Cleantech Investments in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden: Are they performing well?

The development of clean technology (cleantech) is necessary in order to address many prominent environmental challenges. However, financing can be a hurdle for the development of cleantech companies. Venture capital (VC) plays an important role in cleantech development. While the four large Nordic countries are regarded as performing well in terms of cleantech innovation there are signs that VC investments are not performing well in the Nordic region. Therefore, this thesis explored whether the private Nordic VC funds are performing well or not and why they perform successfully or unsuccessfully. The results from the performance review and the interviews do not support the initial information that the Nordic funds are not performing well. Only one of the interviewed funds does not have companies with a trend of growing in its portfolio. The remaining five interviewed Nordic funds have some companies in their portfolio with a growing trend. On the other hand, it is not certain that these funds are performing well as only historical trends of companies that are still in the portfolios are considered, while the actual performance of funds finally depends on the exits of the portfolio companies. Several factors that differ between the poorly performing Nordic fund and regarded successful European funds, including the fund size, specialization in investments, management of portfolio companies and the background of the fund. When comparing the other Nordic funds to the European funds, some differences could be identified too. For example, the funds from other European countries review more proposals than the Nordic ones in general. The European funds are also more open to initial public offerings (IPO) as an option for exiting portfolio companies.