EQT holds €566m final close on first venture fund

The fund will be managed by EQT Ventures and headed by entrepreneurs Lars Jörnow, Kees Koolen and Hjalmar Windbladh, who were brought on board by the GP in late 2015. The venture team also includes Ted Persson, co-founder of digital agency Great Works, who was hired as design partner in January, and former Toborrow CTO Andreas Thorstensson as a partner in the fund.

EQT's announcement comes a week after managing partner Thomas von Koch and Lars Jörnow both spoke at the unquote" Nordic Private Equity Forum, where von Koch spoke about the opportunity his organisation saw in the economic transformation of the digital economy.

Chief operating officer Johan Bygge also spoke to unquote" at length about the private equity industry's approach to the new economic reality sometimes referred to as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The opportunity offered by disruption across nearly all industries brought on by the development of the digital economy and technological advancements is the main driver behind EQT's foray into the European venture space.

Alongside its new VC venture, EQT is also making strides in the digitalisation of its organisation, having hired Olof Hernell from Google Nordics to head its digitalisation efforts. At the unquote" Nordic Private Equity Forum in Stockholm, Hernell spoke about value creation in the digital age and EQT's "Motherbrain" – a software and big-data driven approach to sourcing investment leads, named after the main villain of the 1990s computer game Metroid.

Investments
EQT Ventures Fund will be a stage-agnostic vehicle, investing in funding rounds from early-stage to later-stage – though previous conversations with sources close to the VC said it is unlikely EQT will be participating in the earliest rounds, such as seed investments.

The fund will participate in venture investments across Europe and has so far backed five startups: Germany's Riskmethods and Holidu, Wolt in Finland, Min Doktor in Sweden, and UK-based Oden Technologies.

Additionally, the fund will consider investments in non-European businesses looking to break into the European market.

Investors
At final close, the investor base of EQT Ventures Fund includes HarbourVest Partners, Ilmarinen Mutual Pension Company, Finnish Industry Investment, the European Investment Fund, The Fourth Swedish National Pension Fund (AP4), Denmark's Vækstfonden and SEB Pension och Försäkring, among others.

The fund's partners have committed around 10% of the vehicle's size, which was matched by key people within the EQT Partners advisory firm.

People
EQT Ventures – Lars Jörnow, Kees Koolen, Hjalmar Windbladh, Andreas Thorstensson (partners); Ted Persson (design partner).

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