Crowberry Capital, and the funding environment report
Innovation ministry releases report on startup financing
From the ministry’s website:
On the basis of the action plan for entrepreneurship and innovation, Initative and Progress, announced by Ragnheiður Elín Árnadóttir, minister of Industry and Commerce, in December 2015, a detailed mapping of the startup funding environment has been made. The aim is to gather information about financing options for entrepreneurs and startups, from the initial stages through growth, identify needs for improvement, and diversifying the funding resources and options offered.
First off, calling the report a “detailed mapping of the startup funding environment” is a stretch. The report gives a brief introduction to the various funds and institutions that directly support startups financially, but includes no empirical data on the funding environment (in my opinion the most important part of mapping a funding environment). The reason is simple: the data doesn’t exist. The ministry knows it – Northstack met with the minister several months ago on this exact issue. While this may sound bitter, it’s not supposed to. We’ve funded the project (thanks to our awesome sponsors) and are working on gathering the data, so that an empirical mapping of funding in Iceland can take place.
This comment is not made to disparage the work of KPMG or belittle the report. The point is simply that doing a “detailed mapping of the funding environment” absolutely has to include empirical data. It’s a disservice to the ecosystem to suggest that we can have enlightened discussions about the problems of the ecosystem without any numbers backing up our hypotheses. I applaud the effort: diagnosing the situation is critical for the creation of strategy (strategy is sadly lacking in much of government). I’m just pointing out that we should have higher demands, and expect our diagnoses to include quantitative data. In this case, it’s mostly unavailable, and hard to come by. Next time, it’ll be more easily available, which can help in defining, evaluating, and choosing actions.
The suggestions are an interesting list of ideas that could, or could not, help. The main problem is that nobody can point to the thing that needs help. Just like a doctor has a hard time suggesting treatment when the only info provided is “I’m sick”, a consultant or government agency can hardly address any ecosystem issues based on a (possibly non-existent) “funding environment” problem.
What do you think? Have you read the report? What are your initial reactions? Shoot me a message with your thoughts.
Crowberry Capital: Iceland’s first female only VC fund announced
Late last week, news broke (Northstack of course broke it) that Helga Valfells, CEO of NSA Ventures, and two of her colleagues, investment managers Hekla Arnardóttir and Jenný Ruth Hrafnsdóttir, are leaving NSA to found their own fund. Their aim is a 5bn ISK / $42m fund, focusing on early stage companies.
Some thoughts:
The move leaves Egill Másson as the only investor at NSA Ventures – other staff are the CFO and the office manager.
According to the press release, the move is in part due to the Ministry for Industry and Inovation’s aim to turn NSA Ventures into a fund of funds. That suggests that the three women are more interested in investing directly in companies than funds.
They aim to raise 5bn ISK, and according to Helga have some commitments. If they succeed in raising that amount (which is probably the bare minimum they could raise to make this work in terms of operating costs) it would mean 17.5 bn ISK (between $140-$150m) in Iceland-focused VC funds in a couple of years.
The trio is betting their livelyhoods (they’re leaving the jobs without having raised the fund) on the interest of LP’s to participate in another VC fund in the short term, and the hypotheses that Iceland has a funding funnel problem that can be solved with more cash in the long term. That it’s the lack of cash, not lack of startups with potential, that is the source of most current problems.
As far as I know, Eyrir Sprotar wasn’t planning on raising another VC fund. Frumtak, however, is likely to take a run at the third fund. Both of their funds are mostly deployed. Frumtak 1 has been completely deployed for some time (and we’ll hopefully start to see some exits soon), and Frumtak 2 has little left for fresh investments. That would mean we have two VC funds competing for capital.
Of the four classic structure VC funds in Iceland, two are all-male, one is mixed, and one will be all female. That has to be some sort of par-capita world record. Most all-female VC funds per capita in the world?
I wholeheartedly wish the trio the best of luck!
What are your thoughts on this? How do you think the LP market will respond? Will they finish raising? (I know way too little about the Icelandic LP market, sadly). Send me a message with your thoughts.
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