2021 became a record-breaking year for PSV with our best result ever
2021 became a record-breaking year for PSV. Some of the financial means will be put towards raising a new DeepTech fund (more on that very soon) and a new climate tech project, GreenPact, in close collaboration with our backyard university, DTU.
Our role in a red hot ecosystem
The year’s result has secured the largest return to the Danish state in relation to the liquidation of investments made during the Innovation Incubator Scheme. This year, our role as exit operators means we can return a total of €44M (DKK 328M) to the state, bringing our total return up to €59M (DKK 438M). This result is primarily owed to the selling of ownership of a few, big companies such as Trustpilot which in 2021 was listed at €1.28B (DKK 9,5B) on the London Stock Exchange. According to our CEO, Christel Piron, the annual report has strongly underlined, highlighted, and circled the value of our role in the ecosystem. There’s a need for risk willing capital, expertise, and the commercial competencies to link technology and the market:
“I’m incredibly proud of the results we’ve generated and the opportunities they give us in the future. We’ve proven that it’s good business to invest in ambitious Danish startups in the very early stages. Our most important task now is to boost the development and invest further in the Danish ecosystem to ensure that even more entrepreneurs can succeed,” she says.
The future holds more funds and projects
For more than 20 years, we’ve held an important role in the blossoming of new, successful startups in Denmark. Our strategy for the next years to come focuses on intensifying and expanding our portfolio of activities further.
“We’re facing huge global challenges, specifically climate changes, a health sector under pressure, and technological opportunities in business. History has shown us that technology is one of the strongest forces behind solutions to society’s big challenges. It’s our job to find the right ways to cultivate and commercialise these technologies,” Christel Piron, states.
PSV Tech, our first fully commercial fund, was raised in October 2021. Its focus on software and technology-driven startups has proven to thrive in the Danish tech ecosystem, and we’ve already invested in 28 startups.
We’re not even close to dwindling down our ambitions, though. We’re currently establishing our next fund, PSV DeepTech. The ambition is to raise €60M (DKK 450M) to support technology-heavy and science-based startups. The fund is dedicated to investments in DeepTech-startups in the earliest stages of growth with the purpose of creating impact and solving some of the world’s big challenges. We’re working relentlessly to create a future where DeepTech-startups have better prospects when it comes to early funding and a network to support them in the commercialisation of their visionary technologies.
Getting real about impact climate tech
Apart from our ambition of raising our first DeepTech fund before the end of the year (fingers crossed), we’re also establishing a larger climate tech project in close collaboration with our darling neighbour, DTU. It’s called the GreenPact initiative, and you’ll be hearing much more about it very soon.
The ambition is to accelerate the development of Danish climate tech startups and help scientists and entrepreneurs pave the road to commercial success, create a lasting impact, and offer relief to global climate changes. We plan to contribute to the stronger commercialisation of science directly from the Danish universities by taking our starting point at DTU. Our boardmember and Executive VP of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Marianne Thellersen, highlights the value of the collaboration
“It’s important for DTU to support the innovation agenda, and PSV plays a key part in this. Both here at DTU, but also in the Danish entrepreneurial ecosystem generally speaking. They support the maturing of technology and establishing of companies in Denmark, and we look forward to the extended focus on more science-based DeepTech-startups along with using their expertise to help climate tech startups accelerate their development in our new GreenPact-collaboration.
