Denmark in 2021: The B2B (SaaS) capital of Europe
It’s easy to talk about “the Nordics” as one entity — but just as Smörrebröd is not the same as Knäckebröd and Suomi sounds nothing like Norsk, there are major differences in the startup ecosystems. And Creandum has enjoyed a front-row seat as the different countries’ startups developed in their distinct directions.
Take Sweden, which became the Fintech hub of the cold north with unicorns like Trustly, Tink, (i)Zettle, and Klarna (yes, we are particularly proud of those last two).
Or Finland, the gaming capital that has influenced everyone under 30 with games such as Angry Birds and Clash of Clans, alongside hot new startups like Skunkworks getting us hooked on merging tools.
Today, we want to focus on Denmark, where we are seeing a new verticalized ecosystem emerge: The B2B(SaaS) ecosystem of Denmark (…and, spoiler alert: we might tell the winter saga of Norway and Iceland at a later point.)
Watching for waves
When looking at the maturity of ecosystems we like to think in waves.
For those of you who are new to this concept: since most entrepreneurs and early employees have an innate “urge to build”, you usually see a 2nd wave of businesses following successful exits. Once these are a hit and this trickles down again, the ecosystem enters its 3rd wave (the grandchildren of the 1st, if you like).
So where are the Nordics in these terms?
Norway and Iceland are currently on their first wave but starting to become interesting. The former already has some impressive exits (Kahoot!) and exciting companies across varying stages including Cognite, Xenata, and Dune Analytics. These successes trigger the transition to the 2nd wave.
In the more mature markets, Sweden hosts a couple of impressive unicorns and we currently see its third wave of founders. It has not only produced a lot of unicorns in fintech but about one fifth of total funding in the region goes into new fintech startups.
Denmark and Finland are not far behind. Their Unicorns have a combined value of $61.1bn and in Denmark, the clear majority appear in the B2B space. Knowing this area well, we anticipate exciting stuff but also an accelerating trickle-down effect. Look out Sweden— Denmark is heading right into its 3rd wave!
But how did Denmark get here?
The battle of Enterprise SaaS: US vs Denmark
2014 was a good year for the Danes — they were crowned number 1 at the European Badminton Championships and hosted the Eurovision Song Contest.
But it also saw Zendesk, the Copenhagen-founded customer service, and sales CRM go public at over 1 BUSD valuation. This provided the country’s biggest tech exit and gilded the nation. However, some think it came at a price.
Just months after Morten Primdahl, Alexander Aghassipour, and Mikkel Svane started building the software in Svane’s loft, attracting over 1,000 trial customers, investors started to flock. They offered to invest — but only if the company moved to the US. They were not the only Danish founders “encouraged” to relocate in this way.
On one hand, this demand may have delayed the trickle-down effects of a Denmark-based “Zendesk mafia” (which instead established in the US and supported companies like OneLogin and ChartMogul).
But on the flip side, the company may well not have gotten where it is today without that move. In parallel, we saw many Danish now-Unicorns go through the same relocation: Unity, Sitecore, Tradeshift, and Chainanalysis. These moves created a wave of influence that has benefited the Danish B2B ecosystem immensely.
So what were the three key benefits of this compromise?
- Danes now have a network of successful B2B founders
- It has instilled “B2B confidence” in entrepreneurs building in Denmark
- It has created a new breed of commercial talent in Denmark
As is often the case when an ecosystem is created, you need a few successful entrepreneurs as the starting point. They partly work as role models, but they also come with new hands-on knowledge and understanding of how to run a category-defining business, or set up offices and win in the US.
Not only are they fundamental in bringing money back and angel investing — they are also instrumental in spreading know-how. Indeed, not all B2B founders in Denmark have had the chance for a 1-on-1 with Mikkel Svane. But they have had the chance to see him succeed.
Seeing someone like you take a big step creates a model to do the same, and not be deterred by “common knowledge” that B2B companies are best built elsewhere.
Lastly, setting high standards and building globally recognized companies means that the greenhouse for talent has flourished. It seems like the cross-pollination between the US and Denmark has created a new breed of commercial and product talent that does not shy away from solving large problems.
New kids on the block
These fortunate circumstances have left Denmark in a state of absolute propulsion.
Everywhere you look, very strong individuals are starting new companies and there is more money flowing in than ever before. The ideas and companies being backed have much larger plans than just their local market or even Europe. They are going after the giants, both in terms of who they are replacing and who they are selling to.
As you can see on the map there are plenty of interesting B2B companies in Denmark at this point. To give some flavor we are going to mention three seed-stage companies, who are typical of the current exciting B2B wave.
Sensible.app
Sensible is co-founded by Jesper Klingenberg, who previously built Timekit (acquired by Tulip) and led Product at Roger (acquired by Fleetcor). He is a typical example of the strong second-wave founders coming out of the Danish ecosystem.
He and co-founder Visti Kløft are building the main system of intelligence for every individual in sales, growth, marketing, and customer success; teams whose roles in the modern sales process are no longer strictly siloed. In time, all customer data will sit in Sensible and make it the CRM for Product-Led-Growth companies.
Fullview
B2B SaaS is becoming hyper-competitive — and the founders of Fullview have taken this to heart. It lets every SaaS company provide instant top-class customer service the moment they experience a problem by monitoring, controlling, and analyzing user sessions.
Daniel Bakh previously worked at Contractbook and TwentyThree and his co-founder Dorin Tarau used to be a CCO at Apidemia. They are going up against companies such as Cohere in the US and are not afraid to go after their niche and set a clear direction of how to win in Europe and beyond.
Januar
Are we starting to see the Chainalysis offspring being born? It seems so! Januar co-founder Simon Ousager spent 4 years at Chainalysis and is one of the early spin-outs from the Danish crypto unicorn. He also hired his ex-colleague Jens Warnez with more than 3 years of experience at Chainalysis as their Head of Product.
Together with his co-founders Fredrik Grothe-Eberhardt, Andreas Keinicke, and Mikael Buch Smedegaard, they are providing account and payment solutions for crypto businesses across Europe that might otherwise run into regulatory hurdles at legacy commercial banks.
As you can see from the examples above there is a lot to be excited about!
The third wave is coming…
Those who spun out of the second generation of Danish B2B tech startups are now launching their ventures, launching the region’s third wave of entrepreneurs.
Creandum has invested heavily into the ecosystem over the years (Opbeat, Autobutler, Planday, Good Monday, Pleo, Toit, Vivino, and Blast) and we are confident that it will continue that way.
We dare say it has never been a more exciting time to be a founder, tech employee, (or investor) in Denmark.
If you are as excited about the Danish ecosystem as we are or building your startup in this fantastic environment we would love to hear from you here!
Co-authored by Lorenz Raml
