Estonia-based Tera Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm in the “New Nordics” (Nordic & Baltic countries), has announced that it now has a fund size of €43M with several global investors stepping in as limited partners.
Speaking on the development, Stanislav Ivanov, Founding Partner at Tera, says, “The obvious benefit to founders is that we have more capital to deploy. But additionally, now more than ever, we are able to connect entrepreneurs with top international investors and help them engage in commercial collaboration with the strategic ones. We’re also gearing towards extending these opportunities to deal-flow companies.”
Supporting ambitious founders tackling big problems
Tera Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm with more than ten years of experience in propelling New Nordic founders to the global stage. With €70M under management, the fund can support portfolio companies through the early rounds as well as follow-on rounds.
Besides, the investment firm also claims to help its portfolio companies to expand their services in other European countries like the US, the UK, and Japan. It also facilitates collaboration with international corporations and helps in raising additional capital from top-tier VCs.
It has deal-flow sharing arrangements with several of its Fund II LPs in Finland, Sweden, Japan, and the US, most notably Itochu and Perot Jain.
“Both Itochu in Japan and Perot Jain in the US are corporations that may invest directly and in later stages as well and give our portfolio companies numerous options for commercial collaboration and provide unique inroads to new markets. They are also interested in collaborating with select deal-flow companies so we have processes in place to facilitate such relationships as well,” says Andrus Oks, Founding Partner at Tera Ventures.
Tera Ventures has invested in several prominent European startups, including the Monese (UK-based neobank), Scoro (business management software), Rendin (a proptech platform), and Brainbase (IP-licensing management platform).
In total, the firm has backed the founding teams of 33 companies and has offices in Tallinn, Helsinki, Los Angeles, and Tartu (Estonia). Some of its previous successful companies include GrabCAD (acquired by Stratasys) and Vitalfields (acquired by Monsanto).
New limited partners
The firm’s limited partners now include European Investment Fund, under the EstFund, LHV Pension Funds (Estonia), ITOCHU Corporation, Mistletoe Venture Partners International (Japan), Perot Jain, MasterBorn, Inc., Jonas E. Neihardt (USA), as well as other investors from the Nordics and Estonia.
The EstFund is an initiative created by cooperation between the Republic of Estonia and the European Investment Fund and financed under European Structural and Investment Funds.
Anurag Jain, General Partner at Perot Jain, comments, “It is amazing to see how quickly Estonia has grown into a significant start-up hub that rivals much bigger countries. We chose to partner with Tera Ventures to gain access to the technologies coming out of the region, with the goal of being a strategic partner for the start-ups to help them grow in Europe, the US, and globally. Our unique operating company platform provides a number of collaboration opportunities, particularly in the mobility/logistics, proptech, and healthcare industries, allowing Perot Jain to extend support to the Tera portfolio companies beyond our capital.”
Stepping in as advisors are Par Nuder, long-term advisor to NorthZone and EQT, who also joins as an investor, and Barbara Piette of Knightsbridge Advisers.
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