Butterfly Ventures
Butterfly Ventures is an early stage focused startup development and venture fund management company managing Butterfly Venture Fund IV (2022), Butterfly Venture Fund III (2016), and Northern Startup Funds (2012). Butterfly Ventures was founded in 2012, and the first fund was established in the end of 2012. The investment operations started early 2013, and since then we have typically invested in ten new portfolio companies per year.
Butterfly Ventures is owned by its partners, Matti Kanninen, Ville Heikkinen, and Juho Risku, also forming the Board of Directors. The chairman and managing director is Matti Kanninen.
We are a team of five professionals, and working out of our offices in Oulu and Helsinki (Finland), and also in Stockholm (Sweden), Tallinn (Estonia), and Copenhagen (Denmark).
Butterfly Ventures is a registered Alternative Investment Fund Manager (AIFM), and all our funds are Alternative Investment Funds (AIF). We are a member of the Finnish Venture Capital Association (FVCA), and adhere to the FVCA’s set of guidelines to promote transparency in the venture capital and private equity industry.
We adhere to the International Private Equity and Venture Capital Valuation Guidelines (IPEV), and the Reporting Guidelines of Invest Europe.
Butterfly Venture Fund IV
We are currently investing from our fourth-generation fund, Butterfly Venture Fund IV, a pre-seed/seed stage 100 million euro (of which 47 million being closed as of this writing) venture capital technology fund. This is our second institutional fund, and the geographic focus is in the Nordics and Baltics.
Butterfly Venture Fund IV was established in June 2022, and the investment operations will start in August. The fund is managed by Butterfly Ventures and the four managers, who are partners and board members of General Partner: Matti Kanninen, Ville Heikkinen, Juho Risku, and Tanya Marvin-Horowitz, as well as, the fifth member of our professional team of five, Liina Lehtonen. Tanya lives in Stockholm, Sweden, and is originally from the US.
The investors of Butterfly Venture Fund IV are Finnish and Swedish investors, including public sector (42%), fund of funds (21%), pension funds and insurance companies (14%), family offices and other private investors (14%), foundations (5%), and General Partner (3%).
Butterfly Venture Fund III
Butterfly Venture Fund III is a pre-seed/seed stage 15 million euro venture capital technology fund. Butterfly Venture Fund III focused on hardware and deep tech seed-stage companies whose business is usually built around unique, often protected and hard to reproduce technology. A key focus area of the fund was research-based innovation and co-operation with universities. While most of the target companies were from Finland, the fund also invested elsewhere in the Nordics and Baltics.
Butterfly Venture Fund III was established in the end of 2016, and the investment operations started early 2017. The fund is managed by Butterfly Ventures and the four managers, who are partners and board members of General Partner: Matti Kanninen, Ville Heikkinen, Juho Risku, and Tanya Marvin-Horowitz, as well as, our investment professional, Liina Lehtonen.
The investors of Butterfly Venture Fund III are Finnish investors, and include public sector (40%), insurance companies (16%), family offices and other private investors (16%), pension funds (10%), corporate investors (8%), endowments (7%), and General Partner (3%).
Butterfly Ventures’ portfolio and investee companies are listed here.
Northern Startup Funds
Northern Startup Fund I is a pre-seed/seed stage 5 million euro venture capital technology fund, and Northern Startup Fund II/III is a pre-seed/seed stage technology fund, altogether 10 million euro, with geographic focus in companies having operations in Northern Ostrobothnia, Finland.
Northern Startup Funds focused broader on seed-stage tech companies, ranging from software, to services, to hardware. A key focus area of the fund is research-based innovation and co-operation with universities. All the target companies are from Finland. Northern Startup Funds were started in the end of 2012, and the investment operations started early 2013. The funds are managed by Butterfly Ventures’ three partners: Matti Kanninen, Ville Heikkinen, Juho Risku, as well as, our investment professional, Liina Lehtonen.
In addition, Northern Startup Funds had and were advised by three Advisory Board members, all seasoned executives and investors: Jukka Mäkinen, Jari Pasanen, and Antti Kosunen.
The investors of all Norther Startup Funds are Finnish public sector investors: the City of Oulu, the European Regional Development Fund (the European Union), the Northern Ostrobothnia Centre for Economic Development. – Leverage from the EU
Butterfly Ventures’ portfolio and investee companies are listed here.
This document was last updated on 21st June 2022.