NewsPicks AI: Frumtak Ventures closes $87M 4th fund for Iceland investments

Iceland’s early-stage investor Frumtak Ventures has raised a fourth fund that totals $84 million.

The Frumtak IV fund was oversubscribed and is a successor to 2021’s $57 million Frumtak III.

Frumtak Ventures’ high-conviction, concentrated investment philosophy is based on backing entrepreneurs solving difficult real-world problems using cutting-edge technologies, unafraid of combining software and AI with deeptech or hardware components. While being sector-agnostic, the fund has previously placed most of its investments in B2B SaaS startups at the seed or Series A stage.

Frumtak Ventures eyes further potential for Fund IV in doubling down on opportunities at the intersection of software, AI, and deeptech in industries playing on Iceland’s historical strengths in areas such as ocean tech and logistics, healthcare, travel, energy, climate, and gender equality.

International attention is starting to flow to Icelandic companies and uplifting an emerging innovation sector renowned for its resilience, the company said. Iceland’s startup ecosystem now boasts the highest invested capital per capita of all Nordic countries. A 2023 report from the Icelandic Angel & Venture Capital Association, Framvís, in collaboration with KPMG, found that foreign investment in Icelandic startups was up threefold year over year.

The country’s thriving tech landscape features standout companies like digital therapeutics pioneer Sidekick Health and pharma supply chain innovator Controlant. Frumtak Ventures invested early in both companies.

Sidekick Health (first investment made in 2017) works with five of the world’s largest healthcare companies and has strategic partnerships with industry behemoths including Pfizer, Bayer, and Eli Lilly. As part of its latest stage of expansion of services and markets, the company recently acquired cancer support and women’s health specialist Pink!. Sidekick Health recently disclosed an 80% compound annual growth rate as a result of successful expansion, deals, and partnerships.

Controlant (first investment made in 2011) is currently ranked by the Financial Times as one of the Top 25 fastest growing companies in Europe. The scaleup’s Icelandic headquarters supports a global network, with offices in the US, Denmark, Poland, and the Netherlands. Controlant partnered with Pfizer at the height of the global COVID-19 pandemic and played a crucial role in the distribution of vaccines.

Other high growth Frumtak Ventures portfolio companies include Icelandic trailblazers Treble (first invested in 2023: sound simulation and spatial audio technology); Plaio (first invested in 2021: visual planning solution for the generic pharma industry); 50skills (first invested in 2022: hiring software and tool for onboarding, crossboarding and offboarding); Abler (first invested in 2022: sports management tech); and Alda (first invested in 2022: workplace culture inclusion software solution).

Frumtak Ventures managing partner Svana Gunnarsdóttir, said in a statement, “Frumtak Ventures was founded by entrepreneurs, for entrepreneurs. We’re proud of our portfolio companies: their success validates our belief that Frumtak Ventures offers a unique toolkit to empower ambitious founders to thrive and scale their companies.”

Gunnarsdóttir added, “Iceland has endured and thrived in spite of challenges, both man-made and natural, and we have correspondingly developed expertise in several homegrown industries – as well as learned to future-proof them by embracing innovation. Frumtak IV will be supporting the next stars from these sectors as a sector-agnostic fund. I’d like to thank our investors, new and existing, for their continued support. We are proud to have closed four funds in 15 years and provided support to some of
Iceland’s most successful companies, and the Frumtak Ventures team is excited to deploy Frumtak IV within the Nordic ecosystem, helping support the next wave of winners.”