A transparent summary of Accelerace Invest II (Q4 2023)

We invest in the best founders, and we have a deeply-rooted belief that anyone can be a founder — regardless of your gender, geographical location, prior experience of running a startup, etc.

Being transparent about who we invest in and how we make our investment decisions is truly important to us. In the below summary, you can learn what characterises the 35 portfolio companies in our pre-seed fund Accelerace Invest II (Q4 2023)!

Gender

20% of the companies have female founders

71 % more of the companies, compared to the industry benchmark, have all female founder groups (ARTXP, pianini and THE UPCYCL) – that is 8,6% compared to the industry average of 5%

Compared to the industry average, our fund has 5% more teams with female founders, after two investments in Q4 of 2023.

Industry benchmark data: Stateofeuropeantech report 2022, Denmark.

GEOGRAPHY

28,6% of the teams are based
outside of Copenhagen, DK

21 of our 35 portfolio companies are based in Copenhagen, six are spread across Denmark (pianini in Struer, Digital Devotion Games, TuneButler and THE UPCYCL in Aarhus, REDO Neurosystems in Aalborg, Leagues in Køge, and Doubble in Odense), and six outside of Denmark (Skin Bliss, Teamlearning, Goods, WeedbotChew, Wudpecker and Salu.

Compared to the industry average, our fund has 43% more teams based outside of Copenhagen.

Industry benchmark data: pre-seed and seed 2021-2022 (Vækstfonden).

EXPERIENCE

74% of the companies are by all first-time founders

The majority of the founders in our portfolio are building their first-ever startups! 
We are very proud to still be ahead of the industry benchmark. 

26 of our 35 portfolio companies are all first time founding teams. Just four companies are founded by all serial founders (YooNoon, WeedbotSalu, Hyphen and Parazute), and four by a mix of first-time and serial founders (BikekeyJungle, Impactly & Aioray).

Industry benchmark data: pre-seed and seed 2021-2022 (Vækstfonden) + LinkedIn.

Meet our portfolio companies

Memorix:

Learning in 3D worlds with powerful memory techniques

Golisto:

Online marketplace for collectors to safely trade their most valuable collectibles

YooNoon:

Turns cassava waste into a sustainable source of nutrition

pianini:

An edutainment app that teaches kids how to play the piano

Dreamplan: 

A self-service holistic financial planning platform for retail customers

Cognifirm:

A process robot installed in employees’ browsers to automate internal processes in a company

Digital Devotion Games:

An indie game studio that specializes in making quality multiplayer games for social entertainment

REDO Neurosystems:

Develops a novel treatment option to combat chronic pain arising from muscles and joints

ARTXP:

A two-sided marketplace that connects customers to artistic and cultural experiences hosted by local artists

Jungle:

An app for food and drinks recommendations from local chefs, sommeliers, and bakers

Leagues:

An e-sport gaming platform and one of the largest league platforms in the Nordics

IDUN audio: 

A VR and AR audio software that provides dynamic spatial audio

Doubble:

A social dating app where you find double dates with your friends

Skin Bliss:

An AI-powered app for personalized skincare recommendations 

FLEXeCHARGE:

A smart charging solution that enables EV drivers to charge their cars faster, greener, and cheaper

THEUPCYCL:

A circular matchmaker of industrial waste materials

SmallClaims:

A full-service legal tech platform that automates small claims processes

Judico:

A SaaS solution that guides corporate employees toward policy compliance

Teamlearning:

An e-learning platform that effectively upskills the workforce

Crowdbook:

A plug-and-play booking solution for the event and conference industry

Chew:

An interactive online cooking platform for kids with food-related content

Parazute:

An app that detect adverse changes in people with mental illnesses

 

 

Impactly:

Helps project managers measure the social and economic value of social programs

Our investment philosophy

Anyone can be a founder

Founders feel compelled to improve our world. Their resolve makes them impactful, creative and natural leaders. They create breathtaking momentum, and their ambition drives them to design for scalability and category creation.

At Accelerace, we have always focused objectively on the behavior, momentum, and ambition of the founders whose business ideas we fund. We observe what they do. Not who they are in terms of age, gender, socioeconomic status, education, religion, etcetera.

When we say objectively, we mean that it is no secret what boxes founders need to tick in order to land a pre-seed investment from us. We are not hush-hush about it. Quite the opposite, we do our very best to communicate exactly how we make decisions and which parameters we evaluate. You can take our investment readiness test to get instant feedback on the likelihood of getting an investment from us and/or sign up to our pre-accelerator and watch the incubator course “Timing” to understand how we make our investment decisions (e.g. return expectations, parameters for evaluating your team, and which information we present when pitching startups to our investment committee).

We simply invest in founders, and to us, anyone can be a founder.