FiBAN published the statistics together with Finnish Venture Capital Association. In the presentation below is described the angel investment highlights including the industrial split for the investments made, valuations, exits, and job creation.

The FiBAN network is one of the largest and most active business angel networks in Europe representing over 500 approved members. FiBAN is a member of the European Business Angels Network (EBAN).

Finnish Business Angel Investments 2016


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Business angels invested in median 20.000 euros per company, per round giving an individual angel a 2% median ownership in the company. The median for the total investment round was 218.500 euros with a 1 million startup valuation. 
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Development of the Finnish angel investments

The median size of Finnish angel investments has been declining which can be considered positive as the amount of startups receiving investments has grown. Angels invests more often together with other investors, building a larger investment portfolio and sharing the risk. The average investment size for 2016 grew because of some very large super angel investments. 
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Industrial Split of Finnish Angel Investments

The most popular sector was “Business services and Fintech” (21%) showing at a lot of the services invested were made to B2B services and financial technology. Bioeconomy is a new emerging interest area for business angels, but the majority of the “Cleantech ja Bioeconomy” –sector investmetns (20%) were done into cleantech.

​FiBAN removed sectors “ICT “ and “Mobile” as these were considered to be part of majority of the investment targets in some form. New sectors included were “Education technology” (4%), “Media and Marketing” (12%), and“Lifestyle and Consumer goods “ (13%), which already have .
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Finnish Angel Exits

65% of the of exits reported were positive, giving a return 2X or more. A very positive sign is that there are several exits with more than 10X. It should be still noted that many of the less positive exits were not reported. 
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Jobs created by angel investments in Finland

Since 2013 FiBAN has followed the amount of jobs created by angel investors. During 2016 over 1100 jobs were created in the companies reported in the questionnaire. FiBAN’s cumulative calculations show that there has been at least 13.000 jobs created in the companies invested by angels.
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Finnish business angels

The Finnish angel ecosystem is developing positively and also the interest to become an angel is steadily growing. FiBAN had 566 approved angel members in the end of year 2016 of which 265 (47%) answered the yearly questionnaire. Out of respondents 177 (66%) had made startup investments the previous year. The amount of women investor members has also increased but as the whole network has grown, the share is the same 11% as the previous year. Approximately fifth of the the FiBAN members are working full-time as business angels.  
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Regional angel activity

Most of the angel activity is in Finland is based in the greater Helsinki region (71%) but more local activity is to be seen especially in Tampere, Turku and Oulu. It is important to have visible local angels as it supports and inspires the “home town” startup activity and gives better access to local investments. Also the ending of Finnvera’s (Finnish public investment institution) early-stage investment has increased the importance of active local angel activity. 
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FiBAN board and administration

The FiBAN board consists of seven active business angels and an administration of of the persons. For any additional questions or feedback, please contact FiBAN.