Norrsken Evolve has added Fortum, the Finnish energy group, as an industrial partner in its €62M pre-seed fund, a vehicle that has backed more than 80 companies, roughly 75% of which went on to raise follow-on capital.
The fund writes first checks to founders building Europe’s sustainable and resilient economy, a mandate that has narrowed toward electrification. The logic runs like this: no energy source can be generated in volume on European ground the way clean electricity can, and an economy organized around that supply will depend on technologies and business models still taking shape inside early-stage companies.
Portfolio companies get sector expertise from Fortum and its reach across the Nordic energy system.
Gustav Eilertsen, who leads innovation and venturing at Fortum, said the shift “will be built through faster innovation and closer collaboration between entrepreneurs, investors and industry.” That system, in Fortum’s case, spans low-carbon generation, heating and cooling, and customer services for more than two million customers.
Norrsken Evolve general partner Johan Attby casts the tie-up as a source of something a purely financial investor cannot provide: practical knowledge of how energy is produced, transported and sold.
Separately, Norrsken is pressing the EU, through its Electro Union campaign, to hit 50% electrification of final energy consumption by 2040.
