The Nordic startup movement continues its strong momentum. On Tuesday, Neil Murray, founder and general partner at Copenhagen-based The Nordic Web Ventures, announced the closing of a $6 million Fund III. This fund will continue investing in early-stage founders across the region, focusing on writing the first institutional checks for companies in robotics, AI-native ventures, and deep tech.
Murray, a solo general partner, described his first two funds as test vehicles to prove his ability to identify and invest in top regional talent. Now, seven years later, he has written the first check into more than 50 companies. His portfolio includes the unicorn Lovable, the remote worker insurance company SafetyWing, and exits like the UI design company Uizard.
The Nordic ecosystem, encompassing Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, is now valued at over half a trillion dollars. It received more than $8 billion in venture funding in 2024, cementing its status as one of Europe’s hottest emerging markets.
Murray revealed that Fund III attracted more than $20 million in investor interest, but he deliberately capped it at $6 million. He explained that he cares more about alignment with investors than assets under management. Staying small, he said, allows him to better tie incentives to performance rather than management fees and provides greater flexibility as a solo investor. Capping the fund was not a constraint, but a core strategy.
The fund’s check sizes will be around $200,000, with plans to back between 30 and 35 companies. Murray believes it is more important to invest in Tier 1 founders than to over-optimize for ownership by backing Tier 2 founders.
His limited partner base includes institutional backers like Allocater One, founder Christoph Janz, and Pacenotes. Founders from companies like Kahoot! and Pleo, along with operators from Meta and Google, are also investors. Murray noted that many founders from his first two funds have invested in Fund III, a metric he finds incredibly important. He has already returned more than half the capital raised across Fund I and Fund II.
Fund III focuses on AI, robotics, and consumer sectors because they are among the top categories in the Nordic region. Consumer has always been a leading category there. The region is also known for its computer science expertise, engineering culture, and manufacturing. These strengths, paired with a calm, methodical build style, position the Nordics well for AI-powered robotics in industrial, healthcare, logistics, and increasingly consumer applications.
Though deeply focused on the Nordics, Murray is originally from the UK. He moved to Denmark in 2013 without knowing anyone, driven by an interest in tech startups after working in digital products in London. Upon arriving in Copenhagen, he realized the ecosystem had made significant contributions to the tech world, though they were rarely highlighted. This led him to start the website The Nordic Web, where he analyzed the burgeoning local tech scene by tracking investments and exits. Soon, venture capitalists were asking him which founders were seeking capital. Wanting to be part of the action, he launched a $500,000 Fund I in 2017 and stopped writing shortly after to focus fully on investing.
Murray concludes that the Nordics are not merely experiencing a moment, but a compounding effect. The depth of talent, the ambition level, and the maturity of the ecosystem mean this wave is not a spike, but the foundation for the next decade of Nordic breakout companies.