OpenOcean

“Venture capital is about backing the bold ideas that shape the future.” In a recent feature by StartupReporter, OpenOcean’s General Partner, Tom Henriksson, shared reflections on his career and approach to venture capital. Revisiting a conversation from a year ago, Tom discussed scaling startups in turbulent markets, the evolving role of negotiation in leadership and how his predictions for 2024 played out. Key takeaways: 🔹 Lessons from MySQL’s success: Drawing on the OpenOcean team’s experience scaling one of the most impactful open-source projects, Tom highlighted the importance of understanding your users and turning that knowledge into actionable insights to drive meaningful results. 🔹 The art of negotiation: Leaders, he noted, must treat negotiation as a chance to learn about the other party and create true win-win outcomes, particularly in today’s fast-changing startup environment. 🔹 The next frontier: quantum and AI: Tom explored how quantum computing and AI are set to not only drive innovation but also redefine how startups approach product development and market fit. Read the full article to learn more about Tom’s journey and OpenOcean’s mission. Link in the comments.

Join OpenOcean as a Finance Intern in Helsinki! We’re looking for a Finance Intern to join our Finance and Fund Management team for a 6-month fixed-term position at our office in Mikonkatu, Helsinki. This is your chance to gain hands-on experience with a leading venture capital firm and explore the VC ecosystem up close. Your main responsibilities: 🔹 Take gradual responsibility in managing day-to-day finance operations (e.g. expense management). 🔹 Support quarterly investor reporting, compliance and ad-hoc reporting. 🔹 Keep portfolio company records up to date, including financial performance, transaction documentation and cap tables. 🔹 Handle KYC procedures and investor documentation. We’d expect you to have an academic background in finance and/or accounting, with a strong foundation to support your work in this role. Ideally, you bring some experience in preparing financial statements and exposure to VC fund management. Fluency in both Finnish and English, written and spoken, is essential, and proficiency in Swedish would be an advantage. You are proactive, detail-oriented and a self-starter with a quick learning ability, ready to take initiative and handle tasks independently. Application deadline: January 26, 2025 About us: OpenOcean is a pan-European early-stage venture capital investor. Our investment focuses on leading or co-leading Series A investments and our initial investment is up to €6m in European companies driving the data economy, including B2B platforms and enterprise software technology. Our team has deep technical roots, including key figures behind MySQL and MariaDB. Ready to launch your career in venture capital? Apply now via the link in the comments.

OpenOcean is proud to sponsor the Berlin AI Hackathon this January organised by {Tech: Berlin}! 🚀 Taking place on January 18-19, this hackathon brings together some of the brightest minds to tackle exciting challenges in AI. We’re excited to join forces with other sponsors, including Balderton, Lakestar, Atlantic Labs, Mistral, Deepset, Weaviate and LMNT. If you’re an AI enthusiast, developer, or creative thinker eager to collaborate and create, don’t miss your chance to participate! Link to the registration platform in the comments.

Our General Partner, Ekaterina Almasque, shared OpenOcean’s insights on deeptech's outlook for 2025 in Sifted's article. Last year marked a turning point for deeptech in Europe, with both challenges and opportunities shaping the sector. While some high-profile players faced setbacks, investor interest remained strong. According to Atomico's 2024 State of European Tech report, deeptech investments reached $14 billion—an 85% increase since 2020. Here’s what we predict for 2025: 🔹 A significant shift among enterprises from experimental AI initiatives toward scalable, business-critical systems that deliver lasting value. 🔹 Rapid growth for European deeptech companies, especially in DevOps, healthcare and manufacturing sectors, with many poised to reach multibillion valuations and prepare for IPOs. 🔹 A rising momentum in quantum technologies, as startups developing practical, enterprise-ready solutions attract growing investor interest. For more, see the links in the comments.

2024 has been the year of AI. Every boardroom, roadmap and conference has been buzzing with it. But with so much hype, how do we separate signal from noise? In the first part of our Scaling AI series, OpenOcean's General Partner Ekaterina Almasque reflects on the past 12 months and shares her outlook for the year ahead. She explores where the investment is flowing, why most AI models aren’t making it to production and the risks enterprises face in this AI arms race. AI is set to disrupt industries faster and more deeply than the Cloud did, but are we missing the bigger picture? This is just the beginning of our four-part series on the opportunities and challenges of AI in 2025 and beyond. Link to the blog in the comments.

Developers need analytics tools that work for them, not against them. We’re excited to share a new “Why we invested” blog post by our Partner Sam H. on OpenOcean’s latest investment in Embeddable, who just announced their €6 million seed round. We led the round, alongside Four Rivers and TechStars. Embeddable fits seamlessly with our mission to back data tools that empower developers and software engineers to transform enterprises into software-first businesses. Their headless analytics platform addresses a critical need, making them an ideal partner for shaping the future of software development. Developers deserve smarter, more efficient tools, and we’re excited to support Embeddable as they push the industry forward. Read more about Embeddable and our investment in the blog—link in comments.

Exciting news 🚀 We are proud to announce our new investment in Embeddable, leading their €6 million oversubscribed seed round alongside Four Rivers and TechStars! London-based Embeddable is transforming embedded analytics for developers and product teams. Existing tools are often clunky, slow and resource-intensive, but Embeddable’s headless architecture offers a fresh alternative. It enables developers to create bespoke, fast and scalable analytics dashboards that integrate seamlessly into any application. The platform also empowers non-technical users with no-code features, allowing them to customise analytics without constantly relying on engineering teams. This combination of flexibility and efficiency is clearly resonating with the market. In a short time, Embeddable has signed contracts with 36 companies, drawn over 800 beta applicants and is adding $100,000 in new monthly contracts. Their rapid progress highlights the growing demand for tools that meet developers’ needs while offering powerful, user-friendly solutions for end-users. Founders Tom Gardiner and Harry Marshall bring years of expertise in business intelligence and a bold vision for the future of embedded analytics. Their approach aligns perfectly with OpenOcean’s focus on investing in data tools that empower developers and enable innovation. We are excited to support Embeddable as they continue to reshape how analytics are built and delivered. This is just the start of an exciting journey.

Exciting news from the OpenOcean portfolio: Strong Network has been acquired by Citrix! Strong Network is an award-winning Swiss cybersecurity startup that leverages software containers to solve the IT efficiency and security problems of running a distributed code development team. Founded in 2020, their hybrid cloud platform helps global organisations manage external developers, prevent source code and data leaks, automate DevOps, as well as provide real-time monitoring metrics. OpenOcean, alongside Wingman Ventures, led the €5.1M seed round, supporting the team in scaling their solutions for the modern, hybrid workforce. Congratulations to the Strong Network team on this significant milestone!

VC events don’t always have to stay in the conference room. A big thank you to Aalto Private Equity Club for hosting the Discovering Venture Capital event! It was a pleasure to participate alongside Wave Ventures, Lifeline Ventures and Inven. Tony Nysten did an excellent job representing OpenOcean on stage, while Mirva Laatunen connected with participants on the padel court.

Exciting to see OpenOcean’s portfolio company Authologic featured in Forbes! The e-ID market is gaining momentum, and we’re proud to see how Authologic is taking the lead in redefining identity verification with their unified platform. Authologic is tackling a critical challenge: simplifying online identity verification by unifying multiple e-ID systems into one easy-to-use platform for businesses. OpenOcean led Authologic’s $8.2 million Series A funding round in October 2024. As Tony Nysten, Partner at OpenOcean, said, digital interactions are becoming even more central to commerce, governance, and everyday life, and thus the need for secure identity verification will only grow, particularly against the backdrop of AI-driven frauds. We've always believed that Authologic's approach paves the way for safer, more seamless online interaction and we're proud to continue supporting them in setting new standards and taking over the e-ID market industry. Link to the full Forbes article in the comments.