Focusing on pre-seed and seed-stage investments, Stockholm-based Luminar Ventures has announced the launch of their second fund at €60 million. The firm is looking to invest in startups anywhere between €500,000 to €1 million in pre-seed and up to €2 million in seed funding in startups working in fintech, healthtech, insurtech, marketplaces, sustainability, developer tools, gaming, consumer subscription-based services, that have a demonstrable ability to rapidly scale. Armed with a fresh €60 million, Luminar will retain its primary focus on companies hailing from Sverige, but is now opening up its purview to the broader Nordic region.
“The other Nordic startup ecosystems have grown massively in just these last few years, and we see that similar to Sweden successful founders, operators, and investors are re-investing their money and experiences into a new cohort of founders that have either already been part of major venture journeys or picked up the winning recipes from the ecosystem on how to built a successful tech company,” commented general partner Jacob Key.
Founded in 2017 by Daniel Karsberg, Jacob Key, Linda Samlin Hoglund (also Chief Operating Officer at Klarna), and Magnus Bergman, collectively, the team has founded more than 10 tech companies and invested in over 30 startups as angels investors. Similar to the recently reported Cherry Ventures’ team, this hands-on experience gives Luminar a unique edge in so much as they have the ability and know-how to support founders from humble beginnings all the way through to the growth phase, namely via strategy, growth, sales, product development, recruiting and other critical services.
Through the team’s previous ecosystem experience and connections, Luminar also positions its value add via a hand-crafted network of operating partners hailing from iZettle, Spotify, Klarna and other hyper-growth companies from the local ecosystem.
And this experience and connectivity speak for themselves: 90% of Luminar’s pre-seed investments and over 50% of their seed investments have subsequently gone on to raise larger seed, Series A and Series B rounds, aggregating to more than €170 million raised, all within, on average, 18 months from Luminar’s initial investment.
A sampling of Lumiar's portfolio includes standouts Carla, Greenely, and mynt.
Luminar Ventures’ second fund is anchored by existing investors EIF, Saminvest, Svenska Kyrkan (The Swedish Church), Ericsson’s pension fund, and several family offices.
“All of our leading investors in Fund I, decided to invest in fund II, which we are very happy for. Clearly, they see the great momentum we have and want to continue supporting us in building Luminar into a leading Nordic seed fund,” concluded Key.
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