Iceland Venture Studio announces new fund

Last week, Dattaca Labs announced Iceland Venture Studio, a new “growth solution for entrepreneurs and startup founders.” The Studio has raised a $1m fund, working towards a total size of $5m, to invest in early stage companies.

Co-founder, CEO of Iceland Venture Studio

“We’re very committed to our investment thesis,” CEO and co-founder Bala Kamallakharan told Northstack. Their focus will be companies that focus on that provide services around decentralization of private data, algorithms, privacy, process and data security.

The venture studio has already unveiled the first investments: Retina Risk and FlowVR.

“We had the opportunity to work with several potential investors, but we found Bala and Iceland Venture Studios to have the best possible mix of capital, connections and capabilities to meet our very specific needs,” said Prof. Einar Stefansson, co-founder of Retina Risk. “They have committed to partner with us for the long-haul and we are very impressed with Bala and his team as they help us grow to the next level.”

Freyr Hólm Ketilsson, co-founder Iceland Venture Studio

“As part of the team here at Iceland Venture Studios, my job is to provide expertise and guidance” Bala commented in a statement. “We have the industry relationships, technical know-how and business development experience to bring the best opportunities to our portfolio partners.”

Bala previously invested in Icelandic startup CLARA (acquired by Jive in 2013), and served as the executive chairman of Guide to Iceland and Travelshift, which recently raised $20m.