Oslo-based VC firm Sandwater has successfully closed its venture fund at €123,2 million (1.4 billion NOK), exceeding its target and becoming one of Europe’s largest first-time venture funds in 2023. The fund attracted significant support from institutional and international investors. Sandwater focuses on early-stage companies addressing global challenges in climate, energy, and healthcare. They have already invested €44 million (500 million NOK) in 13 companies and plan to invest the remaining €79,2 million (900 million NOK) in impact-aligned, early-stage ventures. The fund aims to bridge the funding gap for technologies scaling up from pilot to commercial scale, particularly in climate and health innovations. Sandwater looks forward to contributing to the growth of the Nordic and European VC communities and identifying impactful investment opportunities.
Sandwater was able to attract multiple international institutional investors, including amongst others the European Investment Fund (EIF), First Swedish National Pension Fund (AP1), and LGT, alongside the Norwegian climate fund Nysnø, Investinor, family offices of Canica and Lærdal, and many other experienced private equity investors in the Nordics.
In total, the raise puts the fund double the target and consisting of 60% from institutional investors and 50% from international investors. The raise also ranks Sandwater as one of the largest first time Nordic venture funds and one of the larger first-time venture funds raised in Europe in 2023.
“We are very pleased with the level of support from our investors, companies and ecosystem in general. We take the scale of the final fundraise as a tangible signal that investors share a common prioritization toward investing into and supporting future-proof venture companies impacting our climate and health systems,” said Kristian Melhuus, Partner.
Sandwater is focused on early-stage companies developing novel solutions to tackle our largest collective global challenges, primarily in climate, energy and healthcare. As a thematic Article 8 investor with a strong impact mandate, Sandwater focuses on four verticals: Resource Efficiency, Energy Transition, Impact Enablers, and HealthTech.
Sandwater typically invests into Late Seed to Series B companies in the Nordics and Northern Europe. To-date, the current fund has invested ~500M NOK into 13 companies in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany and the Netherlands. Existing porfolio companies cover a range of industries across Sandwater’s verticals, including humanoid robotics for care settings (1X), biogas (Antec), regenerative & sustainable agriculture (Nofence, FarmInsect), second-life batteries (Evyon) and decarbonization of cities & municipalities (ClimateView) to name a few.
Sandwater will invest the remaining 900M NOK into new high-potential companies as well as following-on in the existing investments.
Part of the rationale for starting Sandwater was recognizing that while there is good access to capital early on, there remains a gap when technologies are to be scaled up from pilot to commercial scale. This gap is especially prevalent for climate and health innovations, which often require more capital-intensive developments to build out hardware & manufacturing, support first-of-a-kind technologies, and establish clinical evidence, in order to become globally recognized companies.
“Every day we experience the challenges that founders, companies and investors have to tackle to secure sufficient capital and build solutions on a scale that can make a globally meaningful impact to the green shift,” said Tom Even Mortensen, Managing Partner. “Early-stage companies offer a critical piece of the puzzle to achieve our climate goals, improve the quality, efficiency and equity of healthcare, and operationalize the power of new technologies such as GenAI for the betterment of broader society and the environment. And to do that, we need to address the gaps in the capital stack and make funding available for transformative companies to prove out their potential.”
With the fund now closed, Sandwater looks ahead to contributing to further growth of the Nordic and European VC communities and to identifying exciting and impact-focused investment opportunities in climate, energy and health.
