Mette Lykke

FINDING THE PERFECT MATCH INVESTOR.... ... NEEDS A GOOD STRATEGY. And let's face it. As a founder and solopreneur, time is your enemy. Focus is key. So is a strategic approach and building a healthy routine when it comes to investor outreach. But remember: Finding that perfect match also means: You have to do your homework. You have to do ask the right questions. You have to do your due diligence. You have to build outreach pipeline. You gotta look at other portfolio startups. You gotta reach out tp these portfolio startups: Are they happy now? Would they do it again? It seems like that big task in front of you that you are afraid of. That you keep pushing backwards. But I like how Ben Kimura-Gross describes it: It's like climbing up a wall or boulder. You gotta start, and then step by step do and plan the next moves. Sometimes it needs a bit of guidance, and that's where Ben can support. So if you are an impact-driven founder and plan to raise capital, I got some news for you. Ben's opening the second cohort with diverse founders from diverse industries to jointly embark on their fundraising journey. #impact #founder #startup #mentor #capital #funding #goliath

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(Open source) software is eating the world. Open + Free + Commercially Sustainable = Paradox? At Serena, we wanted to understand better the relation between Open Source values and commercial success - which is key for entrepreneurs, customers, VCs and, more importantly, projects' sustainability. So, being data-driven as we are, Matthieu Lavergne put together our first Commercial Open Source Report - together with the Serena team and with the help of awesome contributors such as JB Onofré from the Apache Software foundation, open-source entrepreneurs such as OpsMill's Damien Garros, Kotzilla's Arnaud GIULIANI and Miguel Valdes Faura, IT-law expert Gilles Rouvier and of course our very own Bertrand Diard who co-founded open-source and Nasdaq-listed Talend. There's a ton of insights in there that hopefully will help navigate, benchmark and understand COSS. Some takeaways that I find exciting: - VC funding of COSS has steadily been growing. - US unsurprisingly dominates VC-funding of COSS but Europe is on the rise. But there's also a lot to learn when looking at software categories, correlation between funding and success metrics, impact of the license models, relationship with foundations, etc... It's free and accessible here: https://lnkd.in/d5uBvjAU

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If you have been on the fence, it's time to move. The first cohort was a huge success are out in the market killing it. If you are in the sustainable mobility space creating tech to support the ethical movement of people, goods, data, and energy it's time you learned more about the CO.LAB Sustainable Mobility Investment Accelerator. #smarttransportation #quantum #data #freight #smartcities #technology #autonomy

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🎉Climentum Capital invests in Rodinia Generation: Blueprint for a Greener Fashion Industry 🧥 Garment manufacturing is a notoriously dirty business. Large-scale & low-tech dyeing and printing operations in emerging markets are highly polluting and consume large amounts of water & energy - while incentivizing massive overproduction to keep unit costs low and ensure sufficient stock given the long production timelines. Rodinia addresses this challenge head-on with their innovative microfactory setup. Combining the latest digital printing technology with other automation machinery and an integrated software solution, Rodinia’s system produces garments in an environmentally friendly, high-tech, and high-speed manner that allows for cost-competitive production with lower volumes, close to the customers. This not only results in garments with a ~40% lower carbon footprint (and no other pollution effects), but also in a huge reduction of overproduction and the associated impacts of that waste.    Taking it a step further, Rodinia’s high-speed model enables some customers to only produce garments after they are ordered. As the founder & CEO Trine Y. says: “It should be possible only to make clothes when they are actually bought, without having to transport them from one end of the planet to the other while causing all sorts of damage to people and the environment along the way”. With our mission to foster a more sustainable, low-carbon, local and circular industry in Europe, Rodinia is perfectly suited for the Climentum portfolio. We are delighted to be investing alongside Export and Investment Fund of Denmark in this €3 million funding round and look forward to realizing the promise of sustainable fashion! Thanks to Børsen for bringing this story! Trine Y. Lau Malthe Borch Morten Halborg Malin Carlstrom Stefan Maard Rünno Allikivi Sara Færch Hansen #SustainableFashion #ClimateTech https://lnkd.in/d6N4spc5

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Both EQT Ventures / Contrarian Ventures’s ‘Climate Brick’ and Planet A Ventures / Norrsken VC / Speedinvest’s ‘Playbook for Climate Hardware’ are indispensable guides for climate founders. I read both cover to cover - here are my key takeaways... DON’T EXPECT A LINEAR JOURNEY - Every case is different. Lots of factors - from geography, to business model, to asset resale value, to government support - will impact a company’s scaling journey and financing mix. Be courageous and forge your own path. BUILD A GREAT BUSINESS AND INVESTMENT WILL FOLLOW - Create value for customers, focus on unit economics, shape your business model to align core competencies with customer value creation, and investors will want in. This might sound obvious but ZIRP enabled startups - especially in SaaS - to sacrifice fundamentals at the altar of growth and promoted the idea that raising money is an end goal in and of itself. It is particularly important to get the fundamentals right in hardware by focusing on efficient and profitable scale above all else. YOU HAVE A LIMITED NUMBER OF CHIPS TO ALLOCATE ACROSS THREE RISK AREAS - Market, technology and engineering risk. Your chip stack gets smaller every time you raise a new round of financing. E.g. if you lots of engineering risk you better not have much market and technology risk! CLIMATE HARDWARE HAS A NARRATIVE PROBLEM - Rightly or wrongly, the venture zeitgeist holds it to be true that hardware / physical technologies are more capital intensive, lower margin, and have longer exit horizons than software companies. If you build a truly great business and are sophisticated with how you finance scale then these statements are false. Not only that, but it has never been more expensive or difficult to scale a software business, nor have exit timelines ever been so long. Hardware companies have to work harder to tell a compelling equity story but it is possible and it is getting easier. Both reports have committed to developing their work over the long-term which is exciting. There are a couple of things I would love to see next: 1) The key thing I am hearing from downstream investors is that climate hardware companies learn quite late about the value of high quality project development, execution and EPC talent. How early should founders think about hiring these people? 2) Valuations are a function of capital raised and multiples don’t make much sense, ranging from low single digits to infinity in the Climate Brick. Can we think about progress and success in a different way? For example, what about a simple reframing of valuation to prioritise minimal dilution? Case studies are key here, and as investors and founders become more sophisticated about the capital stack we will see more of them. Huge thanks to everyone involved in this amazing work! Katya Constant Rokas Peciulaitis Ted Persson Florian Schabus Kim D. Jessica Burley Christian zu Jeddeloh Sophia Escheu Links to both initiatives in the comments.

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We @ No Such Ventures just invested €3m in Magic Lane to transform the location intelligence industry! It all started about 10 months ago with a short message from Raymond to me to meet up at Micromobility Industries's conference in Amsterdam. We invested because not only is the team, led by Raymond Alves and Johan Lanen one of the most knowledgeable we've ever seen 👩‍🚀, they are also literally changing how people interact with physical infrastructure by building the map, routing and navigation products of the future that: 📟 work on virtually any hardware (even runs on a Raspberry Pi Zero!) 🖥 can be embedded into any format: vehicles, mobile apps and platforms 📡 excels in privacy and stays working when you go offline 👩‍💻 are easily integrated into software in most coding languages via their SDKs But if you ask Raymond Alves he'll tell you that we should stop talking about that and focus on how that translates into a fast and easy to implement go-to-market for their customers - which tells you something about the ambitions of this team: they're not satisfied with building the best products, they also also adamant at creating the best business value for their customers. 💡 Next month Magic Lane will be once more at MicroMobility Europe, where Raymond Alves (and Tim Urlings!) will again share a message, but this time its not 12-word in-writing message targeting an investor but a public in-person message targeting anyone that is excited about the location intelligence of the future So whether you are an e-bike manufacturer, shared mobility operator, a logistics company, a charging pole operator, a mobile app for farmers or a producer of smart watches - if you are thinking about mapping and routing you want to talk to these guys!

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💥 Attention investors ❗ Huomio sijoittajat 💥 Aircohol is scaling up! 🚀 🔥 We foster a planet worth cheering for by crafting CO2 into sustainable sips & bites 🥃 🌮 Check out the fantastic progress Aircohol team has made and the investment opportunity from the post below. Let me know if you are interested and feel free to tag people and share the post. Cheers, Planet! 🍻

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It's official! I am both excited and proud to share that HV Capital has published a guide to demystify ESG for startups. Why write it? Because #ESG is not just a feel-good gesture – it’s about driving value and setting #founders up for long-term success. Yet, there’s a lot of confusion about what it is and how to get started. The problem: ESG as we know it from public markets is not fit-for-purpose for startups. We hope that with this guide, our pragmatic and proportionate approach to ESG will help you get started. Interested in knowing more? Download it for free from the link in the comment section. You will find lists of free tools, useful tips and much more to help you turn ESG into a value driver. Thank you to our partners VentureESG and lfca.earth - Community | Leaders for Climate Action who push us to do better! PS: You've got ideas on how to improve the guide? Great! Leave your thoughts below, we all have got a lot to learn from one another!

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Calling all Startup Founders! Are you focusing on the sustainable movement of people, supplies, energy, or data? The The Company Lab (CO.LAB) Sustainable Mobility Investment Accelerator powered by gener8tor is here to help you build a successful, scalable venture. The program offers: ✅ Up to $120K investment in your startup ✅ Access to pilots and early customers with program corporate partners ✅ Access to 100+ experienced mentors, investors, industry professionals and business domain experts who are dedicated to helping you succeed ✅  Small cohort of 5-6 Startups all focused on rapidly scaling their ventures Michael Lim, Founder & CEO of Xtelligent, had this to say about his experience as a cohort member: "Given the bespoke nature of the program, the experience is especially ideal for an entrepreneur shooting for the moon in a highly complex and difficult vertical that is sustainable mobility. The genuine care and support from the program staff, mentors, advisors, and broader Chattanooga community also left a strong and lasting impression." Don't miss out on this opportunity to elevate your startup to new heights. Apply Now: https://lnkd.in/eW2xiiYk Learn More: https://lnkd.in/g_Vd9uzM If you are not sure yet, you can book some time on my calendar here: https://lnkd.in/gPYWsbrA Join the CO.LAB Sustainable Mobility Investment Accelerator and get the tools, support, and guidance you need to succeed. Rosimar Nieves and I are here to help!!! #SustainableMobility #Startup #Savetheplanet

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⁉ What questions should I ask? I'm invited to an event with Ebba Busch, Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden: The focus of the event is how we can create optimal conditions for startups and scaleups in Sweden. The group of specially invited guests will have the possibility to hear more about the government's thoughts, and to ask questions to the minister. I have a few questions lined up myself: 👉 What support will the government provide to fuel the sustainability transition (and I do not mean only energy!) in the startup world? 👉 What are the government doing to ensure that innovation and entrepreneurship is for everybody in society, e.g. by ensuring that MORE investments go to female started, owned and led businesses? What else should I ask? Let me know and I'll bring the questions to the meetup!

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Venture Studios – Yeah sounds cool, but what does the data say? 📊 At KRING, we have chosen the #venturestudio model for our VC fund and venture studio. We have done that, because we believe that is an exciting model for building faster and better. But don’t just take our words for it. To better understand the benefits of the venture studio model, let’s dive into the current general #stats: 🚀 60% of studio startups reach Series A in a funding round; with 84% of startups coming out of studios making it to Seed round, and 72% of these make it to Series A. This makes studio startups 30% more likely to go from Seed to Series A than ‘traditional’ startups ⏰ 25 months is the time from Zero to Series A; compared to 56 months for ‘traditional’ startups ⏳ 11 months is the time from Zero to Seed; compared to 36 months for ‘traditional’ startups 🌍 Globally, the venture studio model is becoming increasingly popular, and it is estimated that the studio ecosystem has grown by ~600% the past 7 years. Today, there are ~500 active studios. Source: Morrow Global Network’s “Disrupting the Venture Landscape” white paper, 2020 Note, that the data above represent aggregated data and is not a concrete picture of KRING’s model. We also want to acknowledge that there currently is limited data available on the performance of the venture studio model and would love to see newer and more comprehensive studies being done. With our new fund #Speedbooting2022, we are excited to be able to show our own data in a few years to hopefully match the above. Stay tuned and let us know if you have any questions or comments to the venture studio model - we would love to hear from you! #venturestudio #startupstudio #venturebuilding Jacob Madsen Christoph Brandin Søren Thorsen Karen Oetling Johan Rishede Duus Agnes A. Marina Miteva Elliot Gorinas Tobias Dencker Israelsen Thomas A. Klitbo Jesper Kring Niklas Lynge R. Kasper Lindahl Klausen

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🥇What are the top AgriFoodTech deals? 💰 Investments have bounced back in Q1 2024, and we can see that this has been driven by a couple of mega deals: more than $1B went to these two startups, Picnic Technologies and Wonder. Are megadeals making a comeback in FoodTech? 🍦 Also, it is surprising to see the number of CPG brands in this top 10: Bloom Nutrition, TRUFF, and Liquid Death. That's only three, but normally brands don't make it to a "foodtech top deal" ranking as they tend to raise smaller amounts of money. In our analysis, we are only seeing the first wave of a much larger movement as we observe many exciting brands emerging (mostly in the US and in Europe). 🇺🇸 🇩🇪 Finally, another striking point is that 9 of these top 10 deals are located in the US and in Germany. It will be interesting to see how this evolves over the rest of the year. 🙋‍♂️ What would be your favourite startup among this top 10? Mine definitely is Oishii! #FoodTech #AgTech #investments

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Exceptional entrepreneurs come in many shapes and sizes - show us who you are and what you can do! 🛠️💡🚀 Since we at KRING mainly develop our venture concepts in-house, we care less about your idea, and more about YOU as a potential co-founder. Ideas change, people remain. The mindset and values we are looking for in individuals are (among others): 🤘🏼Proactiveness, hands-on, structured thinking, skin in the game, empathy, and kindness. Our experience has taught us that while the mindset and drive is alike, the educational, professional, and personal experiences across the best entrepreneurs differ a whole lot - and thank god for that! We don’t like to put people in a box - but nevertheless we have tried to provide a framework for our typical #cofounder profiles: 💚 Health and Energy industry experts 🦸🏽‍♀️ Second-time entrepreneurs (successful or failed) 📊 Management consultants 🛠️ Operators in high-growth startups / scale-ups 🌈 ...Surprise us and show us what you got! We are constantly looking for great people to join us on our mission to make the world a better place - one #impact venture at a time. Are you curious and what to learn more about building a venture with KRING? 👉Reach out to our Head of Talent & Culture, Agnes A.. Have we forgotten an ideal co-founder above or do you have any reflections to share! We would love to hear from you! #venturestudio #teamiskey #peoplegame

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🏭 First-of-a-kind plants seem like a big leap to most of us. While building such a plant is certainly challenging, it also represents a big opportunity. 💬 Next week at Latitude59 in Tallinn, Estonia, we will explore the challenges and opportunities around first-of-a-kind plants for climate tech solutions, from concept to financing. I'm excited to discuss this on stage alongside Erki Ani, Roni Hiranand, and Yvon Slingenberg. 🚀 If you happen to be in Tallinn next week, our portfolio company UP Catalyst is launching their GEN2 reactor at Latitude59. The new system will be producing carbon nanomaterials directly from CO2 at tonne-scale. 🔗 Find out more details on the reactor launch here 👉 https://lnkd.in/eSKh3uTW Extantia | Yair Reem | Fernanda Bartels | SFV | GV (Google Ventures) | European Commission | Gary Urb, PhD | Karl-Gustav Tamberg | Teele Niidas | Einar Karu | Sebastian Pohlmann | Ivar Kruusenberg | Kätlin Kaare | Mirjam-Kim Rääbis #climatetech #investing #venturecapital #firstofakind #FOAK #technology #engineering #science #sciencepreneurship #carbondioxide #CDR #DAC #CCU

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The Journey of the Last 12 Months: From a High Burn Business to a Profitable One The past year has been a blend of the best and the worst times in my journey as a founder. The Worst: I’ve lost count of the nights I felt disappointed and overwhelmed, struggling with frustration, exhaustion, and rejections. The weight of these emotions often felt unbearable. The Best: But these challenges have shaped us into a resilient and tenacious team. Our ability to turn crises into opportunities defines us. We may not be the biggest brand, but we know how to hustle. As a founder, I am eternally grateful to those who stood by me when no one else did. While we were the topic of gossip in various WhatsApp groups, what truly mattered was who showed up. Special Thanks To: Vivek Gambhir - Now I understand why they're called "angel” investors. Vivek met me every month and reminded me, "Ahana, where's your spark?" His words reignited my self-belief. Vivek, thank you for believing in me when I had stopped believing in myself. Apoorv Gautam - I owe you a lifetime of gratitude for the weekly calls you had with us. Your guidance and brainstorming sessions were pivotal. We wouldn’t be here without your support and candid feedback. Based on my experiences over the last 12 months, I can say with 100% confidence: if you are a founder in the consumer space, there’s no better partner than Apoorv Gautam. They stand by you when times are tough. India’s market demands more than just capital; it requires unwavering support. Trust me, you will thank me later. To My Dearest Open Secret Team: I am incredibly proud of each one of you. We did it! I am confident that together we will achieve many more milestones. Picture abhi baaki hain mere dost. (The picture is still incomplete, my friend.)

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Made With Intent Seed round 🚀 I'm so happy to finally be able to share that Intent has raised £1.5m led by our new friends at Mercuri, with participation from Portfolio Ventures and, of course, us! 😀 Haatch was founded by ex-retailers who have lived and breathed the pain Intent aims to eradicate. Currently, the way e-commerce communicates with their customers is nothing short of inappropriate. Generic tools built solely for pushing people to checkout reduces store visitors to data points, so you easily forget that on the other side of the screen is a real human being. These solutions are designed for everyone, yet serve only the few. Introducing Made With Intent.... allowing eCommerce to move from this digital directness to something more personal by focusing on their customers and their intent. By predicting where people are in their purchase journey and treating them accordingly. 📈 🎉 --- #madewithintent #intent #seed #venturecapital #team

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Invitation: Join us for the Danish Impact Meetup on May 30th 16-18:30! Are you curious to learn more about impact? Struggling to meet investors? Then join us on May 30th for drinks and food at Matrikel1, Højbro Plads 10 in Copenhagen as we are gathering the impact investing community 🌍 in Denmark and also celebrating the launch of the Danish Impact Committee! 🎉 The purpose of the event is to gather the ecosystem as the impact scene is still young and developing. This is a chance for asset managers, venture and private equity funds, entrepreneurs, advisors, NGOs and others to get to meet and understand the many approaches to conduct #impactful companies and investments. For entrepreneurs: Although this isn't a match making event, there will be plenty of investment funds and business angels for you to meet, and we will do our best to introduce entrepreneurs to potential investors. Please sign-up for the #DanishImpactMeetup on this form, we look much forward to meetup and welcome you all: bit.ly/3Q5Fqyb And follow-us on our new Linkedin page here 🤗 : https://lnkd.in/dqz4djE7 Sponsored by Mesh Community, Aktive Ejere - Active Owners Denmark & IMPACT Partners #DanishImpactCommittee #impactinvesting #greenimpact #socialimpact

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Sometime in March was my last day at Agro.Club, it was an amazing journey and we did some incredible work over last few years taking Agro.Club to the next orbit in terms of business model, growth, scale and a variety of other metrics. I want to thank Egor Kirin and Michiel de Jongh for the opportunity and the brilliant experience as we worked through the trenches. Personally too, it was an incredible experience as I was truly able to build "operational muscle" in scaling across dimensions - Streamlined our business to bring a razor sharp focus on our core - Full stack Global B2B Grain Marketplace - Grew Gross Revenue more than 6X - Grew Gross Profit more than 7X while expanding GP% in core markets - Launched, built teams and scaled operations in Brazil, USA and UAE - Raised Series B in one of the most difficult macro economic conditions (happy to chat 1:1 with founders on this one, way too many learnings to capture in one post) To the Founders out there: Some of my biggest learnings from this experience - If you can see PMF in one part of the business, double down on that with complete focus - Be quick and decisive in shutting down businesses that are a drain on capital and bandwidth - Capital allocation is key and continue to invest in growth but also have immense clarity on what not to invest in - Focus on metrics that truly matter to your business, be aware on what investors are looking for but disregard it if it does not make sense to you and/or your business - As a CFO I can tell you that while EBITDA is important, it is not the whole truth, Cash is king and knowing precisely the cash in the company, especially as you scale into hundreds of millions is gold - Hire folks who truly believe in your vision, that is table stakes. Indexing on experience vs hunger simply depends on the role - Despite the extreme odds, capital WILL find its way to top quality management teams who are building high growth fundamentally sound businesses (I cannot stress this enough but yes the bar is very high) Thanks to Speedinvest Deepali Nangia Enrique Martinez Hausmann VentureFriends Apostolos Apostolakis Pavlos Pavlakis Elevator Ventures Thomas Muchar Arushi Sharma Rabo Frontier Ventures Floris Onvlee Raiffeisen-Holding Niederösterreich-Wien Curt Chadha for the trust and the support Finally, none of this would have been possible without you guys so special thanks to all my colleagues at Agro.Club Pedro Salles Fabio Nascimento Ricardo Faias Artem Akchurin Felipe Ballejo Fernandes Ivan Baryshev Jason Dippel, you guys are true rockstars and I cannot wait to see everything that you will achieve with Agro.Club and beyond. I have taken a short break and will soon announce whats next 🙏

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Great lessons to learn from Mette Lykke in this podcast 💥 Absolutely inspiring insights from an outstanding leader. This episode is literally "Too Good To Go" 😉 Tune in, buckle up! From Doubt to Drive Mario C. Bauer

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