OUR WHY
VENTURE CHALLENGE IS RUN BY A GROUP OF VENTURE PROFESSIONALS PASSIONATE ABOUT DEVELOPING THE NORDIC AND EUROPEAN VENTURE ECOSYSTEM
The Team
Virginia E. Vegas
Managing Director
Asher Siddiqui
Co-founder and Venture Expert
Freyr Fridfinnsson
Iceland Project Partner
Wouter van de Velde
Marketing Manager
Our why
VC Challenge wants to work with the most promising emerging managers in the Nordics to speed innovation and help create more success stories from the region. We believe in the methodology of “mentoring the mentor” or “supporting the supporter” to develop a stronger startup ecosystem.
Our approach
The emerging fund managers are the startup supporters, and by supporting them, we are increasing the number of companies we can help succeed. Our approach:
First assumption
A VC fund would typically invest in up to 20 companies in a period of 4 years, and would dedicate much of its time and capital to support these companies' growth and development.
Second assumption
Venture Capitalist drastically improves the success rate of a startup (measured by an exit event). According to Dealroom, a startup data provider for VC-backed companies, 1 out of 7 VC-backed companies will result in an exit event, this is a 14% success rate. While for non-VC-backed companies, only 1 out of 600 will result in an exit event, this is a 0,17%.
Result
By working directly with 20 funds in the Nordics every year, we are working indirectly with 400 promising companies and that will result in over 50 new startup success stories from the region.
OUr long term goal
The VC Challenge wants to work with 100 new emerging managers in the Nordics in the next 5 years that will invest in over 2.000 companies in the next decade and will create more than 250 success stories from the region.