We are glad to announce that one of the most active and experienced European investors born in Estonia – Startup Wise Guys – joins EstVCA as the main member.
With more than 350 investments in early-stage startups, Startup Wise Guys (SWG) is the leading early-stage investor with a focus on underserved markets (Baltics, CEE, CIS, Italy, Spain, and Africa).
They invest in the strongest technical B2B founders in this region early on and speed up their growth through their acceleration program that they have been running since 2012. They make additional follow-on investments in winning teams from the accelerator to double down on the performers.
SWG is the only cross-border investor that covers this region with such strategy and scale. They are diversifying the investment across hundreds of companies throughout the region and also between different verticals – SaaS, Fintech, Cybersecurity, Sustainability, Industry 4.0, and Extended Reality. They provide diversified Access to an early-stage portfolio in one of the fastest-growing regions in the world, where all the startups are handpicked by the rigorous selection process, and unique access that goes through the best acceleration program in the region.
Kadri Lindpere, the Managing Director of EstVCA says it is an absolute honor to welcome such an important ecosystem player in the membership. “As the representative body of Estonian largest private equity and venture capital investors, I’m very happy to see also Startup Wise Guys joining the association and adding their experience and network to our close to 30 investor pool. Our key goal is to further promote the digital business environment and most founder-and-investor-friendly ecosystem that Estonia has built over the years and it is great to have SWG join us on the journey”.
Dag Ainsoo, the General Partner of Startup Wise Guys adds: “In the past years we have been focusing on exponential growth and reaching geographic areas as far as Africa. However, we are also loyal to our home base of Estonia and have recently increased our later-stage and direct investments from our various fund vehicles. The EstVCA partnership is perfectly aligned with these goals, and we are thrilled to be on board now. We are ready to share our own knowledge and expand the network through what EstVCA has to offer.”
About EstVCAThe Estonian Private and Venture Capital Association (EstVCA) is an organization uniting representatives of the private equity and venture capital industry and support service providers in the field, whose assets under management amounted to 2.88 billion euros at the end of 2021. Today, EstVCA has 59 member organizations, the main members of which are Ambient Sound Investments, BaltCap, BPM Capital, Change Ventures, Eften Capital, European Investment Fund, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Iron Wolf Capital, Kaamos Group, Karma Ventures, KredEx, LHV Varahaldus, Livonia Partners, Perot Jain, Siena Secondary Fund, SmartCap, Specialist VC, Startup Wise Guys, Superangel, Swedbank Investment Funds, Tera Ventures, Trind Ventures, United Partners, UP Invest, Wellman and a pool of family offices (Topanga OÜ, Serenga OÜ, Autumn Spirit OÜ, Kokkuhoideur OÜ, Hoiur OÜ). www.estvca.ee
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