Icelandic VC Frumtak Ventures has closed its fourth fund at $87m.
The VC plans to make 10-15 investments from the fund, with tickets ranging from €1m-€3m. It’s keeping half the fund for follow-on investments.
It previously invested mostly in B2B SaaS startups at seed or Series A in Iceland, but is broadening its focus. From its fourth fund it’ll back startups focused on software, AI and deeptech in areas such as ocean tech and logistics, healthcare, travel, energy, climate and gender equality, says Andri Heiðar Kristinsson, general partner at Frumtak.
“We are a generalist fund but we’ve seen that our portfolio companies have successfully used a mix of these technologies, and we believe there are lots of opportunities in this space,” he says.
It closed the fund in less than six months, and it’s a successor to the $57m third fund it closed in 2021.
Frumtak was founded in 2009 and is led by serial entrepreneur and managing partner Svana Gunnarsdottir, along with Kristinsson and another general partner Ásthildur Otharsdóttir.
Frumtak’s latest fund is the second largest to be raised by a VC firm in Iceland, trailing behind the $90m second fund raised by all female-led VC Crowberry in 2021.
“I don’t think there is an easy answer to why we have so many female investors in Iceland, but Iceland is one of the most gender-equal countries in the world and we have lots of female role models, like we had the first [democratically elected] female president,” Kristinsson says.
“I think the change started after the pandemic when there was an increase in investors happy to do deals by zoom and are looking more towards investing in remote locations,” Kristinsson says.
Frumtak Ventures was an early backer of digital therapeutics startup Sidekick Health and pharma supply chain startup Controlant — two of the country’s rising stars in recent years.
