Iceye splits its holdings: “More than half”

Finnish satellite company Iceye opened a little about his owner information on Kauppalehti’s live In the Talousamau program on Thursday.

Kauppalehti has tried several times to ask about the company’s list of shareholders. The reporter who hosted Talosauam Tuomo Hyttinen asked Iceye’s strategy director on Thursday’s broadcast From Pekka Laurila, could this shed light on the company’s ownership.

Laurila said that the company has started with founder and employee owners.

According to Laurila, the largest single investor is currently a private equity investor from Silicon Valley who joined in the first funding round True Ventures.

“Among the investors, the largest VC funds are in the United States,” said Laurila.

“Now more than half of the investors are from the United States. Purely for historical reasons”

In Laurila’s opinion, more operators like True Ventures are needed in Finland, because when talking about assets worth billions, it is easier to take risks from the beginning and, on the other hand, stay involved in the company’s operations.

“The challenge in the European investment field is that if fundi [rahasto] even if it’s a hundred million, both the horizon and the scale run out pretty quickly,” said Laurila.

“That’s why states have been important in Europe.”

In December, Iceye said 150 million euros from the funding roundwith which the Finnish state investment company Solidium own Five percent of Iceye’s shares. There were other Finnish investors in the same financing round Ilmarinen, Spring, Lifeline Ventures, Thesis, Varma and Peter Sarlin. The largest investor in the round was a venture capitalist with a US background General Catalyst.

Watch Thursday’s Financial Morning in full from here.