The Danish Startup Ecosystem Guide 2024 - Magazine - Page 36
SOFTFUNDING
Sponsored: This article is published in collaboration with Nordic Innovators and Nordic Innovators Corporate Finance
Nordic Innovators secures financing from idea to exit:
”Our goal is to minimize dilution”
For more than 10 years, Nordic Innovators have been experts in raising soft-funding
for startups. Now they have established a corporate finance arm to help startups,
scaleups and established companies with every step of their growth journey.
E
very growth journey is different.
Some startups bootstrap their
way to success, while others
have investors behind them
from day one.
That is why Nordic Innovators, which
guides startups and scaleups through
the many soft-funding opportunities
in Denmark and abroad, has recently
established Nordic Innovators Corporate
Finance (NICF).
The consulting and innovation house
has over the past 10 years established
itself as one of Europe’s leaders, raising
over EUR 1 billion in soft capital. With
NICF, they now serve even more stages
of a company’s lifecycle.
“The new corporate 昀椀nance leg represents new opportunities because it
gives us a 360-degree overview of the
昀椀nancing of a given company. This
gives us the best basis for working with
the client to create a strategic funding
plan that can combine both hard and
soft capital and at the same time dilute
the founders as little as possible,” says
Jan Rezek, Managing Director of Nordic
Innovators Corporate Finance.
At NICF, clients are able to get corporate 昀椀nance advice and services in rela-
36
tion to equity and debt 昀椀nancing, M&A
and corporate venturing. In practice, this
means that startups can now get guidance for all steps on the funding path.
“It’s rare to get full funding through
soft-funding. In many cases, you have
to cover the costs yourself or match
investments, and this will often require
external funding. It’s very dif昀椀cult to scale
a business based solely on soft capital,
Nordic Innovators
•
NICF has a strong expertise within
startup and scaleup company
valuation, which comes useful prior to
equity 昀椀nancing.
•
NICF also works as a transaction
advisor in preparation for an exit,
improving company value overtime and
ensuring maximum shareholder value.
•
NI can advise you on the optimal
combination of funding instruments,
either national or international funding
•
Soft funding is relevant at all stages,
from early-stage, e.g. 500k DKK grant
from Innobooster to NI‘s biggest win
yet of +500m grant from EU
•
O昀昀ers proposal writing but also
feedback on hourly basis e.g. helping
you improve your draft proposal
most people need the combination on the
journey. And we can now support that
journey all the way,” says Kristoffer Riis,
Partner and CCO at Nordic Innovators.
Consider all options
When founders start thinking about
raising capital, most immediately think
about giving up equity stakes on the
basis of a valuation of the company. But
just as many roads lead to Rome, there
are many ways to fund a one’s growth
journey, Jan Rezek explains.
“I often meet startups that haven’t
heard of EIFO or all the other opportunities to get capital without giving up
equity that are out there.”
When a startup wants to raise capital,
NICF starts with a thorough analysis of the
company. Everything from funding history, debt to R&D processes and 昀椀nancial
statements are turned over and over again.
Norwegian vertical farming startup
Avisimo has experienced this thoroughness 昀椀rst-hand.
“NICF is focused on understanding our
service and business before trying to
昀椀nd solutions. They have an ability to
take on quite complex problems and
work them out in simple and elegant
The Guide