A person standing on stage at TechBBQ in front of an audience.

Conclusion

Throughout this report, we have explored the composition of the Danish investment ecosystem as well as emerging trends within sustainability management that seem to have garnered the attention of investors. In general, we have highlighted that the investment ecosystem comprises a generally high level of entrepreneurial experience and consists of a high number of pre-seed and seed rounds in comparison to series A rounds. Investors tend to invest small initial amounts and have a preference for solutions that address an environmental problem over social issues. That said, they still emphasise that financial performance and scalability are more important indicators for their decision-making process. Lastly, we have shown that the ecosystem is starting to diversify its main investment verticals to include healthtech and greentech, almost to the level of the popular fintech and SaaS verticals.

In addition to the increase of investments in sustainability, we can also conclude that the due diligence process that is driving these investments is starting to slowly mature and professionalise, as specific governance and impact management systems become increasingly important factors for investors. However, factors that focus on the incorporation of positive impact creation into the business model and serve as the foundation for attaining revenue are still favoured over processes of responsible business conduct. This includes building processes that identify and mitigate risks of adverse impacts that the business might cause, contribute or be linked to. An overview of the main points of this report are summarised below:

1

The Danish investment ecosystem is primarily anchored around pre-seed and seed funding rounds, with a lower representation of more mature funding rounds;

2

Investors tend to invest small amounts, yet possess a high level of entrepreneurial experience, which signals a good alignment and understanding of the entrepreneurial process that founders go through;

3

The verticals of greentech and healthtech are increasingly targeted by investors; however, environmental sustainability areas still hold primacy over social sustainability targets;

4

Sustainability is seen as an increasingly important business driver, where focus is primarily laid on a startup’s ability to set impact metrics and goals on a product/service level, as well as formulate an impact thesis relevant to its business model.This points to the fact that sustainability due diligence in relation to investments is slowly maturing;

5

A lack of concrete governance systems could deter some investors from investing in a given startup,especially if processes that are related to legal compliance are missing.

In order to further support these trends, TechBBQ’s recommendations are:

The necessary support structures for attracting international capital need to be further conceptualised and institutionalised in policies that target business promotion in order to produce more high-value exits and IPOs;

Incentivise the further differentiation of the Danish investment ecosystem in order to increase competition by ensuring a higher level of diversity in terms of investment foundations, startups, and founders;

Support the early adoption of principles and standards underlying responsible business conduct for startups, and explore how these principles could be implemented as a standard investment practice through regulatory innovations.

We hope that this report has provided helpful insights into the emerging sustainability tendencies in the Danish startup and investment ecosystems, and that our findings can be useful for future initiatives that aim to strengthen the role of sustainability in the continued development of the Danish startup ecosystem.

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The State of Sustainability in the Danish Investment Ecosystem