Norrsken Evolve formalises Dutch presence following €62 million fund close

Norrsken Evolve, the Danish pre-Seed fund investing in founders tackling climate, health and resilience challenges, has closed at €62 million after oversubscribing its initial €40 million target.

The fund also announced it will formalise its amsterdam presence by taking up base at Norrsken House Amsterdam at the formal opening on September 1, 2026 – the largest Norrsken House in Western Europe at 3,600m².

The fund was backed by the European Investment Fund (EIF), Saminvest and SmartCap, alongside operators including Taavet Hinrikus and Sten Tamkivi – co-founders of TransferWise (now Wise) and early Skype engineers – through their family office, Skaala.

“We have been backing Dutch founders for a while now,” said Alex Bakir, General Partner at Norrsken Evolve. “Formalising that commitment in Amsterdam makes sense. The Dutch pre-Seed ecosystem has real gaps, and we are here to back founders at the stage where most institutional capital still steps back.”

Norrsken Evolve’s final close forms part of a wider expansion in specialist European investment vehicles during 2026.

EU-Startups has seen eight comparable or adjacent funds representing approximately €1.28 billion in announced capital or targeted fund size across climate, health, DeepTech and resilience, bringing the total to around €1.35 billion when Norrsken Evolve is included.

Denmark provides two particularly relevant comparisons: Copenhagen-based Climentum Capital reached a €60 million first close for its second climate fund, while the Footprint Firm completed the €76 million final close of a vehicle targeting early-stage climate and DeepTech companies across Northern Europe.

Other vehicles include 2150’s €210 million climate-focused Fund II, SlateVC’s €132 million first close, Kurma Partners’ €215 million BioTech fund and DTCP’s €500 million defence and resilience vehicle.

EU-Startups previously covered Norrsken Evolve’s launch at €57 million in August 2025.

Norrsken House Amsterdam’s CEO Thijs van der Burgt adds: “We purposely designed Norrsken Amsterdam as a hub where founders working on the most urgent problems of our time – energy, climate, health – sit alongside the investors backing them, every single day. That proximity is not merely incidental, but the whole point. Having Norrsken Evolve based here means that the earliest-stage founders in our community have access to pre-Seed capital or priceless but free advice the moment they need it, from people who are genuinely invested in the same mission.”

Founded in 2025, Norrsken Evolve is part of the Norrsken ecosystem, which manages nearly €876 million ($1 billion) across five investment funds and operates Norrsken Houses in Stockholm, Barcelona, Brussels, Kigali and Amsterdam.

The Amsterdam base is led by General Partner Alex Bakir, who has been living in the Netherlands since 2019, and investor Sjoerd Stevens, an Amsterdam native with 13 years of experience in professional equity trading.

Their presence at Norrsken House Amsterdam, gives the fund its first dedicated Dutch presence, its second base after Stockholm.

Norrsken Evolve has made two Dutch investments to date:

• It was the first institutional money into New Dawn Bio, the Amsterdam-based BioTech company developing wood alternatives that grow without trees, and subsequently introduced the company to Capital T – also a tenant at Norrsken House Amsterdam – which led a follow-on round – as covered by EU-Startups.
• The fund co-invested in Spiral Hydrogen, an Estonian-founded team building green hydrogen infrastructure at the Port of Rotterdam.

A third Dutch investment is expected to close before the end of 2026.

The fund estimates approximately five per cent of its capital – around €3 million – will be deployed in the Dutch market, targeting between five and eight investments over the lifecycle of the fund. Initial cheques of up to €500k per company, with follow-on capital reserved for the strongest performers.

The timing coincides with growing concern about early-stage funding in the Netherlands. The State of Dutch Tech 2026, published by TNO, identifies the pre-Seed and Seed gap as the country’s most critical structural challenge, with institutional capital consistently concentrated at later stages.

Despite this, no Dutch limited partners participated in the fund.

“Dutch LPs told us we invest too early,” says Alex. “Every piece of analysis on the Dutch ecosystem says early-stage capital is the critical gap. It didn’t discourage us to fulfil our mission – we kept going regardless, and closed the fund oversubscribed.”