Arctic15 Funding Program has come to an end on Arctic15 Day2 with yet another deal closed on stage. The Nordic Angel Program by FiBAN collaborated with Arctic15 for the second time in the search of the best companies that the New Nordics have to offer. This year, a record number of investors went through almost 150 companies. Duuers came through as the winner, and now receives a 250 000 € angel investment from the syndicate.
22 angels have worked throughout the spring to find an investment-ready company for their 250 000 €. After going through 148 companies, Duuers was chosen to receive the investment. Previously superangels, such as Moaffak Ahmed, have invested into the company, now to be continued with our international syndicate led by Jaakko Salminen and Rhett Thompson. Out of 22 investors, four were international investors, bringing their knowledge about the international competition and their views on the probability of international expansion for the top companies.
So what does Duuers actually do?
Duuers is an easy-to-use tool for business proposals that helps small entrepreneurs to stand out from the crowd. It helps especially smaller companies to create business proposals with the help of previously created content and smart interaction towards the customers. Their tool makes creating business proposals up to six times faster than traditional methods, freeing entrepreneurs to invest their time into more productive tasks and thus accelerating the growth of their business.
“In the end, five great startups were combed throughly during due diligence to find the one case for the investment. The whole syndicate and the startups teams put in long hours, and one really stood out: Duuers Oy. Duuers has the vision, innovation, scalability and killer team that angels are looking for. We expect great things from this company!” comments Jaakko Salminen, colead of the syndicate.
“This process gave our kind of a company possibility to stand out, as we try to help small entreprises to do their business. This investment enables us to really accelerate our business to the next level”, adds Paula Viinamäki, CEO of Duuers.
Nordic Angel Program awarded at EBAN Helsinki 2019
The Nordic Angel Program is an international training and investment program for business angels. The goal is to make more cross-border investment with an experienced group of angels into the best startups that the region can offer. Building on top of the successes in 2018, the program was awarded by the European Business Angels Network (EBAN) as the Best in Globally Engaging the Early Stage Investment and Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in 2018.
The award was given on 3 June at the Gala Dinner of the EBAN Helsinki 2019 congress with business angels from 35 countries participating.
Video by Mathieu Topsi
