Helsinki’s Icebreaker has closed its second fund at €100 million and raised a separate €20 million that will be used to continue investments in existing portfolio companies. This marks the final closed of the Icebreaker Fund II, almost a year to date since their first close (at €50 million).
Icebreaker reports that the €6 million invested from the first fund over 2017-2019 has converted to €63 million in follow-on funding led by later-stage investors. One example would include Sellforte’s raise of €4 million from Sonae IM and Bonnier Ventures.
When it comes to staging, Icebreaker specialises in 0 to seed. E.g., “no stage is too early for us to invest,” and “Our community supports founders even before they know what they want to build or have a team.”
And Icebreaker’s numbers speak for themselves. At the angel investor stage, that is, less than a €200,000 investment, Icebreaker reports a 63.64% success rate, and at pre-seed stage, 65%. A full look at Icebreaker's portfolio can be found in this handy airtable database.
It's clear that Icebreaker is heavily invested in the development of founders. As noted in our coverage of the Forward Partners and Landscape report, whereby founders don’t simply want cash, but rather a solid mentor/partner on the journey. To this end, Icebreaker puts a heavy emphasis on fostering founders who can learn rapidly and rapidly accelerate multiple aspects of company building. In particular, overcoming the “founder’s dilemma”.
“When a company and its team grows, you need to continually reassess how you are spending your time and avoid becoming a bottleneck. At some point, you will need to take the leap of faith and not feel like you need to know every micro-detail that’s happening within the company. It’s more important to know how to filter it down to the essential level to maintain direction and alignment across the team,” says Flowhaven co-founder Kalle Törmä in Authority Magazine.
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