News

National venture capital fund manager SmartCap has opened a call to select a fund manager for establishing and managing a deep tech investment fund, which will start making investments into Estonian deep tech companies.

National venture capital fund-of-funds SmartCap will increase its cornerstone investment in the upcoming deep tech fund to 15 million euros, to which selected fund manager will raise additional private capital.

SmartCap, a venture capital fund owned by the Estonian state, had a net value of €84 million, increasing by 14 per cent compared to the previous year. The state-owned investment fund showed stabile growth, and attracted a €10 million investment, which will be used to invest in the high tech industry this year.

According to the study commissioned by the state venture capital fund manager SmartCap, access to capital has never been easier for software startups, but at the same time, both startups and investors admit that high tech and science-based startups struggle to find capital.

Estonian state venture capital fund manager SmartCap together with Startup Estonia will conduct an extensive study to map current issues around access to capital for Estonian startups and assess whether the existing financing solutions are sufficient to solve the discovered problems.