The European Investment Fund has committed up to €30 million to a Helsinki-based venture capital fund dedicated to agrifood technology, bringing Nordic Foodtech VC's second vehicle to 87.5 per cent of its €80 million target.
A fund closing in on its target
NFT.VC Fund II held a first close of €40 million in April 2025. The EIF's pledge takes total commitments to €70 million, leaving €10 million still to raise from private investors before the fund reaches its ceiling. The vehicle plans to back roughly 30 early-stage companies, primarily across Northern Europe, with selective opportunities elsewhere on the continent.
The involvement of the EIF, which sits within the European Investment Bank Group, is not merely a capital injection. Its participation signals credibility to private limited partners who might otherwise regard a specialist agrifood fund as too niche or too slow to return capital. The EIF has long used this catalytic function, backing emerging managers and sector-specific funds that private capital tends to avoid in early vintages.
Deep technology from laboratory to market
Nordic Foodtech VC describes its approach as combining investment capital with scientific and industry expertise. The second fund will concentrate on pre-seed and seed-stage ventures, including spin-outs from universities and research centres. Its target sectors cover sustainable agriculture, food production, health, aquaculture and the wider biosolutions industry.
The emphasis on deep technology rather than consumer brands is deliberate. Europe's academic institutions produce considerable research in food and agricultural science, but commercialising that research requires patient capital and specialist evaluation. Karl Nehammer, vice-president of the EIB Group, framed the problem directly: "While Europe has excellent research in food and agriculture, promising technologies need capital and expertise to make the leap from the laboratory to the market."
That gap between research and commercialisation has persisted for years. Agricultural and food technology ventures face longer development cycles, more regulatory requirements and more uncertain exit paths than software companies. Venture capital has flowed disproportionately to digital businesses precisely because they can scale faster and exit sooner.
What the first fund achieved
Nordic Foodtech VC's debut fund invested in 18 companies across the Nordic and Baltic regions. The portfolio provides some indication of what the second fund will pursue, though Fund II will cast its net wider geographically. The relatively small number of investments from the first vehicle suggests a hands-on model that prioritises depth of engagement over portfolio breadth.
Detailed performance figures for the first fund have not been publicly disclosed. That matters, because the limited partners deciding whether to commit the remaining €10 million to Fund II will look closely at how those 18 companies have progressed. Early-stage deep-tech portfolios take years to demonstrate commercial traction, and the first fund may still be too young for its returns to tell a clear story.
The €10 million still to find
Reaching the final 12.5 per cent of a fund target is often harder than raising the first half. Early commitments tend to come from supporters already convinced of the thesis. The last capital usually requires persuading investors who have been watching from the sidelines, waiting for evidence that the fund will reach a viable size.
The EIF's backing reduces the risk for those private investors, since institutional capital of this kind often absorbs first-loss positions. But private limited partners still need to believe that agrifood deep tech can generate venture-grade returns, not merely worthy outcomes. The exit landscape for agricultural technology companies remains thin compared with software, with fewer acquisitions and almost no IPOs of scale.
Policy alignment, commercial questions
The commitment sits against a backdrop of growing European policy attention to food security and climate-resilient agriculture. The EU's food policy framework increasingly links agricultural innovation to climate targets, and institutional capital flowing into agrifood venture funds reflects that priority.
Northern Europe has become a natural testing ground for food technology, combining strong research institutions, progressive environmental regulation and consumers willing to pay premiums for sustainable products. Finland, Sweden and the Baltic states perform well on agricultural innovation indices, and the region's aquaculture sector in particular has attracted entrepreneurial attention.
Mika Kukkurainen, co-founder and managing partner of Nordic Foodtech VC, said the EIF partnership would expand the firm's geographical reach. "With EIF's support, we're growing our reach across all of Northern Europe," he said. "Our portfolio companies are building the deep-tech solutions Europe needs for food security, resilience and nutrition."
For all the policy alignment, the commercial question remains open. Can a portfolio of 30 early-stage agrifood deep-tech companies generate the returns that venture capital demands? The sector's track record is shorter and thinner than software or fintech. Fund II will not answer that question for several years, but the companies it selects, and how quickly they move from laboratory to revenue, will shape whether private capital continues to follow institutional money into this space.
People mentioned
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Mika Kukkurainen
Organisations
European Investment Fund · European Investment Bank · Nordic Foodtech VC
