The third annual report on Nordic Impact startups, in partnership with Danske Bank Growth and Invest Stockholm.
Key Takeaways:
The Nordics are leaders in the impact space, with Sweden and Stockholm leading at scale
The Nordics are the most impact-focused region in the world with 38% of funding going to impact startups, compared to 22% for Europe and less than 10% for US and Asia.
The four major nordic countries rank amongst the top 11 countries by total and early-stage funding with Sweden leading on most metrics, followed by Norway.
At city level, Stockholm is the top hub for impact funding in Europe, Helsinki is also in the top 10 both by total and early stage funding.
Impact funding in the Nordics has outperformed the overall VC market in the last year.
2023 is showing a significant slowdown for Nordic impact tech funding with $1.2B in H1 2023, a nearly 50% drop from 2022.
Impact, and climate tech, held on better than the overall market in the slowdown last year, both as overall funding and early-stage.
Impact startups in the Nordics are also showing higher conversion rates to Series A and beyond.
Transportation and Energy have dominated Climate Tech funding in the Nordics, but new segments like Blue Economy and Carbon tech are emerging.
The Nordics are leaders in Climate Tech, attracting 30% of European funding in the segment since 2015. Most of the funding have been attracted by B2B oriented manufacturing/deep tech startups.
The cluster which attracted the most funding by far are Transportation & mobility (including EV battery like Northvolt) and Energy. Other emerging Climate Tech segments are gaining traction in the Nordics such as Blue Economy and Carbon Tech.