Our story – Industrifonden

Industrifonden was founded by the Swedish government in 1979 as an independent foundation to provide Swedish industry with an innovation growth engine. For more than four decades, we've backed high-tech ventures from first check to global scale – accumulating pattern recognition and knowledge across cycles

Our focus is Sweden, but our reach extends across the New Nordics where we participate in strong syndicates alongside local co-investors, backing exceptional companies wherever they're building in the region.

Today, we are an independent venture capital fund continuing our legacy by partnering with innovators and entrepreneurs to bring Nordic breakthrough innovations to the world. From QlikTech, Arcam and Oatly to CellaVision, Inriver, and Calliditas, we've backed companies that reshaped their industries – and we exit when the company is ready, not when a fund term ends.

We invest in early-stage companies. Our first ticket is often €1–5million, with capacity to invest considerably more over a company's lifecycle.

We invest across four areas – life science, deep tech, software, and growth – each led by specialists with deep domain expertise and the networks that come with it. That depth lets us evaluate opportunities a generalist fund would miss, and back founders with more than capital.

At Industrifonden, we focus less on short-term wins and more on the long-term investments that create lasting value for society.

WHAT WE ARE
LOOKING FOR

Unique, scalable innovations with a meaningful impact on our society.

Passionate founders that turn their ideas into reality.

Ideas with the potential to change a whole industry or create a new one.

WHEn WE INVEST

SEED TO A-ROUND FUNDING

We typically invest in early-stage companies in seed or A-rounds, and sometimes earlier. Our first ticket is EUR 1-5 million, with the capacity to invest considerably more during the lifecycle. For exceptional opportunities we can invest earlier with smaller pre-seed tickets.

If you working on something exceptional, get in touch early. We prefer to follow your progress for some time and to get to know your team.

IN IT FOR THE LONG RUN

Our evergreen structure means no fund term forces an exit – we can back a company for as long as it takes to create lasting value.

OUR STRATEGIES

LIFE SCIENCE

With decades of life science investing behind us, we know what it takes to bring a new therapy or device to patients, and how long it takes. As an evergreen fund, we can stay for the whole journey. In therapeutics, we look for robust science and a genuinely differentiated approach to a significant unmet need. In technologies and devices, we more often join closer to regulatory approval or at commercial stage. In all cases, we back exceptional top-tier teams.

SOFTWARE

We know that the best software companies are built by founders who understand an industry from the inside, not just the technology. As an evergreen fund, we can stay through the years it takes for deep domain knowledge to compound into a defensible product. We look for vertical AI and enterprise software teams with genuine conviction about the problem they're solving, and early proof that the market agrees. In all cases, we back exceptional teams whose domain depth is hard to replicate.

DEEP TECH & PLANETARY HEALTH

We have backed technical founders for decades, and know that deep tech runs on a different clock: long development cycles, capital-intensive scale-up, and value that arrives in steps rather than smoothly. As an evergreen fund, we can hold through that timeline. We invest across energy systems, advanced materials, synthetic biology, novel computing, and the technologies that protect and restore the planet. We look for a real technical edge, something hard enough that it cannot be replicated quickly, and a clear line from that edge to a significant market need. We usually come in once the core science is proven and the remaining risk sits in engineering, scale-up, and commercial execution rather than fundamental discovery.

GROWTH

We have spent decades helping Nordic companies grow into international ones, and we know that scaling is a different discipline from building. As an evergreen fund, we can stay through the wholescale-up journey rather than push for a premature exit. We look for proven product-market fit, clear commercial traction, and recurring revenues, where the next phase of value creation comes from customer demand rather thancontinued product development. We invest where capital can accelerate sales, new market entry, and operational scaling, and where unit economics are strongenough to make that growth durable. In all cases, we back exceptional teamswith the maturity and ambition to build globally.