WATCH THE RECORDING OF OUR WEBINAR HELD ON 18 NOVEMBER WITH TROND KNUDSEN OF TRK GROUP, JøRN LYSEGGEN OF MELTWATER, AND ERIK HAGEN OF VIKING VENTURE.

Daniel Lilliehöök, Partner, and Gustav Nilsson, Analyst at GP Bullhound comment: “The data speaks for itself. Norway is becoming a major player in the Nordic tech ecosystem, and is rapidly catching up with other major European tech hubs. Where there are great ideas and entrepreneurship, investors will follow – Norway is proving that it can produce and scale impressive technology businesses. The future is bright, and at GP Bullhound we’re convinced that Norway is set to break through as one of the exciting tech markets in Europe.”

Key insights from the report include:

An investment boom – over the past decade, there’s been a shift in interest towards investment in Norwegian tech, both from local and international investors as well as strategics.

The rise of the unicorn – Norwegian unicorns emerging through increased levels of capital. Amongst the biggest names in the sector are internationally known businesses such as Meltwater, Gelato, Cognite, and Kahoot!

Significant IPO growth – in the past two years alone, there has been a significant jump in Norwegian tech IPOs, rising from 3 listings in 2017, to 10 in 2020 and 8 thus far in 2021, driven by the strong momentum in Norwegian public markets.

More and larger funding rounds – As the tech ecosystem in Norway has matured, late-stage fundraising of Norwegian tech companies has soared in 2021-YTD to $783m (up from $357m in 2020), driven by large rounds in Gelato ($240m), Cognite ($150m) and Oda ($141m).

Catching up with Nordic rivals – Norwegian tech ($2.2bn) is fast catching up to countries of similar size such as Finland ($2.9bn) and Denmark ($3.6bn) in total funds raised in the past 10 years, with Sweden ($10.3bn) still far ahead in total.

Lively M&A market – increased investor interest and activity has led to a rise of M&A deals in the past three years, with Visma standing out as a transactional leader.

One of the keys to Norway’s success and fast growth has been the ability to redeploy a skilled workforce available in the country – significant engineering and technical competencies are being redirected from oil and gas into tech.

Subsectors within technology that have dominated the space include the likes of industrial software, educational software, digital media and marketplaces.

Webinar
The key findings from the report have been presented during a Webinar on Thursday 18 November, with guest speakers including Trond Knudsen of TRK Group, Erik Hagen of Viking Venture, and Jørn Lyseggen of Meltwater, for their views on the latest in Norway’s tech space.
Scroll up to watch the recording.

Enquiries
For enquiries, please contact:
Daniel Lilliehöök, Partner, daniel.lilliehook@gpbullhound.com
GP Bullhound Insights team, insights@gpbullhound.com

About GP Bullhound
GP Bullhound is a leading technology advisory and investment firm, providing transaction advice and capital to the world’s best entrepreneurs and founders. Founded in 1999 in London and Menlo Park, the firm today has 10 offices spanning Europe, the US and Asia. For more information, please visit www.gpbullhound.com

In a world where healthcare is more complex, global and urgent than ever, there is a clear need to improve efficiency throughout the ecosystem. Definitive Healthcare is a crucial part of solving this need with their cloud-based intelligence platform. Whether you want to increase your sales, develop marketing campaigns or find experts for clinical trials, Definitive’s platform will help you.

GP Bullhound Fund IV became a shareholder in Definitive Healthcare when they acquired Monocl, the leading subscription-based provider of medical and scientific expert data and insights. GP Bullhound Fund IV invested in Monocl in 2019 and has been an active shareholder ever since, as a member of the board, supporting the company through its internationalisation and strategic choices.

Joakim Dal, Partner at GP Bullhound, commented: “The whole healthcare industry is working in a more data-driven way. Definitive, and of course Monocl which we invested in originally, are leading this change. I would like to congratulate Jason Krantz, Björn Carlsson, and the rest of the team for this successful milestone. We are proud to be shareholders in this exceptional business.”

Enquiries
For enquiries, please contact Joakim Dal, Partner, at joakim.dal@gpbullhound.com

About GP Bullhound
GP Bullhound is a leading technology advisory and investment firm, providing transaction advice and capital to the world’s best entrepreneurs and founders. Founded in 1999 in London and Menlo Park, the firm today has 10 offices spanning Europe, the US and Asia. For more information, please visit www.gpbullhound.com

Founded in 2015 in Stockholm, Sweden, Resolution Games is a games studio led by some of the top minds in the industry, forging a world-class catalogue of titles that brings players into VR and AR worlds. As one of the first studios dedicated solely to creating experiences for these platforms, Resolution Games’ titles such as Bait!, Blaston, Demeo, Acron: Attack of the Squirrels!, Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs and Cook-Out: A Sandwich Tale, rank among the top rated and most downloaded games in the space.

With more than 100 employees internationally, this latest infusion of capital allows the studio to accelerate company growth and scale ahead of projected market growth as the industry model shifts toward games as a service (GaaS), which requires larger teams to support games post-launch with live-ops teams.

“We see vast potential in VR and that the market is maturing. We want to up the game and standard for quality to ensure VR users have the best possible experience, and that VR games not just meet – but surpass – the potential from what we’ve seen on other platforms like PC and console,” said Tommy Palm, CEO of Resolution Games.

The studio’s funding announcement comes on the heels of one of the top VR game launches the industry has seen. Launched in May, RPG dungeon crawler, Demeo, has already surpassed the multi-million dollar mark in revenue and has broken records for time spent, retention and more.

Joakim Dal, Partner at GP Bullhound, added: “Tommy has passionately pursued the development of standard-setting casual and hardcore multiplayer games. Titles such as Demeo and Blaston have been embraced by the community and are driving VR adoption as a whole.”

GP Bullhound invested through Fund IV. Other recent investments include Lingokids, Glovo, Wallapop, Discord, Sesamy, Vivino, Elias, DuckDuckGo and MariaDB.

Enquiries
For enquiries, please contact:
Joakim Dal, Partner, joakim.dal@gpbullhound.com

About GP Bullhound
GP Bullhound is a leading technology advisory and investment firm, providing transaction advice and capital to the world’s best entrepreneurs and founders. Founded in 1999 in London and Menlo Park, the firm today has 10 offices spanning Europe, the US and Asia. For more information, please visit www.gpbullhound.com

By providing single purchases and frictionless consumption of digital content – and adding new ways to engage the creators – Sesamy aims to de-wall and re-democratise access to copyrighted digital content.

The investment capital will be used toward international expansion throughout 2021 and continuing to ensure the platform is at the cutting edge of usability, while providing a more viable digital model for the creation and consumption of content.

Måns Ulvestam, Founder and CEO of Sesamy, comments: “We are committed, at Sesamy, to creating a new digital model that opens up the internet: providing more for consumers and content-makers, alike. With this aim, we are delighted that such prestigious investment firms are placing their trust in this mission: to create a new, more sustainable platform for culture and information. At Sesamy, we envision a space that does justice to digital content, its diligent creators, and passionate consumers.”

Per Roman, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of GP Bullhound, adds: “When Måns and Karl told me about their new business, their vision immediately felt right. As lead investors we were able to put together a syndicate and invest in less than a week, to help the company accelerate with speed.”

GP Bullhound invested through Fund V, following other recent investments including Glovo, Klarna, Wallapop, Discord, Vivino, Elias, DuckDuckGo and MariaDB.

Enquiries
For enquiries, please contact Hampus Hellermark, Associate, at hampus.hellermark@gpbullhound.com

About GP Bullhound
GP Bullhound is a leading technology advisory and investment firm, providing transaction advice and capital to the world’s best entrepreneurs and founders. Founded in 1999 in London and Menlo Park, the firm today has 10 offices spanning Europe, the US and Asia. For more information, please visit www.gpbullhound.com.

Spotify transformed music listening forever when it launched in Sweden in 2008. Discover, manage and share over 50m tracks for free, or upgrade to Spotify Premium to access exclusive features including offline mode, improved sound quality, and an ad-free music listening experience.

Today, Spotify is the most popular global audio streaming service with 299m users, including 144m subscribers across 92 markets. Spotify is the largest driver of revenue to the music business today.

Klarna was founded in Stockholm, Sweden and is Europe’s highest valued private fintech company. The company offers products and services to consumers and retailers within payments, social shopping, and personal finances.

Today, Klarna has 3,500 employees from more than 90 nationalities who all work for the same mission: to reshape shopping, by elevating the entire shopping experience for avid shoppers.

At GP Bullhound we believe the world is undergoing a generational shift where it is no longer enough to be entertained – but where consumers want to create their own entertainment, shifting from scripted entertainment to user-scripted entertainment. As we respect the complexity of sound as an art form – we also live in a world where art and technology are colliding.

Elias is a team of developers and composers bringing adaptive music and sound to user-scripted events. Through Elias, product developers are provided with a complete software platform that plugs directly into game engines, such as Unity, where they can create adaptive music and dynamic sound – significantly shortening the game development cycle by increasing workflow efficiency. The end-user results can already be experienced in games such as Rage 2, Mutant Year Zero and Way Out.

Kristoffer and Philip, Co-founders of Elias, commented: “As composers, audio designers, developers and most importantly gamers, we saw a clear opportunity to bring the relationship between music and gaming to the 21st century. Our unique understanding of both ends of the spectrum have allowed us to build a user-friendly platform without compromising on quality.”

Elias will raise SEK36m in total to fuel product development and international expansion.

Staffan Dahl, CEO of Elias, added: “We are thrilled to have GP Bullhound on board as our long-term strategic partner. GP Bullhound is an active and experienced investor in the music and game space and together we are now in pole position to expand our team to support delivering on our ambitious product roadmap. Our focus on truly adaptive game music and sound will remain, and the goal is to drastically improve sound designers’ and composers’ workflow and control of the creative process.”

Joakim Dal, Partner at GP Bullhound, said: “Gaming and music are two ecosystems that GP Bullhound holds close to heart and through our investments in Spotify, Tunigo, Unity and Quixel we have supported these industries since 2012. Our investment in Elias is the union of our previous experience and excitement about the future of music and gaming. We deeply believe we are just about to enter the final building block for true immersion!”

GP Bullhound is investing from GP Bullhound Fund V, focused on growth-stage businesses in the software industry.

Enquiries
For enquiries, please contact:
Joakim Dal, Partner, joakim.dal@gpbullhound.com
Hampus Hellermark, Associate, hampus.hellermark@gpbullhound.com

About GP Bullhound
GP Bullhound is a leading technology advisory and investment firm, providing transaction advice and capital to the world’s best entrepreneurs and founders. Founded in 1999, the firm today has offices in London, San Francisco, Stockholm, Berlin, Manchester, Paris, Hong Kong, Madrid and New York. For more information, please visit www.gpbullhound.com

Monocl delivers deep professional profiles on millions of experts worldwide, to help companies identify and engage industry opinion leaders. Through the transaction, Definitive fortifies its product offerings for life sciences companies and expands its international presence from North America to Europe and Asia.

“Monocl has always been laser focused on delivering critical expert insights through software to provide our clients with a unique competitive and collaborative edge,” said Björn Carlsson, CEO and co-founder of Monocl. “We are thrilled to unite the power of our groundbreaking expert platform with Definitive’s comprehensive and complementary healthcare provider platform and medical claims analytics. This is truly an example of the whole being much greater than the sum of its parts.”

“The acquisition of Monocl brings together two powerful intelligence platforms to provide best-in-class data, analytics and insight that will help biotech and pharmaceutical companies accelerate clinical research and commercialisation of new drugs and therapies,” said Jason Krantz, founder and CEO of Definitive Healthcare. “Monocl shares the Definitive philosophy of providing the highest quality data through an online interface that gives clients the ability to access and analyse real-time information and intelligence.”

Joakim Dal, Partner at GP Bullhound, added: “Björn and his team have put a very powerful application in the hands of Monocl’s customers. The superior user interface and the vast data library makes this a standard for enterprise applications. During our investment period, Monocl has developed at a rapid pace. We look forward to what the combination of these two leading companies can do to support the critical work in the life sciences sector.”

GP Bullhound invested in Monocl in 2019 through GP Bullhound Fund IV, which focuses on growth stage businesses in the software, digital media, marketplaces and fintech sectors. Other investments include Revolut, Slack, Klarna, Unity, RavenPack and Believe.

Enquiries
For enquiries, please contact:
Joakim Dal, Partner, at joakim.dal@gpbullhound.com

About GP Bullhound
GP Bullhound is a leading technology advisory and investment firm, providing transaction advice and capital to the world’s best entrepreneurs and founders. Founded in 1999, the firm today has offices in London, San Francisco, Stockholm, Berlin, Manchester, Paris, Hong Kong, Madrid and New York. For more information, please visit www.gpbullhound.com.

Challengermode successfully closed an external financing round of $12m led by eWTP Innovation Fund, the global investment arm of the Alibaba Group, with additional support from GP Bullhound, Telia Ventures, Back in Black and football legend Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Hampus Hellermark of GP Bullhound, said: “We have a strong vision for the future of esports and believe Challengermode has a unique opportunity to be a driving force in making that vision a reality. We are excited to continue to support Robel and the team on their quest to make esports accessible to everyone.”

“We are very excited to close this new financing round with the support of a strong set of investors who share our vision for esports. With the additional backing, we’re able to double down on our core mission of delivering the best competitive gaming experience to each and everyone’s home, in any game,” commented Robel Efrem, CEO of Challengermode.

GP Bullhound completed its first investment in Challengermode in 2018 through Fund IV, which focuses on growth stage businesses in the software, digital media, marketplaces and fintech sectors. Previous investments include Ravenpack, Slack, Klarna, Unity, Glovo and Believe.

Enquiries
For enquiries, please contact:
Joakim Dal, Partner, joakim.dal@gpbullhound.com
Hampus Hellermark, Associate, hampus.hellermark@gpbullhound.com

About GP Bullhound
GP Bullhound is a leading technology advisory and investment firm, providing transaction advice and capital to the world’s best entrepreneurs and founders. Founded in 1999, the firm today has offices in London, San Francisco, Stockholm, Berlin, Manchester, Paris, Hong Kong, Madrid and New York. For more information, please visit www.gpbullhound.com.

GP Bullhound Fund V
Following the successful strategy of its predecessor funds, GP Bullhound Fund V recently held its first close of €125m, focusing on growth-stage businesses in the software industry. Read more here.