act as a lead investor, but especially with European cross-border investments, Trind is happy to co-invest, with a local VC leading the round. They will also continue their strategy of co-investing with prominent angel syndicates in order to bring more expertise to the startup via board positions and advisory work, compared to just its own resources.
The new fund will make initial investments sized up to €1M, with a minimum ticket size of €100,000. Follow-up rounds will be joined with tickets up to €5M. For the potential portfolio companies, Trind will conduct ESG due diligence before investing and continue to monitor and require periodic reporting to make sure that they are ESG compliant. They are also aiming to invest part of their newest fund into startups that have a positive impact on the environment.
“The selection of funds offered by Swedbank is one of the widest in the market in terms of both II and III pillar pension funds. Cooperation with the Trind Ventures Fund II means that our clients will take part in the growth of rapidly developing economic sectors, investments in local companies will increase, and at the same time the client can be sure that their money has been invested sustainably,” commented Ene Õunmaa, portfolio manager of Swedbank Investment Funds.
“We have been investing with Trind VC for 4 years and are very pleased to continue our journey with them. Nordic startup community has produced a considerable amount of successful companies and exposure to Trind funds gives our pension clients unique access to exciting growth stories in tech,” commented Kristo Oidermaa from LHV Pension Funds.
More information:
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Photo credit: Reuben Teo/ Unsplash; Trind