Nordic Angel Program – Startup Europe Club

What is Nordic Angel Program?

The Nordic Angel Program (NAP) is a 3-month training and investment programme for business angels. It is run by a group of Nordic & Baltic angel networks (DanBAN, BANNorway, EstBAN and FiBAN), powered by investment platform Startup Includer and supported by the Nordic angel network NordicBAN. At the end of each of the NAP batches, about 25 angels finalise their training by making a joint investment in one or more startups.

Nordic Angel Program's main activities

Raising significant funding rounds for startups
Raising awareness of angel investing and its benefits for the startup community
Setting up meetings between startups and investors
Sparring and coaching
Making early stage investment available for local startups while attracting international interest
Encouraging cross-border investments among angel investors through study visits and cross-border trainings
In Norway, the local government was influenced to improve tax legislation to ease investment in startups, thereby encouraging a new startup environment in Norway

Nordic Angel Program's in numbers

1877

startups applied to the programme, of these, 1329 companies were pre-screened by 560 angel investors, including 115 cross-border investors

229

startups were accepted onto the programme, getting one-on-one sparring and coaching from angel investors plus written feedback

successful funding rounds were held, raising approximately €3.25 million for 19 winning startups

of the programme’s startups went on to gain investment despite not winning the investment competition, taking the total amount of funding raised to €5 million

Nordic Angel Program highlights

2018

September 2018

Investors in the first Nordic Angel Program channel €575,000 into four start-ups:

Meploy (Denmark) – €235,000
Fractory (Estonia) – €165,000
Screenful (Finland) – €115,000
Clucoset (Norway) – €60,000

November 2018

FeelingStream, a speech-to-text tool, was chosen from 96 companies to receive an investment of €400,000 by a 19-strong angel syndicate

2019

May 2019

Investors taking part in NAP3 choose Video CV and Zelos for €225,000 in investment each

June 2019

22 angels invested €250,000 in Duuers, an easy-to-use tool for business proposals

Participating startups

Duuers

Fractory

FeelingStream

FoodDocs

Meploy

Obital

Screenful

Showtag Enabled

SWITCHR

VideoCV.io

Zelos

Startup testimonials

Screenful (FI) (develops business performance dashboards that help companies track and optimise their operations)

“The biggest benefit of the investment was that finally we were able to grow the team, and that I don’t have to be worrying all the time about financials. From angels, most importantly, we now have an access to their knowledge and can ask advice whenever we run into a situation that we can’t figure out ourselves. It’s a safety net of a kind.”

Duuers (FI) (a SaaS that makes online proposal software for small businesses)

“It’s great to work with seasoned entrepreneurs, people who’ve been there, done it and survived to tell the tale (and are also eager to share what they’ve learned!)”

SWITCHR (SE) (company allowing users to buy solar panels in a solar plant and receive a return on investment)

“Since the start of the program the team has grown with more than 5 people, we have entered into the accelerator Climate-KIC, and increased our sales by 100%. Undergone a complete rebranding of our platform, and gained approximately 60,000 followers on social media. We have also secured €120,000 in funding due to the movement around the program, in addition to €180,000 in convertible debt (reserved for funding of our first solar farm)”

Meploy (DK) (temp-working platform)

“Syndicated investment is a great opportunity to get a wider network connected to your startup, so when I saw the opportunity, I couldn't resist.”

Fractory (EE) (sheet-metal fabrication)

“Since the program we have grown almost 10x, opened a second office in UK, grown the team from 5 to 22 and raised another round of 7-figures.”