VC Perspectives

During my latest Helsinki trip, I had a very interesting conversation with Ville and Antti at Arctic Startup about what, if anything, is missing in the Nordic startup and VC environment especially compared to the US. One of many things that we identified was lack of successful serial entrepreneurs in the Nordic region.

I have often heard that successful serial entrepreneurs are tricky to invest in. Reasons include:

• If they have been successful enough, they are not hungry enough the second time around
• They will just try and repeat what was successful the previous time
• Only young entrepreneurs are naive or crazy enough to be able to change the world
• Luck never strikes twice

While I am sure we can find numerous cases where some or all of these statements are true, according to Josh Lerner, who has made significant research on the topic, in general this is not correct. Rather the opposite. In his research, Josh has found a strong positive correlation between the success of the startup and if the founders have been successful serial entrepreneurs. Another interesting aspect is that top VCs to a much higher extent invest in successful serial entrepreneurs than other VCs.

Also, successful serial entrepreneurs play an important role not only as founders of new startups but as business angels, board members, advisors and role models.

Unfortunately from a Nordic perspective, this is a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Until we have created enough successful startups, we will not have enough successful serial entrepreneurs. I still feel that we are on the right track with more and more entrepreneurs making good exits for every generation but it is also important that our state systems allow for people to be successful in our region so that these people stay on to either make it again themselves or helping others achieve success.

If you’re into reading about start-ups and entrepreneurs in the Nordic and Baltic region, you have most likely come across Arctic Startup, the closest to TechCrunch we have in our region.

In addition to doing an excellent job with their blog, the people behind Arctic Startup also organize Arctic Evenings, an event where entrepreneurs, VCs and other people interested in startups get together and network.

Tonight I attented their event in central Helsinki and it was a very positive experience. In addition to ample network opportunities, there was also a panel debate with a group of very experienced people discussing startup financing. Here’s some more information about the event and the speakers.

A great initiative which seems very popular with the entrepreneurs, tonight’s event of a hundred seats was filled very quickly. So far, they have held events in Helsinki and Talinn, but the plan is to bring the events also to Stockholm (in beginning of April) and other Nordic countries. Well worth checking out!

I am on my way to Slush Helsinki, a new event for start-ups in Finland which looks really interesting. Peter Vesterbacka (Some Bazaar), Ville Vesterinen (Arctic Startup), Kai Lemmety (Floobs) and Helene Auramo (Zipipop) have created an event that brings together young start-ups and some really distinguished Finnish IT-entrepreneurs. Speakers include Monty Widenius (co-founder of MySQL), Risto Siilasmaa (founder of F-Secure) and Sampo Karjalainen (Chief Creative Officer at Sulake and co-founder of Habbo Hotel).

Actually, the name Slush couldn’t be better chosen for this time of the year. I am currently stuck at Arlanda Aiport waiting for the flight from Helsinki to arrive. Hopefully, I will be on my way soon so I can listen in to the interesting stuff tomorrow. Hope to see you there!