News

OpenOcean, in partnership with Oxford's Saïd Business School, has launched O³, an open-access startup insights platform aimed at fostering a data-driven startup ecosystem. Historically, the tech industry has struggled with transparency, leading policymakers, investors, and startups to base decisions on partial information. O³ addresses this gap by providing comprehensive data about startups, their technologies, market strategies, and more. This collaboration of Saïd Business School's research with OpenOcean's know-how offers unmatched insights for evaluating startups and understanding market shifts.

We are now happy to share the results of our 5th annual ESG report with you to unpack the current ESG statistics of our portfolio companies and to establish transparently where and how we must continue to collectively push for greater progress. This year we achieved a 100% response rate and the survey was based on our internally developed ESG Starter Pack.

The OpenOcean Helsinki and London teams will attend various spring and summer events around Europe. We're on a mission to unite with entrepreneurs, professionals, and fellow investors to exchange and discuss new ideas and dive into exciting business opportunities – on and off the stage.

In this Q&A blog post, we have the pleasure of featuring Kulpreet Singh, OpenOcean's Operating Advisor since 2018. Kulpreet joined the team after a successful tenure at UiPath, the world's leading robotic process automation (RPA) software. We dive into Kulpreet's insights on company growth, common challenges fast-growing tech companies face, and essential qualities for startups aiming to make their mark globally.

OpenOcean's Investor Relations Director Naureen Zahid's Letter to the Editor was published today on City AM.

OpenOcean portfolio company Hygraph, a leading federated content platform, announced the closure of a $30 million Series B funding round led by One Peak. OpenOcean is delighted to continue to be part of the journey since it led Hygraph’s Series A, and welcomes the participation of both existing and new investors, including Peak, SquareOne, and business angel Boris Lokschin, Co-Founder and CEO of Spryker Systems.

At the beginning of the year, Lisa Edgar joined our team as our Strategic Advisor. We sat down with Lisa for a Q&A to pick her brain and hear her unique perspective on various topics related to the startup ecosystem and venture capital industry. From her thoughts on the current state of the European venture capital market to her belief in the importance of ESG, Lisa offers invaluable insights for entrepreneurs and investors alike.

Our portfolio company Supermetrics, , announced in early 2023 that it is moving to a shared CEO model – a practice used by roaringly successful companies like Netflix, Atlassian and Workday. To introduce the model, Anssi and Supermetrics better, we asked him a few crisp questions on the topic.

OpenOcean welcomes Lisa Edgar as new Strategic Advisor to drive key initiatives and strengthen global footprint with extensive experience in venture capital and a passion for increasing diversity in the VC ecosystem.

The final months of 2022 were a reality check for investors and tech companies due to the forecasted impending recession and falling valuations. Despite the challenging tone set for 2023, there are plenty of growth opportunities in fields such as ESG investments, AI, and enterprise automation. At OpenOcean have identified key technologies and developments to watch in the data, software, and technology spheres.

Our Investor Relations Director, Naureen Zahid, has written a detailed article on the market turmoil of 2022 and how this has impacted the investment approach of both GPs and LPs. Geopolitical and macroeconomic factors caused significant financial market turmoil in 2022, triggering soaring global inflation, which has had a significant impact on both public and private market investments.

MariaDB's listing on the New York Stock Exchange is a milestone moment – our founding of the company in 2010, and our investments in the company are a milestone – representing the team's culmination of 12 years of hard work and innovation.

Mikael Thunberg founded Supermetrics, a tool for extracting and importing marketing data, in 2010 despite lacking tech entrepreneurship skills. The company has grown to serve almost a million users and has reached over 50 million in annual recurring revenue with very little outside investment.

We are thrilled to announce our newest investment into api.video and take part in their $12M Series A.

OpenOcean's new ESG Start Pack for software startups is out! The Starter Pack includes: Our recommended ESG roadmap for software startups, including deep dives on each focus area, main KPIs to track your progress and practical advice to get started. We hope you find it useful!

Together with IQM, fellow investors at Lakestar, in association with The Quantum Insider (TQI), we wanted to produce an in-depth report to help investors and decision-makers bridge the gap between the speed and direction of quantum development and what customers are ready and already planning for. 

We are thrilled to welcome Naureen Zahid as a new Director in the OpenOcean team, focusing on Investor Relations.

OpenOcean, a leading European venture capital firm, has released its Automation Market Map, showing that private funding for enterprise (software) automation companies hit $17.86 billion in 2021 - up 230% on the previous year.

We sat down with three key people who’ve been there from the beginning to understand how MariaDB was able to break records. Read the whole story of MariaDB here.

The team at OpenOcean couldn’t be more excited to announce our latest investment in Strong Network having led the €5.1m seed round alongside Wingman.

Finnish startup ecosystem supports Ukraine – Free work spaces at Maria01 for our Ukrainian friends

Our newest investment into the cybersecurity space, Binalyze (with a cool short name B!), where we led a $10M round, is one of those cutting-edge innovations that will shape the future of Enterprise Forensics.

In 2014, together with HV Capital, OpenOcean led the Series-A funding round for an early stage mobile advertising technology company from London called LoopMe. Almost 8 years on, LoopMe has grown to a very profitable business with almost 100 million USD in revenue.

Moody’s Corporation (NYSE:MCO) announced that it has acquired PassFort, the SaaS RegTech provider automating anti-financial crime and compliance processes

Surglogs Raises $10.5 Million In Series A Funding To Help Front-Line Clinicians Streamline And Automate Patient Safety And Compliance Processes

Bitrise aims to be the go-to company closing the gap between that mobile demand and a company’s ability to get apps out faster while also balancing all of the moving parts and complexities

kevin. announced their raise of a $10 million funding round to disrupt the card payment infrastructure

Saïd Business School and OpenOcean, a European venture capital firm, have announced early October 2021 the signing of a new collaboration agreement to develop a venture classification platform.

We are proud to announce that our portfolio company Tapjoy has been acquired by NYSE listed ironSource for $400mn!

In 2012 we were honoured to lead the series A funding round for a fast-growing new Caller ID app called Truecaller.

GraphCMS will use this investment to focus on API integrations, accelerate product adoption, and grow its team globally across the US, UK, and European markets.

Cambri’s market research automation platform enables companies to test their ideas continuously, as they are iterating their innovations.

We are excited that SAP just announced its acquisition of our portfolio company AppGyver Inc.

OpenOcean, the pioneering investor in data solutions and software, has today announced a €92M raise for its third main venture fund.

We are excited to announce that we are a part of Booksy’s $70m Series C funding round, lead by Cat Rock Capital.

We believe that ESG is crucial for us to succeed in our mission – read more about our commitment to ESG.

Tom Henriksson, general partner at OpenOcean, discusses how enterprise automation has gone from long-term strategy to operational imperative