Draft:Northzone

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  • Comment: Company not shown to be sufficiently notable for an article. Specifically, the sources provided are mostly routine announcements of funding, PR, etc. and do not provide any secondary analysis. Others are just mentions of facts. We need significant independent coverage of the company, not just announcements of things they did. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 22:14, 14 August 2025 (UTC)
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Northzone
Company typePrivate
IndustryVenture Capital
FounderBjørn Stray, Ingar Østby, Karl-Christian Agerup, Tellef Thorleifsson
Number of locations
5 (London, Stockholm, New York, Berlin, Amsterdam)
Area served
Europe, US
Key people
Websitenorthzone.com

Northzone is a venture capital firm based in Europe and the US. Established in 1996, they invest in companies at seed through to later-stage growth rounds.

They have invested in over 175 companies to date, including investments in Spotify, Klarna, Trustpilot, Kahoot!, iZettle, and Personio. Originally founded in Oslo, Northzone currently has offices in London, Stockholm, New York, Berlin, and Amsterdam.

History

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Northzone was founded by Bjørn Stray, Ingar Østby, Karl-Christian Agerup, and Tellef Thorleifsson in Oslo in 1996. They were inspired by the success of venture capital investors in Silicon Valley, with a desire to tap into the burgeoning technology sector in the Nordics and Europe more widely.

In 1997, Northzone raised their first fund of $8 million, through which they made early-stage investments in Lastminute.com and Stepstone, both of which would eventually reach billion-dollar valuations. Off the back of this success, Northzone raised three more funds of investment between 1997 and 2005.

In 2003, Pär-Jörgen Pärson joined Northzone’s Stockholm office as General Partner. In 2008, Pärson led Northzone’s first investment into Swedish music streaming platform Spotify, having previously invested in founders Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon at Tradedoubler. He describes the founders as having “a level of ambition that I hadn’t seen before in Sweden…they weren't settling for the good enough; they were going for the best” [1]. Pärson is considered among Europe’s top venture capital investors, ranking second in Forbes 2018 Midas List Europe [2].

In 2012, Northzone opened their London office and welcomed Jeppe Zink as General Partner. The aim was to better support their growing portfolio of UK based companies, as well as “assist Nordic and other European companies in their internationalisation” [3]. Notable UK investments include leading a $7.5M Series B investment into TrueLayer [4], and co-leading a £17.5M Series A investment into Wagestream [5].

In 2014, Jessica Schultz, co-founder of HelloFresh, joined Northzone’s Stockholm office. She was promoted to partner in 2016. In 2015, entrepreneur-turned-investor Michiel Kotting joined Northzone as partner.

Northzone opened their New York office in 2015, marking expansion of their US investment strategy [6]. In 2021, Wendy Xiao was appointed as Northzone’s first New York partner, joined in 2024 by Molly Alter, who joined from Index Ventures.

In 2022, Northzone closed their tenth and largest fund to date, at a total of $1.2 billion [7].

Investments

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Northzone has invested in over 175 companies across 10 funds, including investments in:

Northzone’s portfolio has seen a number of billion-dollar exits. These include: Spotify, who publicly listed in 2018 at a valuation of $29.5 billion [19]; iZettle, who were acquired by Paypal in 2018 at a $2.2 billion valuation [20]; Kahoot!, who went public on the Oslo Stock Exchange in 2021, before being acquired for $1.7 billion in 2023 [21]; and Trustpilot, which floated on the London Stock Exchange in 2021 at a valuation of around £1.1 billion [22].

References

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  1. ^ Farmbrough, Heather. "How This Swedish Venture Capitalist Became Spotify's Lead Investor". Forbes. Retrieved 2025-08-19.
  2. ^ Releases, Forbes Press. "Forbes Announces Second Annual Midas List Europe". Forbes. Retrieved 2025-08-19.
  3. ^ Butcher, Mike (2012-01-17). "Amadeus partner departs to run new London office for Northzone". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2025-08-19.
  4. ^ "London-based TrueLayer scores $7.5 million to help developers build financial apps". Tech.eu. 2018-07-19. Retrieved 2025-08-19.
  5. ^ "Fintech startup Wagestream picks up £15m from Balderton and Northzone". City AM. 2019-05-20. Retrieved 2025-08-19.
  6. ^ Baker, Dylan (2014-12-17). "Northzone Ventures unveils $325M fund, its largest to date". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2025-08-19.
  7. ^ Hall, Christine (2022-09-13). "VC funds still rolling as Northzone announces largest fund, while Salkantay is largest Peru fund". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2025-08-19.
  8. ^ Farmbrough, Heather. "How This Swedish Venture Capitalist Became Spotify's Lead Investor". Forbes. Retrieved 2025-08-19.
  9. ^ PYMNTS (2015-08-19). "The Swedish Payments Startup With A $2.5B Value". PYMNTS.com. Retrieved 2025-08-19.
  10. ^ Browne, Ryan (2019-03-05). "Review site Trustpilot raises $55 million to boost growth, denies report it's planning an IPO". CNBC. Retrieved 2025-08-19.
  11. ^ Garcia, David Cendon (2025-05-07). "Dutch FinTech startup FINOM raises €92.3 million to scale platform for SMEs". EU-Startups. Retrieved 2025-08-19.
  12. ^ "Wagestream raises £17.5m". Finextra Research. 2024-04-19. Retrieved 2025-08-19.
  13. ^ Mascarenhas, Ingrid Lunden, Natasha (2020-06-11). "Kahoot raises $28M for its user-generated educational gaming platform, now valued at $1.4B". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2025-08-19.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  14. ^ O'Hear, Steve (2017-08-03). "Personio, a HR startup in Munich, closes $12M Series A". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2025-08-19.
  15. ^ FinSMEs (2012-06-15). "iZettle Completes €25M Series B Funding". FinSMEs. Retrieved 2025-08-19.
  16. ^ O'Hear, Steve (2018-07-19). "With eyes on Europe, Open Banking API provider TrueLayer raises $7.5M". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2025-08-19.
  17. ^ "Mental Health Care Platform Spring Health Raises $22M | Built In NYC". Built In. Retrieved 2025-08-19.
  18. ^ Paisner|guy_paisner, Guy. "Northzone bucks trend with €70m fundraising in IT sector". www.fnlondon.com. Retrieved 2025-08-19.
  19. ^ Spangler, Todd (2018-04-03). "Spotify Stock Pops in IPO Debut, Before Cooling Down to $26 Billion Market Cap". Variety. Retrieved 2025-08-19.
  20. ^ Browne, Ryan (2018-05-18). "Why PayPal bought a European start-up with IPO plans for $2.2 billion". CNBC. Retrieved 2025-08-19.
  21. ^ Lunden, Ingrid (2023-07-14). "Gamified e-learning platform Kahoot gets $1.7B acquisition offer from Goldman Sachs, Lego and more". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2025-08-19.
  22. ^ Browne, Ryan (2021-03-23). "Trustpilot surges in stock market debut as tech companies flock to London". CNBC. Retrieved 2025-08-19.