Nordic Angel Program (NAP), a training and investment program for startup investors in the Nordic and Baltic region has successfully channeled investments in four startups worth 575.000 euros. The companies are Fractory from Estonia, Meploy from Denmark, Screenful from Finland, and Clucoset from Norway. With the goal to inspire new cross-border angel investments, NAP aims to channel investments in total worth 4 million euros in 16 startups during 2018 and 2019.
Parallelly run in four different countries, Estonia, Denmark, Finland and Norway, the three-month angel training was attended by 90 business angels that shared their local startup investing best practices and evaluated almost 500 startups seeking investments. Each angel group comprised of a mix of new and experienced investors, where the responsibility for closing the final investments laid with the experienced angels.
The main goal for the program is to educate business angels about cross-border investing including joint study trips, evaluation of startups and discussing investment opportunities on StartupIncluder, the shared deal flow platform to evaluate the startup applications. Thomas Black-Petersen further explained, “Startup Includer turned out to be very valuable for the group as we could share our thoughts and concerns with the other investors. It was very helpful to manage the deal flow and to close the final deal.”
The national programs were hosted by the local angel networks EstBAN (Estonia), FiBAN (Finland), DanBAN (Denmark) and BAN Norway in tight cooperation with the main startup events in the region Latitude59, Arctic15, AngelSummit Denmark and Seed Forum Global. All the national programs consisted of four trainings sessions where the latest startup investing best practices were discussed. In addition, several workshops were organised where investors together evaluated the potential investment opportunities. Each program had its own specific structure and the final contract terms and any startups with links to the Nordic and Baltic region were eligible to send in the applications.
With an increased interest for business angels to expand their network of co-investors and find startups outside their own region, the program structure supporting cross-border investing was very well received by the investors from the spring batch. Many of them have credited the program to close the gap in the knowledge level of how to optimize cross-border investments as a group. The program organisers have also thanked the local startup events for their warm cooperation as this gave access to larger amount of startups and access to investors attending the event.
Speaking with a program participant investor Reima Linnanvirta was quoted, “The startup sparring workshops where investors evaluate the value of companies together can be a deep learning experience. You can gain a lot from other investors and also learn about useful processes and tools to support the evolution.”
The next set of programs is scheduled to start nationally in September – October. The interested candidates can learn more about the program and register their application at www.nordicangelprogram.com