Scale Capital

Hello, Bay Area 🇺🇸 From March 3–7, Lars and Judith will be in San Francisco to catch up with partners and meet with different ecosystem innovators. We’d love to connect – whether it's to explore investment opportunities, collaborative projects, or simply exchange insights 🤝 During next week, we’re also looking forward to attending the #BifrostSummit. On March 4th, Lars will join the panel “Evolving the Nordic & US Quantum Ecosystems” alongside leading quantum stakeholders from business, research, and venture capital, hosted by Innovation Centre Denmark. The discussion will focus on how Nordics and the US can collaborate on this agenda across industry, academia and venture. If you’re in the Bay Area and would like to meet, reach out to Lars or Judith to set up a meeting.

Off to Stockholm for TECHARENA! 🇸🇪 We’re more than ready for another great opportunity to connect with ambitious founders, fellow investors, and industry leaders shaping the future of the Nordic startup scene. If you’re in Stockholm this week and want to connect, reach out to Joachim, Judith, or Frederik to arrange a meeting! Last but certainly not least, if you’re joining the Investor Day and are curious about our perspective on ClimateTech, join Joachim at the Roundtable (hosted by Oslo Business Region) on Wednesday at 16:00. #Techarena

The news is finally out! 🌍💧 Firemark Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of Australia and New Zealand’s largest general insurer IAG, has joined us as a co-investor in 7Analytics! This marks IAG’s first-ever European investment, a strong signal that climate resilience is becoming a key focus for insurers. Floods and landslides are becoming more extreme and costly, making it harder for insurers to assess risk and manage claims, forcing them to withdraw coverage on critical infrastructure. 7Analytics addresses this gap by leveraging advanced geoscience and machine learning to provide real-time predictive models, helping insurers better anticipate climate-related risks and improve risk assessment, mitigation, and claims management. “Teaming up with IAG is a huge win. Their deep expertise in insurance and risk management, combined with a strong commitment to climate resilience, makes them the perfect partner for 7Analytics. I’m confident that together, we can support the company’s growth and help insurers and critical infrastructure owners stay ahead of climate risks and build a more resilient future” says Judith Schrader, Investor at Scale. Find the link in the comments below to the announcement 🔗

What does it take for impact-driven solutions to scale and become truly meaningful in the business landscape? 🌱 Last week at GoWest - Nordic Venture Capital Forum, Joachim Schelde took the stage to join the Impact Innovators panel, alongside Linn-Cecilie Linnemann (LUMO Labs), Jonas Bergqvist (Almi Invest GreenTech), and Rita Anson (Nordic Ignite), moderated by Nicholas Hawtin. Together, they explored the question above and analyzed four impact startups, their business models, go-to-market strategies, and scalability. The four selected companies – Embedl, Melker of Sweden, NeoCare Nordic, and Untap! (former AirWater2All) – showcased innovative solutions tackling some of today’s most pressing challenges. At Scale Capital, we believe that for most impact solutions to scale and become meaningful in the business landscape, they need to clearly affect the bottom line. In our Fund III, we invest in impact-driven ventures that fuse impact with scalable, high-potential business models. If you’re a founder building the next breakthrough in ClimateTech or another impact-driven solution, don’t hesitate to reach out to Joachim or any other member of our team! Photos by Fabulous Friday

DeepSeek has arrived and so has a new era of opportunities for European startups 🐳🤖 Okay, maybe not necessarily breaking news, but we believe it’s something that’s important to continue talking about and exploring. Therefore, we’re pleased that Joachim Schelde got to speak to Supantha Mukherjee from Reuters about how open source AI, lower costs and increased accessibility could be paving the way for startups in Europe. Even though it’s coming from China. "AI prices are going down, so future usage is probably going where there is transparency, which is usually open source, even though it's in China," said Joachim in the article. We’re very happy to see Joachim be in great company in this piece (link is in the comments), with some brilliant perspectives from Sanjot Malhi, Hemanth Mandapati, Ulrik R-T, Alexandru Voica, Fabrizio Del Maffeo, and Seena Rejal. Open source AI is not a solution in itself. It requires great minds and ideas to apply it, so the big question now is: will European startups be able to leverage this shift and build the next wave of global AI companies? 🌍 #DeepSeek #AI #EuropeanStartups

We’re getting the mic drops ready as we square off against our good VC friends during this year’s GoWest - Nordic Venture Capital Forum week in Gothenburg 🎤 As much as we’re looking forward to the GoWest main event, a ton of high-quality networking, and everything else that comes with it, what we’re really excited about this year is the exclusive side event we’re co-hosting this week with Ampli Ventures, byFounders, Maki.vc, node.vc and of course Adway. One big highlight of the evening is going to be the VC Battle where our own Joachim will take the stage to let the whole room know why Scale is the go-to investor if you’re a Nordic or German startup that has ambition and potential to scale in the US 🇺🇸 In addition to this fierce and friendly battle, BRG (Business Region Göteborg AB) will host a session celebrating successful 2024 exit stories in Gothenburg, featuring Pagero, Benify, Atomize, and more ✨ The event is fully booked, but feel free to reach out to Joachim to join the waitlist. Or, if you’d like to connect during the main event, drop him or Lars a message. And lastly, make sure not to miss the Impact Innovators pitch track on 30 January, where Joachim will be part of the jury. See you in Gothenburg!

Exciting news: Judith Schrader is promoted to Investment Associate! 🎉 Judith’s journey with us started in 2022, when she joined the investment team as an intern, and has been nothing short of exceptional ever since. From analyzing hundreds of tech companies to driving investments, she's become an integral part of the Scale team and the fund’s growth. “Since joining Scale Capital nearly 3 years ago, Judith has shown sky-high ambition and an unwavering drive. She understands the perspective of founders and continues to dedicate herself to helping portfolio companies every day. And above everything else, Judith is an exceptional colleague,” says Scale's Founding Partner, Lars Jensen. As Judith steps into this new role, she shares her thoughts on what drives her work, her investment philosophy, and key learnings from her journey so far. Flick through below if you want to get to know Judith a bit better! 👇

It's finally a new year (let's be honest, the LinkedIn 2025 didn't reeaallly start until the first Monday), and we're super excited to kick it off by sharing some thoughts on our ambition to partner with more Norwegian startups! 🇳🇴 Recently, our very own Judith Schrader and Terkel Douglas met with Per-Ivar Nikolaisen from Shifter.no to discuss Norwegian startups, our investment philosophy, and the immense potential of the US market. "Many founders are very afraid to enter new markets without having €10 million, maybe even €20 million, in the bank. I honestly think that’s the wrong approach. You can burn through this very quickly if you make mistakes," said Terkel in the interview. "It’s much better to raise the first seed round and then see how it’s possible to acquire the first American customer with that money. Once a couple of salespeople start paying off there, you can raise larger rounds to scale further." With two incredible Norwegian companies (7Analytics and Globus.ai) in our Fund III portfolio, we’re now on the lookout for more Norwegian B2B tech founders who are globally ambitious and dedicated to tackling significant challenges. If this sounds like you, feel free to reach out to Judith, Terkel, or anyone else from our team – we’d love to connect! For Shifter subscribers, the full article in Norwegian is linked in the comments 👇 #NorwayStartups #TechInvesting #VentureCapital

2024 at Scale Capital has been a year of growth and reaching new milestones! 💫 ↗ Our team expanded, welcoming two brilliant new colleagues Boje Thosti, and Frederik Barsøe ↗ In Fund III, we made investments in new, exceptional companies 7Analytics, CI HUB Connector and Denominator ↗ Our portfolio companies made significant progress and secured follow-on investments to drive their growth (not least in the US market 🇺🇸) If you want to dive deeper into these milestones and more, head to our “2024 in Review” below. As we gear up for an exciting 2025, we want to take a moment to thank our partners, founders, and friends for an amazing year. We wish you all a restful holiday season and an incredible start of 2025! 🎄 #Newsletter #2024 #VentureCapital

Welcome, Frederik! 🥳🤝  As our team grows, we’re super excited to share that Frederik Barsøe is joining Scale as our new PR & Communications Lead. Apart from a background in journalism, Frederik has extensive experience as a PR & Communications Consultant, having worked with more than 50 different startups from the Nordic ecosystem since 2018. We can’t wait for Frederik to help enhance our ethos and strengthen the storytelling around our fund and portfolio companies – to ultimately foster even deeper connections with our audience and the ecosystem. We asked our new teammate a few questions (you can find the rest of them via the link in the comments) 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘫𝘰𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘮, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘚𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘦’𝘴 𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘯𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘨𝘰𝘢𝘭𝘴? “It’s such a great way for me to reconnect with the ecosystem and be part of something bigger. VC isn’t just about funding – it’s about nurturing ideas and stories, helping them take shape even when there isn’t a clear path. One of the things that particularly drew me to Scale is the focus on building long-term relationships and truly understanding what the portfolio companies need.” Want to learn more about Frederik? Find the link in the comment to read the full interview.👇 #TeamGrowth #VentureCapital