Ossi Tiainen, principal at NGP Capital, is one of our top 50 Emerging Leaders in corporate venturing in 2023.
From teaching programming to investing in unicorns, NGP Capital principal Ossi Tiainen has made his mark on his firm and the wider VC space. Tiainen moved quickly up the ranks since joining in early 2016, becoming associate in 2017, vice president in 2019 and principal in late 2021.
NGP Capital is the corporate venturing arm of Nokia, a wireless and fixed-network equipment maker.
NGP Capital general partner Paul Asel describes Tiainen as a respected investor in Europe, who brings good investment deal generation and is a candidate for partner within the firm.
“He has been behind some of our best investments in Europe and is doing a great job nurturing our portfolio companies. He has also spearheaded several of our programmes internally, such as career progression and analytical frameworks,” says Asel.
“He has been behind some of our best investments in Europe and is doing a great job nurturing our portfolio companies.”
Tiainen has played an important role in the firm’s investments in startups, such as supply chain visibility company Shippeo, cybersecurity company Akeyless Security, computer vision technology developer Scandit and food delivery service Deliveroo before the latter’s initial public offering in early 2021.
He had previously been an analyst and consultant at August Associates between 2013 and 2016, following brief stints at Synocus and Network Ten, allowing him to bring experience in business planning, portfolio strategy, commercial due diligence and supply chain optimisation to new portfolio companies. His software bona fides go as far back as his time as assistant teacher for basics of programming at Aalto University.
NGP Capital invests in B2B companies at series A-stage or later, focused on the industrial tech, cybersecurity, infrastructure and enterprise software across the US, Europe, China and Israel. Other portfolio companies include interactive yoga studio Yogaia, in-store analytics software company RetailNext, mobile-based healthcare platform Vida and workplace analytics software provider Teem.
See the rest of our Top 50 Emerging Leaders here.
Fernando Moncada Rivera
Fernando Moncada Rivera is a reporter at Global Corporate Venturing and also host of the CVC Unplugged podcast.
