Q4 2023: Quarterly Briefing – Nordic Investments

Dear Cleantech Scandinavia Member,

As many of you know we entered a partnership with Breakthrough Energy last year to establish Cleantech for Nordics. It is a coalition of Nordic investors and entrepreneurs that have come together to engage with Nordic (and European) policymakers to inspire them to take action to accelerate growth in Nordic cleantech.

In this project we have started to communicate regularly in different ways. We write papers and articles and drive certain processes on for example how to solve the cleantech scale up investment gap and to promote cleantech innovation in general. We have started to publish a Quarterly Briefing from the Nordics that contains everything from investment statistics to the latest in terms of policy development, scale ups, funding models etc.

It feels natural that we would share this with our members and therefore you will receive these Q-briefs in good time before they are published to the general public. We hope you will appreciate these and we welcome any kind of feedback you may have.

Best Regards

Laura and Magnus

Q4 2023: Quarterly Briefing – Nordic Investments2026-01-02T20:44:09+01:00

Top 25 Report – 2022 – 11th Edition

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Top 25 Report – 2022 – 11th Edition2026-01-02T20:45:46+01:00

NEW REPORT ON PRIVATE CLEANTECH INVESTMENT TRENDS IN 2021

Interested to read more?

2021 sees remarkable growth in cleantech investments.

With a total of 6.46 Billion € invested in Nordic and Baltic cleantech startups, this year marks a transformation for the cleantech ecosystem. This trend is in line with a booming European venture landscape as funding for European startups overall increased by 159% this year. By comparison, private investments in the Nordic cleantech sector increased by 241% from 2020 to 2021. Considering both the Nordic and Baltic countries, this figure reaches an impressive 252% increase.​ This growth is driven by an increase in larger deals, where 2021 saw a doubled share of deals ranging from 10 M € to 20 M €. Investing strategies are shifting in response to emerging regulations such as the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation and the accelerated focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria in private markets. 2021 boasts many encouraging signs that high-impact innovations will get the funding they need to scale up and lead the transition to low-carbon economies.

A venture landscape increasingly dominated by non-Nordic investors.

The share of investment rounds that included non-Nordic European investors doubled compared to 2020, while the share of rounds that included non-European investors increased by 5 percentage points. Together, investment rounds that included non-Nordic investors represent 87% of the total amount invested. In order to better understand the origin of the funding, we collected new data on up to five investors per round. This analysis revealed that investors from 30 different countries were involved in the 311 private venture rounds collected this year.

Sweden’s cleantech innovation scene faces increased competition from its Nordic and Baltic neighbours.

While Sweden still claimed the lion’s share of investments this year, the Nordic leader is facing increasing competition from its neighbours. Norway experienced the strongest growth in investments amongst Nordic countries, with a total of 929 M € invested. Looking at the Baltics, Estonia is attracting an increasing number of deals. The Baltic champion raised 75 M € through 21 deals providing growing competition to Finland and Denmark.

Investment focus in line with net zero targets?

The Transportation and Logistics sector dominated the scene this year, with an 82% increase in its deal volume, now representing 16% of all deals. While this sector has a key role to play in the transition to low-carbon economies, e-mobility solutions are enjoying a hype which comes at the expense of other high-impact technologies. While showing a similar deal volume, significantly less was invested in the Agricultural sector this year, despite the world’s food systems being responsible for more than one-third of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Large emission-reduction opportunities are left untapped and accelerated action is needed in key sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing and industry to reach our climate goals. Investors need to target nascent technology areas with high impact potential to accelerate sectoral tipping points.

The race to net zero without women?

Brand new statistics that we have developed this year show that there is a major funding gap in the Nordic Cleantech Ecosystem. Female-led startups receive an insignificant share of the capital invested in the sector. While Nordic countries have long been championed as leaders in gender equality, this is not reflected in investment activities. As a whole, Nordic countries show the same funding disparities as the CEE region. Interestingly, Denmark stands out from its Nordic neighbors with more than one third of funding going to female-led startups. We are still, however, far from achieving equality and women are missing out on a chance to shape our future. Failing to address this gap constitutes a big risk as greater female representation is not only a key driver for performance but also essential in building an inclusive, sustainable future.

Download the Report

NEW REPORT ON PRIVATE CLEANTECH INVESTMENT TRENDS IN 20212026-01-02T19:57:37+01:00

Top 25 Report – 2021 – 10th Edition

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Top 25 Report – 2021 – 10th Edition2025-12-31T16:29:05+01:00

The Nordic Cleantech Private Investment Scene – Learnings from 2020

While the year 2020 came with a staggering number of uncertainties, the cleantech sector in the Nordics and Baltics emerged relatively unscathed. The overall inflow of capital increased by 33% since last year and reached 1.8 billion euros!

Which cleantech segments are booming?

With a record in investments despite the COVID-19 crisis, it is more relevant than ever to ask which segments of innovation attracted the attention of private investors. This year’s private investment trends in the Nordics and Baltics show that private investors were most present in the agricultural, transportation & logistics, recycling & waste, manufacturing & industrial and energy segments.

The agricultural segment broke all records this year, securing the largest number of deals and receiving 302 M € in private investments. The segment is reinventing itself and this year proved that innovation has no boundaries going from solutions that propose alternative ways to produce protein at a lower environmental cost, to smart technologies aiming to improve farming yield while limiting the use of natural resources, to a surge in urban farming innovation and finally to the emergence of robotic solutions for pest control.

Moreover, despite the severe economic challenges imposed on the transportation sector by the COVD-19 pandemic, this year’s investment trends show a retained interest in electric mobility. Investments in electromobility range from charging infrastructure solutions to the electrification of boats, bikes, cars, buses and trucks, to the development of integrated electro-mobility platforms. Despite the pandemic, sharing economy also appears to be a growing player in the development of new mobility patterns.

In addition, circular innovation is now key to several of our segments, including recycling & waste and manufacturing & industrial. This trend is emphasised by the 117% growth in the numbers of deals secured by the recycling & waste segment, which was accompanied by a 34% growth in the amounts invested. At last, this year’s third largest investment was secured by Renewcell, a key player on the Nordic circular economy scene.

While we saw a reallocation of investments across our 11 cleantech segments this year, what can we say about investment trends across the Nordic and Baltic countries?

Sweden – ahead of the other Nordic countries on the cleantech investment scene?

For yet another year, Sweden dominates the cleantech investment scene; both in terms of the number of deals that it secured but also in terms of the amounts invested. The champion of the Nordics and Baltics secured a total of 1,266 M € in private capital, twice as much as last year. In addition, while 54% of the deals are directed towards Swedish companies, they represent 70% of the total amount invested this year. The top 5 investments in Sweden total 880 M € and were secured by Northvolt, Oatly, Renewcell, Scandinavian Biogas and Tibber. Northvolt raised 532 M € in equity from international investors, securing the largest investment this year.

What makes Sweden different from its Nordic neighbours?

With a capital city known as the unicorn factory, Sweden is at the centre of the Nordic start-up ecosystem. Stockholm has one of the fastest-growing tech startup scenes in the world and produced well known unicorns, including Skype, Spotify and Klarna. What is interesting is that cleantech companies seem to represent a growing share of the unicorn ecosystem. Northvolt is the most notable, but soonicorns such as Orbital Systems, Einride, X Shore and Eliq are also in the spotlight. Sweden’s attractive startup ecosystem combined with its ambitious climate goals constitutes the ideal ground for cleantech companies, which might explain Sweden’s lead over its Nordic neighbours. We are excited to see how these trends will evolve in the coming years!

Interested to know more?

Our Nordic Cleantech Dealflow Report provides an overview of this year’s monthly investment trends, an in-depth look at the evolution of investments across the Nordics and Baltics, as well as an analysis of the investment landscape across our 11 cleantech segments. Note that we also hand-picked example companies to give you a taste of some of the most audacious innovations!

The full report is available to our members only, and it is one of the many exciting member’s benefits that Cleantech Scandinavia provides!

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT

The Nordic Cleantech Private Investment Scene – Learnings from 20202025-12-31T16:43:46+01:00

Analysis on Avoided Emissions Frameworks

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Analysis on Avoided Emissions Frameworks2026-01-04T02:58:58+01:00
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