A VC who looks for futuristic startups has just been made partner at Europe's leading funds. Here's how he finds 'science fiction' tech companies
- Ted Persson has just been made a partner at Sweden's EQT Ventures, a leading European VC fund, to continue looking for startups which will change the future.
- Persson focuses on "moonshot investments" having previously backed VR/AR startup Varjo, Swedish self driving company Einride, and electric aviation company Heart Aerospace.
- "If a company has a plan which works now it's boring, what's hard is getting to things which previously seemed impossible," Persson told Business Insider in an interview. "My guiding force has always been 'could this company be so interesting that it could play a major role in a science fiction movie in a positive way?'"
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Sweden's EQT Ventures, a leading European VC fund, has appointed Ted Persson as a partner to continue looking for startups which will change the future.
Persson focuses on "moonshot investments" having previously backed VR/AR startup Varjo, Swedish self driving car company Einride, and electric aviation company Heart Aerospace. For Persson, much in the same way that today's incredible tech infrastructure seemed a pipe dream in the 1990s, some ideas like electric airplanes or autonomous electric trucks could one day be part of regular life.
"If a company has a plan which works now it's boring, what's hard is getting to things which previously seemed impossible," Persson told Business Insider in an interview. "My guiding force has always been 'could this company be so interesting that it could play a major role in a science fiction movie in a positive way?'"
The key is doing your research and listening to founders with the most ambitious ideas, according to Persson. Heart Aerospace, for example, doesn't expect to launch a regional electric plane until 2025 but the race is on.
Backing exciting startups also requires you to pit your wits against the best in the business as an investor. Einride, which has raised $32.3 million to-date, is in what Persson calls an "arms race" akin to flying to the moon with electric and self driving vehicles now increasingly on the agenda, notably from Tesla.
"It's all about timing, where are we in terms of the position of this technology and the stage the research is at," Persson said. "We want to be at the inflection point where this can be made commercial because growth for these companies can be explosive."
Breaking free of the herd
Last year, EQT Ventures raised a $725 million fund to invest in some of the hottest startups on the continent with Persson set to deploy capital from the new raise over the coming years. The fund, the five-year-old VC arm of Swedish private equity giant EQT, famously uses its "Motherbrain" propriety AI to discover companies that might have slipped the net of traditional venture investing.
Wanting to be a contrarian thinker and find the next big thing is ingrained in the mentality of venture investors but not all fully subscribe to it, according to Persson.
"The reality is that it usually takes longer than one funding cycle to really know, and if you decide to back a company no one else sees the greatness of, most likely the company will have trouble raising in the next round," he added. "That's why I try to find companies that are just outside the collective comfort zone, with the bet that the company either proves itself during one fund cycle, or the collective comfort zone expands by itself, for instance driven by the tailwind of a behavior or technology trend."
Persson has also invested in cybersecurity startup Baffin Bay Networks, German software company Silexica, and Dutch company 3D Hubs. While there is no guarantee any of Persson's investments will be successful in the long run, backing exciting companies pushing the limits of technology has an aggregating effect elsewhere.
Persson was previously the cofounder of a number of digital agencies, including Speedway Digital Army, Abel & Baker, and Great Works. In 2010 he cofounded spirits company Our/Vodka.
The fund has offices in San Francisco, London, Berlin, and Amsterdam, alongside its Stockholm hub. EQT Ventures' fund had its first exit when it sold its stake in the mobile-games company Small Giant Games to Zynga in a deal valued at $700 million, having previously backed the company's $5.7 million Series A in 2017.