Launching Norðurskautið Research & Reports

Today we’re launching a new section, Norðurskautið Research & Reports. The purpose of this new section is to collect in one place all the research and reports that we work on here at Norðurskautið, such as our quarterly funding reports.

To start off this new section we’re announcing a report on the status of Icelandic ICT startups that Startup Europe Partnership (SEP) is releasing today. The report was written by Mind the Bridge (MtB) and mainly built on data from Norðurskautið and it focuses on companies that have raised a minimum of $1 million in venture funding, dubbed scaleups in the report.

“Iceland shows 5 scaleups every 100 thousand people, the highest number we found in Europe thus far”, commented Alberto Onetti, Mind the Bridge Chairman and SEP Coordinator, “and 1.3% of the GDP has been invested into Icelandic scaleups via venture capital: a number that is a lot higher than any other European country.”

The following are the main takeaways from the report:

  • There are more companies that have reached the minimum funding to be classified as scaleups (>$1M) per capita in Iceland than elsewhere in Europe.
  • Venture capital funding in ratio to GDP in Iceland is the highest in the Nordics, according to MtB.
  • In the last five years, 15 companies have reach the size scaleup, and have raised a combined of $200M in funding (roughly 26 billion ISK).
  • 4 companies were acquired during the five-year period, including Clara, Modio and Datamarket. Two companies were acquired by US firms, one by a Swedish firm and another by a Chinese company.

Head over to our Research & Reports section to download the full report and make sure to check in there regularly for other reports and research by Norðurskautið.