INVENTURE - Key Persons
"When assessing a business idea I ask, ‘Is this something great talent wants to join?' Smart people want to work on interesting problems. They don't want to optimize some ad thing. They want to change the world."
Adrian joined our Stockholm office from pre-seed talent investor Antler, where he as an early employee took part in scaling the investment platform from 15 to 180 people globally. Part of the global team spearheading Antler's expansion from 2 to 17 offices in under 3 years, Adrian launched Stockholm, New York City, Nairobi, and Berlin.
With high-paced operational experience and having been in the trenches with founders of portfolio companies, Adrian is a adamant people-first investor, a firm believer in that it all starts and ends with who you've got on the bus, and passionate about supporting founders to attract and retain fantastic people.
Job Titles:
- Manager
- Office and Culture Manager
Anna Salminen is Inventure's Office and Culture Manager. She gets to the Helsinki office early with her golden retriever, Louis, helping the team bring our best selves to work each day. While being based in Helsinki, she takes care of both personal and practical matters for both the Helsinki and Stockholm offices.
Anna is an American who moved to Helsinki from Michigan's Upper Peninsula in 2017, where she worked in the insurance industry. After moving to Helsinki she became a kindergarten teacher, giving her skills she hopefully won't have to use very often in the Inventure office.
Job Titles:
- Finance Manager
- Business Controller
Ellen Högnäs is Inventure's Business Controller. She manages our team's finances and drives our fund management tasks and quarterly reporting, ensuring smooth cooperation between founders, the investment team, and our LPs.
Ellen joined Inventure from Deloitte where she worked first at the Helsinki office before joining their Gothenburg team. In Sweden she was a certified public accountant working with mainly clients in the automotive industry.
Job Titles:
- Communications & Marketing Director
We first met Greg in the early 2010's when he was ArcticStartup's Editor in Chief, taking over after founder Antti Vilpponen left to run our portfolio company, Upcloud. After writing over 1500 articles on the Nordic and Baltic startup scene (including plenty of Inventure updates) he ran Creandum's Communications and Marketing for four years, helping their portfolio companies with news announcements and strengthened their brand through their blog and CEO Summits.
Jumping into the Nordic tech scene, Kevin joined Inventure in the summer of 2021. He actively builds our talent pool of experienced and high caliber founders, currently working with Anyday, Yeply, anotherblock, and Medoma.
Kevin focuses on fintech, healthtech, marketplaces, and consumer-facing tech. Prior to joining Inventure, he spent a couple years as an investment banker at Macquarie Capital, where he was part of various multi-billion M&A transactions. Kevin has also founded his own bootstrapped D2C brand, giving him a combination of the best of both worlds with the right operational mindset.
Coming from a high-paced environment, Kevin loves founders who take on complex problems with full dedication to the end-user.
Outside of work, Kevin loves sports and is passionate about food. He plans on opening up his own restaurant one day.
Kristiina is in charge of Inventure's investor relations, fund compliance and administration as well as monitoring governance across the portfolio. She also concentrates on ESG topics and developing the fund and the industry in this respect. She joined Inventure in early 2018, having worked for the previous 5 years at financial companies Springvest and Vauraus, most recently as a Compliance Officer for the latter. Prior to that, Kristiina worked at Accenture, in the consulting company's Finance and Performance Management unit. Kristiina is also a member of FVCA's (Finnish Venture Capital Association) Legal Committee.
While many other team members are described as ‘trustworthy', Kristiina takes it a step further by being the ultimate bedrock of our funds' smooth and stable operations. Others are having a hard time trying to remember a single time she hasn't shipped what was promised and emphasize that she always, always delivers down to the smallest detail. At work, "Titu" ensures that Inventure follows each rule and guideline by the book, yet in her Krav Maga hobby all rules are off. Martial arts and sports are one of her favorite pastimes, as she loves getting away from the everyday hassle into a completely new environment, whether it's traveling to a new country or skiing down the Alps.
Lauri first joined Inventure as an intern in 2015 and worked his way up to becoming one of the youngest partners in European Venture Capital. He focuses on new opportunities in sustainable resources, the fashion supply chain, proptech, and marketplaces.
At Inventure, Lauri has served on the boards of Swappie (raised 108M Series C), Umbra (acquired by Amazon), Nordigen (acquired by GoCardless) and Material Exchange (raised 25M Series A). Lauri holds a Master's in Information Networks from Aalto University, and developed his operational skills during a 1 year secondment at Material Exchange as VP of Growth.
Eight years in venture capital. Experience from working with over twenty tech companies, such as Funnel, Occtoo and TrusTrace. High-energy extrovert and always eager to help and share her extensive network. Long distance runner and sci-fi nerd.
Rebecka brings widespread experience from the Nordic tech scene, coming most recently from Investment Director at Industrifonden. There she worked with nine portfolio companies and invested in several high-growth companies such as DbVis, Occtoo, Hopsworks and TrusTrace. Her previous experience also include investment manager at Zenith Group, a VC-fund she was part of setting-up with portfolio companies such as Truecaller, Giosg, and Zound Industries. She also has operational experience as CFO as well as interim CEO at Varenne AB.
Rebecka loves meeting founders early and does not believe in the need for warm intros. She always tries to find ways to support and add value. On the lookout for transformative companies, especially within software, blockchain, ML and data infrastructure. She is also keen to find companies taking on hard and important problems, such as climate change.
A Partner at Capman before founding Inventure in 2005, Sami has almost 25 years of experience in venture capital. Having overseen the progress and learnings of over 100 portfolio companies, Sami's network and combined understanding of technology, business, and financing, are on a level of their own. In addition to working on the boards of Upcloud, Wirepas, Haltian, ONEiO, and Canatu, he serves on the boards of Business Finland and the Finnish Venture Capital Association.
Having previously run the partnerships and the Startup 100 competition at Slush and having worked as a COO and Coach at Sampo Accelerator, Teodora has developed a strong founder-focused mentality and an outstanding eye for early-stage startups.
Packed with curiosity and a dedication to leaving the world a better place than how she found it, she gets excited about ambitious founders with a no quit mentality and a strong vision of the future. Always ready to get her hands dirty and help founders reach their next goal.
She is passionate about all things fitness and bodybuilding, so if you don't see her at the office, she's probably at the gym.
Timo founded his first investment firm already in the 90s, before teaming up with Sami to found Inventure in 2005.
Timo founded his first investment firm already in the 90s, before teaming up with Sami to found Inventure in 2005. Originally a Physics major and a true technology enthusiast, Timo works with the more R&D- and science-focused portfolio companies. As one of the most experienced investors and board members in the Nordic venture capital industry, Timo currently works on the boards of Detectify, AIMotive, Logical Clocks, Abzu, and Comptek.
Timo's background in sports - a golf enthusiast, diehard IFK fan, a handball coach, captain, and player on a national level - helps describe Timo: the ultimate team player and coach, who gives his all to make others shine and win, while not making a big number about himself. Entrepreneurs describe Timo as always representing the company, ‘thinking in deep tech', and bringing onboard invaluable experience to guide and govern a startup. Others describe him as a ‘no bullshitting' coach or a therapist who talks in stories and analogies and who you can always give a call - as long as you know that ‘a quick 5-minute call' rarely exists with Timo.
Tuomas has +15 years of experience in venture capital, joining the Inventure team soon after its start in 2007. Tuomas' expertise is as wide as it is diverse, previously working as an entrepreneur, an attorney with two master's in Law and Economics, as the in-house legal counsel for Nokia, and was the CFO of Angry Birds maker Rovio. The list of companies he's worked with at Inventure is also diverse, spanning from: Blueprint Genetics, Hedera, Howspace, Scoro, Nordigen, Solsten, Whatagraph, and more.
Tuomas has a deep understanding of building and scaling a business. He's a big-picture thinker who's determined and driven to win and is always available for his portfolio companies. If he's not at the office, you'll likely find him spending time with his family, in the Alps or in the south, on a bicycle or on skis - just as multifaceted and fast-paced as at work.