A quiet quarter on the funding side, but very interesting on the exit side. The effects of having only one active Icelandic fund still linger. Now that Crowberry Capital has officially started and NSA Ventures have more capital available due to an exit this quarter, deals might  start ticking up again, and some of the earlier Eyrir and Frumtak companies are due for a round soon.

Three seed rounds

We recorded three rounds in the quarter: Viska Learning, Ghostlamp and Teatime.

Last years Q3 was very active, and this time around there’s less than half of the investments YoY.

Comparing amount invested shows an even steeper drop, as we didn’t see any late stage rounds.

Brunnur the most active investor

Brunnur Ventures led two of the three investments. The fund has for the last quarters been the only active Icelandic VC fund, but now that Crowberry has been founded and NSA has some money to invest, they’re no longer alone in the market.

Investa, the angel / seed fund run by Hilmar Gunnarsson, Hjálmar Gíslason, Jói Sig and more veterans from the Icelandic tech scene participated in two rounds (Viska and Teatime)

The biggest news of the quarter, however, is definitely that fact that Index Ventures, a top tier VC, did its first investment in Iceland.

Seed money is Icelandic, growth money is foreign

This quarter most of the investment came from Iceland. The only non-icelandic capital were participants in Teatimes’ round (Index Ventures et al).

Although we don’t have a lot of deals to go on, you can see a trend emerging. The seed rounds are driven by Icelandic investors, but the later stage rounds are driven by foreign funds. There might be several reasons for that and we’ll discuss those in the upcoming Memo.

Two exits and a listing

Greenqloud was acquired by Netapp, in what is the first acquisition of an Icelandic software company by a Fortune 500 company (the completely first was probably DeCODE, acquired by Amgen in 2012). The amount was undisclosed, but we’ve discussed the acquisition in more detail here. The other exit was when Skynjun, an Icelandic audiobook publisher, sold to Swedish Storytel.

In addition, Klappir Green Solutions – a consortium of three companies, including Ark Technology and Data Drive – was listed on First North. Although no new shares were offered (it was only a listing, not a public offering), that move definitely created some liquidity for employees and investors.

This is the most exit activity we’ve tracked since the beginning of Northstack, which hopefully is a signal of things to come.

Looking ahead

This year will probably be the first of (hopefully) many where the Icelandic scene reaches some kind of equilibrium and predictable deal flow. Two to three active, local, venture funds that mostly focus on the earlier stages, and several later stage investments led by foreign funds.

It’s also a when the VC industry in Iceland reaches a certain crossroads: some of the management companies – Frumtak and possibly Eyrir – will likely start raising a new fund because they’ve fully committed their current capital, and whether or not that happens, might depend on whether the funds have success stories to tell. Others, like Brunnur Ventures or Crowberry Capital, are not in as much a need of raising more, because they have more available.