Mistbase founders Michal Stala and Magnus Midholt, who sold their startup to ARM in 2017, announced they have started Mist Ventures. There are already two startups in the portfolio.
One is AligND Systems, which is a new startup but that focuses on taking Sol Voltaic’s technology further, after it’s bankruptcy earlier this year. The other is a Växjö-based company called Gimic, which focuses on machine learning technology for industrial applications.
Michal and Magnus sold the IoT startup Mistbase the co-founded to British ARM 2017 – a year and a half after they founded it. Since then, they have been looking for investments individually, but have now merged them and started Mist Ventures.
“We complement each other with different contact networks and knowledge, myself more within hardware and Magnus within software. In less than a year we have looked at 60-70 pitches from start-up companies in Skåne and looked deeper in about 15 of the companies.” says Michal Stala to Rapidus.
The aim of Mist Ventures is to invest so called deep-tech startups, building on advanced technologies.
“Our investment strategy means that we are looking for companies that have a competitive advantage based on their advanced technology, preferably from research. Another part we look at is the business model, where we prefer business-to-business. We also want companies to be able to scale up globally. Our investments so far follow our investment strategy very well and we are very excited about these companies future journey.” Says Magnus Midholt
Based in Lund, just as Mistbase was, makes an indirect focus on startups in this region.
“I may be home-blind, but the feeling is that Lund has many more startups with high technological innovation and with links to research. Stockholm may have more app companies, service companies, software companies. There should be a better exchange of investors and companies between Skåne and Stockholm.” says Michal Stala to Rapidus.
As we recently wrote, in Lund there is definitely happening a lot within tech, both research heavy and more software related. But now with multiple new fonds and initiatives emerging, such as Mist Ventures and 1337 Partners, the venture capital side is growing as well.
