The top 25: Linnéa Lindau, chief executive, Chalmers Ventures
Linnéa Lindau has been chief executive of Chalmers Ventures, the university venture fund and incubator of Chalmers University of Technology, since its launch in September 2015 – though a predecessor unit had been in operation since 1997.
Chalmers Ventures was set up with Skr300m ($33.3m) to be invested over 10 years, but in just three years it has grown to 75 portfolio companies and achieved an impressive 40 exits – five of them this year.
Combining investments with business development in the same organisation has worked well for Chalmers Ventures so far, with chairman Stefan Johnsson telling GUV: “Chalmers Ventures’ investment strategy has proven to both reach the target return on investment and create highly-ranked and valued tech startups. Our fund management and business development are merged into one seamless process and tightly connected to the university. This creates a strong fundament for an amazing performance and potential.”
Chalmers Ventures typically invests Skr50,000 at the proof-of-concept stage, through its Encubation program, up to Skr300,000 at the pre-seed stage, up to Skr5m in seed rounds and up to Skr15m in later-stage rounds.
To be eligible for investment, spinouts must have participated in or commit to going through one of Chalmers Ventures’ startup programs and have a clear connection to the Gothenburg ecosystem.
Lindau told GUV the long-term goal was to generate an ecosystem that thrived alone rather than requiring the active stimulus of Chalmers Ventures. To that end, Chalmers Ventures is involved in a range of initiatives, such as entrepreneurial education for Chalmers graduates, called Entrepreneurship in Education, and is collaborating with incubators across west Sweden, regional and national policymakers and industry.
Entrepreneurship in education is an intriguing model created by Chalmers Foundation which aims to equip 50% of students with the competencies required to becoming an entrepreneur. Chalmers Ventures manages lectures and events as part of that three-year program.
Fredrik Hörstedt, vice-president of utilisation at Chalmers University of Technology, told GUV: “Chalmers Ventures enables us as a university to transform ideas from our researchers and students into cutting-edge startups. Thereby we increase both our impact on business and society, as well as the quality of our research and education. This is exactly how we want to act – as a leader in the creation of ventures that create value and shape the future of tech for a sustainable world.”
Despite the fact that it is early days for the fund, the 40 exits have proven that Lindau and her team are doing things right. One of these exits was fleet management software developr Vehco, which was acquired by communications technology producer AddSecure in May – and while financial terms were not disclosed, Chalmers Ventures called it a “big deal” at the time.
Another big deal was when data analytics firm UBI Global ranked Chalmers Ventures the number-one incubator in the Nordic region, third in Europe and 12th globally for incubators managed by a university.
Lindau has clearly been doing an outstanding job and the next big deal cannot be far away.