What We Look For

Kinnevik applies a focused and systematic approach to identifying new investment opportunities

OVERVIEW

Kinnevik aim to partner with businesses that address material, everyday, under-served consumer needs

We seek to partner with digital businesses that leverage disruptive technology to create new markets or redefine existing ones. These businesses leverage technology not just to create innovative products and services, but also to build the proprietary infrastructure necessary to scale efficiently as demand grows.

We are focused on providing customers with products and services that deliver more choice, less complexity, superior experience and better value. We believe that these attributes drive brand loyalty, referrals and organic growth.

We focus on providing growth capital to scale businesses with a track record, but we will selectively invest earlier and later for the right opportunity.

SECTORS & GEOGRAPHIES

We focus on sectors ripe for disruption in geographies with the dynamics to build disruptive businesses

We focus on large sectors where disruptive technologies provide the opportunity to change the industry landscape. Often, these sectors are served by incumbents that have built market share based on sustaining technologies. Innovative companies can disrupt by solving a problem in an entirely new way or for an entirely new group of customers.

Similarly, we focus on geographies where innovation is best placed to take hold. Such regions are typically characterised by high or rapidly growing income per capita, high technology adoption, empowered consumers, and an established local financing market. Whilst we have some exposure to frontier markets, our core focus is on more developed markets where we are better able to add value.

Our focus SECTORS address critical consumer needs, whilst also at an early stage of technological disruption:

  • TMT
  • E-Commerce & Marketplaces
  • Financial Services
  • Healthcare

 

Our target GEOGRAPHIES have the dynamics to build disruptive businesses:

  • Europe, including our home market the Nordics 
  • US
  • Selectively in other markets 

INVESTMENT CRITERIA

We select the business we want to back based on 11 firm investment criteria

Kinnevik's 11 investment criteria

 

1. Market opportunity Addresses a material, everyday consumer need with a significant profit pool

2. User experience Customers often recommend the product and cohorts suggest high repeat usage
 
3. Technology Places innovation and product development at its core

4. Market leadership Well positioned relative to digital peers and differentiated from offline incumbents

5. Barriers to entry High barriers to entry over time protect the business model from competition

6. Monetisation and path to profitability Revenue generating and unit economics that are positive and sustainable

7. Entrepreneurs Led by highly talented, passionate and experienced executives

8. Diversity Shares Kinnevik’s understanding of the importance and benefits of diversity

9. Returns Based on realistic projections, an ability to generate appropriate risk-adjusted returns 

10. Reputation Compatibility with Kinnevik’s values and way of doing business

11. Ownership Opportunity to own a material minority stake over time to form a long-term partnership