The red-hot startup movement in Scandinavia continues. On Tuesday, Neil Murray, founder and general partner of Copenhagen-based firm The Nordic Web Ventures, announced the closing of a $6 million Fund III to continue investing in early-stage founders in the region.
The fund will focus on writing first institutional checks to companies focused on robotics, AI-native companies, and deep tech founders.
Murray, who is a solo practitioner, told TechCrunch that the first two funds were “test vehicles” to demonstrate the region's ability to identify and invest in top talent. Now, seven years later, he's written the first checks to more than 50 companies with a portfolio that includes unicorn Lovable and remote worker insurance company SafetyWing, and exits like UI design company Uizard.
As TechCrunch previously reported, the Nordic ecosystem (including Denmark, Sweden, and Norway) is currently worth more than $5 trillion and will receive more than $8 billion in venture funding in 2024, making the region one of Europe's hottest emerging markets. Murray said Fund III has received investor interest of more than $20 million, but he has capped it at $6 million because he is “more concerned with integrity than assets under management.”
Staying small means incentives can be better tied to performance than management fees, he said. He also said staying small, especially as a solo GP, would give it more flexibility “while everyone else is still debating it”.
“The fund cap was not a constraint,” he said. “That was the strategy.”
The fund's checks will be about $200,000, and he hopes to support 30 to 35 companies. “We think it's more important to invest in tier 1 founders than to support tier 2 founders and over-optimize ownership,” he said.
tech crunch event
San Francisco | October 13-15, 2026
Murray's limited partner base includes institutional investors such as Allocator One, founder Christoph Janz, and Pacenotes. Founder of Kahoot! And Pleo is also an LP of Fund III, in addition to being an operator of Meta and Google.
“Many founders of my first two funds have invested in my new fund, which is also a very important metric for me,” he said, adding that he has already returned more than half of the money raised in Fund I and Fund II.
He said his Fund III focuses on AI, robotics and consumer, as these are some of the top sectors in the Nordic region. As TechCrunch previously talked about in our podcast about this region, consumer has always been the top category in this space.
The region is also known for its computer science, engineering culture, and manufacturing industry, and combined with its “calm and orderly architectural style,” Scandinavia is well-positioned for “AI-powered robotics in industrial, medical, logistics, and increasingly consumer contexts.”
Murray has a strong interest in Scandinavia, but recalls that he was originally from the UK and moved to Denmark in 2013 without knowing anyone.
“Having worked in digital products in London, I was really interested in tech startups,” he continued. When I moved to Copenhagen, I realized that the ecosystem contributes greatly to the world of technology, even though people hardly talk about it. That led him to start a website, The Nordic Web, to uncover what's going on behind the scenes in the burgeoning tech scene.
The website showed him tracking investments and exits, and soon venture capitalists were asking him which founders were looking for funding. Murray soon wanted to get in on the action, and in 2017 he launched Fund I with $500,000. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Murray stopped writing for The Nordic Web to focus on investing. And all of that led him here.
“Overall, the Nordic countries are not experiencing a 'moment',” he said. “They are experiencing conglomeration. The depth of talent, level of ambition and maturity of the ecosystem means this wave is not a surge, but rather the foundation for the next decade of Nordic breakout companies.”