Denmark-based venture capital firm ByFounders raised €100m ($112m) for its debut fund on Wednesday from limited partners (LPs) including internet company Digital Garage and financial services firm Danske Bank.
The government-owned Danish Growth Fund is the largest contributor to the fund, which is also backed by VC investment platform Isomer Capital, VC firm Draper Esprit and several family offices situated in the Nordics region.
The vehicle also sourced commitments from a group of over 50 individual LPs that includes founders of Skype, Zendesk, Kahoot, Unity, Tradeshift, Sitecore and Vivino. The group, which ByFounders refers to as The Collective, also provides advice to portfolio companies and access to their network of contacts.
ByFounders focuses on technology startups located in the Baltics and Nordics regions, and has completed 12 investments to date. It can invest across multiple rounds but favours seed-stage deals.
The firm’s portfolio includes cybersecurity technology provider Cobalt, event planning platform Tame, artificial intelligence-based emergency services assistant developer Corti and software testing technology developer Cobalt.io.
Frederik Vinten, head of group development at Danske Bank, said: “The partnership with ByFounders is very important to us in Danske Bank.
“For one, we want to strengthen the Nordic startup scene, but we also want to gain a deeper understanding of how ByFounders work as this represents a new strategic dimension to us.”