Finnish VC Inventure throwing bi-monthly events starting with Health & Wellness

    About a month ago we heard the news that Finnish early-stage investor Inventure is launching a seed program run through the Nordics and Baltics with the hire of Ekaterina Gianelli. Digging into it a little more, their groundwork is set up with a focus on technology, software and next generation of digital services, and is really kicking off their program with the Health & Wellness Seed Day, organized in co-operation with HealthSPA and AppCampus already on May 14th in Helsinki. To apply, send an email to Gianelli’s address in the link.

    At the event, Inventure says that companies will have an opportunity to pitch to investors, network and get an advice from the industry professionals. At the event they’re bringing in coaches and health experts who are joining the pitch session and will be supporting companies during the day.

    Two of these Seed Days have already been run, and from their new Seed fund Inventure has already invested in companies like Klevu, Lingvist, Eliademy and Boomlagoon. The firm plans to continue to run these Seed days bi-monthly for the next two years to find and place investments ranging from €100,000-250,000. As these companies grow and hit their milestones, they plan to place further investments.

    With this on-the-ground activity and new seed fund Inventure is well poised to be an even more formidable investment force in Finland and the Nordics. The firm says it is one of the few with access to Seed, Early-stage, and Later-stage capital, and with the recent hire of Ilkka Kivimäki Inventure gained deeper access of the dealflow coming out of the startup programs coming out around Espoo’s Aalto University. Kivimäki sits as the chairman of the Startup Sauna Foundation, a €1 Million+ fund made up of public and private investments giving one of Inventure’s partners financial control over all the deal-flow generating programs like the Startup Sauna accelerator and Slush. Inventure also cooperates with the region’s investors, like Northzone, KoppiCatch and others.

    Inventure has the access to later-stage financing, but for companies looking for that big up-front seed investment might be looking into the bigger cash said to be offered by the new angel fund run by Lifeline Ventures and backed by Supercell stakeholders.

    It’s good to see investors with already deep access into the public and private initiatives to be doing so much groundwork to get investments, it’s a sign that there’s bigger competition for early-stage investing that we thought.