Verdane launches €300 million growth impact fund

Copen­ha­gen / Berlin — Verdane, a Euro­pean private equity firm specia­li­zing in growth capi­tal, today announ­ced the final closing of the Verdane Idun I Fund (“Idun” or “the Fund”) at the hard cap of €300 million. The fund is thus above the origi­nal target fund volume of 225 million euros. Idun is an impact fund compli­ant with Article 9 of the EU Disclo­sure Regu­la­tion that invests in tech­­no­­logy-based compa­nies in Europe. With the launch of Idun, Verdane under­pins its ambi­ti­ons in the field of sustaina­bi­lity and aims to achieve posi­tive sustainable effects through its invest­ments in fast-growing companies.

The fund has alre­ady made three invest­ments: in Auntie (www.auntie.io), a digi­tal provi­der of work­place mental well­be­ing services, in Spond (www.spond.com), a digi­tal plat­form for grass­roots sports and physi­cal health promo­tion, and in a third company to be announ­ced at a later date.

Bjarne Kveim Lie (Photo © Verdane), Co-Foun­­der and Mana­ging Part­ner of Verdane.We would like to thank both our exis­ting and new inves­tors for the trust they have placed in us. Their encou­ra­ge­ment of Idun rein­forces our approach of focu­sing on tech­no­logy as a key driver of more sustainable deve­lo­p­ment. We believe that inves­tors like Verdane should take a leading role in this deve­lo­p­ment and support foun­ders and manage­ment teams in inte­gra­ting sustaina­bi­lity into their busi­ness models, ther­eby crea­ting value with a posi­tive impact. The success of Idun’s fund­rai­sing also reflects the contin­ued deve­lo­p­ment of our company and we look forward to inves­t­ing the commit­ted capi­tal in a way that makes a posi­tive contri­bu­tion to the world we live in.”

Inves­tors in the fund include leading insti­tu­ti­ons such as Nysnø, the Norwe­gian sove­reign wealth fund for invest­ments to address climate change, and AP3, one of Sweden’s largest public pension funds.

As with Verdane’s previous invest­ments, Idun will focus on tech­­no­­logy-based solu­ti­ons in the core areas of energy tran­si­tion, sustainable consump­tion, and resi­li­ent socie­ties. Verdane bene­fits from its many years of expe­ri­ence as a growth inves­tor in sustainable busi­ness models.

All of Idun’s invest­ments must meet both finan­cial and tangi­ble sustaina­bi­lity crite­ria. Verdane under­stands this to mean contri­bu­ting to the imple­men­ta­tion of at least one of the UN Sustainable Deve­lo­p­ment Goals (SDGs), as well as quali­fy­ing invest­ments accor­ding to an “Impact Frame­work” deve­lo­ped speci­fi­cally by Verdane and based on the Impact Manage­ment Project. Each port­fo­lio company of the Idun Fund will regu­larly report on defi­ned sustaina­bi­lity metrics. Both the carried inte­rest and the loan terms of the fund are linked to the achie­ve­ment of the asso­cia­ted sustaina­bi­lity targets.

Idun has recei­ved strong support from exis­ting inves­tors, most of whom are insti­tu­tio­nal inves­tors, inclu­ding foun­da­ti­ons, family offices and pension funds.

Idun’s manage­ment team has both signi­fi­cant entre­pre­neu­rial expe­ri­ence and exten­sive exper­tise in impact inves­t­ing. The Idun team is part of the Verdane plat­form with its more than 90 invest­ment experts, as well as the Verdane Elevate team, which consists of experts with parti­cu­lar opera­tio­nal know-how. With this approach, Verdane can opti­mally support compa­nies in reali­zing their full value crea­tion poten­tial and making a posi­tive contri­bu­tion to a more sustainable world. The fund will be mana­ged by part­ners Chris­tian Jebsen and Erik Osmund­sen, supported by direc­tors Reed Snyder and Karin Kans and sustaina­bi­lity lead Axel Elmqvist.

Chris­tian Jebsen, Part­ner at Verdane, said, “Coupled with the announce­ment of the Idun closing at the begin­ning of the year, we see a strong pipe­line of poten­tial invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties across Northwest Europe, as eviden­ced by the fund’s first invest­ments in three promi­sing new port­fo­lio compa­nies. We believe that sustaina­bi­lity will play an incre­asingly important role as a dedi­ca­ted stra­tegy for growth and private equity invest­ments. The entire indus­try is just evol­ving stron­gly towards a more sustainable and respon­si­ble mind­set. As an estab­lished part­ner for growth in tech­no­logy and sustaina­bi­lity, Verdane crea­tes value and helps its port­fo­lio compa­nies scale their busi­ness models. We look forward to working with their manage­ment teams to make a posi­tive impact.”

Verdane is one of the most active growth equity inves­tors in Northwest Europe, having made 17 invest­ments in 2021, inclu­ding four port­fo­lio tran­sac­tions. Idun will comple­ment the exis­ting Capi­tal and Edda fund stra­te­gies, adding an important invest­ment area to Verdane. The fund aims to deve­lop a frame­work and tools for impact inves­t­ing that will set bench­marks and be available to the rest of the invest­ment company’s teams as they refine and add value to their invest­ment strategies.

About Verdane

Verdane is an invest­ment company specia­li­zing in growth capi­tal that supports compa­nies with sustainable and tech­­no­­logy-based busi­ness models in their inter­na­tio­nal growth. Verdane parti­ci­pa­tes as a mino­rity or majo­rity inves­tor in indi­vi­dual compa­nies or port­fo­lios of compa­nies, focu­sing on three core themes:
Digi­tal Consu­mer, Soft­ware and Sustainable Society. Verdane’s funds have capi­tal commit­ments of €3.6 billion. Since 2003, the company has inves­ted in more than 135 fast-growing companies.
Verdane’s team of more than 90 employees, with offices in Berlin, Copen­ha­gen, Helsinki, London, Oslo and Stock­holm, is commit­ted to being the best part­ner for growth capi­tal in Europe.