Balnord, a brand new early-stage mission capital company based through the group at the back of Black Pearls VC, has introduced the release of Balnord Fund I, an oversubscribed €70 million automobile devoted to making an investment in frontier and dual-use era startups around the Baltic Sea area.
The fund, which is already heading in the right direction to achieve a last shut of €100 million through mid-2026, goals to boost up Europe’s technological reindustrialisation — backing firms development important infrastructure and innovation in area, healthcare, business resilience, and defence-related applied sciences.
“We’re making an investment within the spine of Eu industrialisation,” stated Marcin P. Kowalik, Basic Spouse at Balnord. “There hasn’t ever been a more potent time for Europe to construct resilient and enduring tech firms. The following wave of unicorns will emerge on this area.”
Balnord’s funding thesis centres on Europe’s rising want for technological autonomy amid international provide chain fragmentation and emerging geopolitical uncertainty.
The company has already deployed €13 million throughout 10 firms, with its first 4 portfolio companies elevating €40 million in follow-on rounds and producing €35 million in revenues this yr.
Its focal point spans Nordics, the Baltics, Poland, and Germany, making an investment preliminary cheques between €500,000 and €3 million with the opportunity of follow-on investments of as much as €12 million in line with corporate.
“We’re backing resilient marketers who’re elevating the bar on ambition,” stated Aleksander Dobrzyniecki, Basic Spouse at Balnord. “Our function is to lend a hand founders construct billion-euro firms that may make a GDP-level have an effect on around the Baltic Sea area. We don’t simply put money into firms — we again founders and lend a hand them construct actions.”
Amongst Balnord’s early investments are:
• ATMOS House Shipment (Germany), creating space-to-Earth logistics methods.
• Vitvio (Poland), a medtech corporate digitising running rooms the use of laptop imaginative and prescient and ambient sensing.
• Astrolight (Lithuania), author of an undetectable laser communications hyperlink for NATO ships.
• Microamp and SATIM (Poland), each deep-tech ventures aligned with Europe’s defence innovation and 5G infrastructure objectives.
Different portfolio firms are tackling demanding situations in business resilience, tech bio, and area infrastructure, positioning Balnord as one of the vital few early-stage price range bridging business and dual-use innovation in Europe.
Balnord’s core group, drawn from a decade of a success early-stage making an investment, comprises Basic Companions Marcin P. Kowalik and Aleksander Dobrzyniecki, along Working Companions Jarosław Pilarczyk, Wojciech Drewczyński, Hubert Szczołek, and Gabriele Poteliunaite. The company operates from Gdańsk, Luxembourg, and Berlin.
The company has additionally established a Founders Board to steer its portfolio firms, that includes Peter Bialo, co-founder of DocPlanner, and Davis Siksnans, founder and previous CEO of Printful and now CEO of Mapon — two of the Baltic area’s maximum a success tech scale-ups.
“Running with Balnord seems like having a spouse who really will get it,” stated Sebastian Klaus, CEO of ATMOS House Shipment. “Their entrepreneurial revel in manner they perceive the ups and downs of establishing an organization. They’re no longer simply traders — they’re developers.”
Restricted Companions (LPs) come with the Eu Funding Fund (EIF), PFR Ventures, and several other Eu circle of relatives workplaces and founders. The fund’s LP base spans 3 continents and 12 nations, with maximum earlier traders reinvesting.
“Making an investment in Balnord allows us to give a contribution without delay to the EU’s strategic targets,” stated Marjut Falkstedt, Leader Govt of the Eu Funding Fund. “This fund will pressure innovation in key sectors equivalent to defence and area, making sure Europe stays at the leading edge of technological construction.”
Rozalia Urbanek, Board Member at PFR Ventures, added that Balnord’s style “is going way past funding, fostering a regional deep-tech ecosystem that founders can really take pleasure in.”
Balnord’s project displays a broader shift in Eu mission capital against frontier applied sciences with strategic and business packages — from satellite tv for pc logistics and complex production to sustainable healthcare methods.
As Europe hurries up efforts to succeed in technological sovereignty and reindustrialisation, Balnord is positioning itself as a key early-stage backer for the firms development the continent’s subsequent technology of strategic infrastructure.
Amy Ingham
Amy is a newly certified journalist specialising in industry journalism at Trade Issues with accountability for information content material for what’s now the United Kingdom’s greatest print and on-line supply of present industry information.
