Denmark startup ecosystem
Denmark's startup ecosystem benefits from a strong welfare state, world-class research institutions, and a culture of trust that lowers barriers to collaboration. Copenhagen is a leading hub for cleantech, biotech, and health innovation. Government backing through programs like the Innovation Fund Denmark and a growing roster of experienced angels keep the pipeline healthy. The directory currently lists 97 organisations across 8 cities.
Showing 61–80 of 97 Denmark
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Nordic Makers
Nordic Makers is a Copenhagen-based collective of angel investors whose members are founders of companies including Just Eat, Zendesk, Momondo, Podio, Sitecore, Unity, and TAT. Formed to channel experienced founder capital and guidance into early-stage Nordic startups, the group invests in pre-seed and seed rounds and provides hands-on mentorship drawn from their own scaling and exit experience. Partners include Klaus Nyengaard (ex-CEO Just Eat) and Morten Nørregaard Andersen (co-founder of Zendesk), among others.
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Nordic Startup Awards 2026
Annual awards ceremony and networking event celebrating the best startups, investors, and ecosystem builders across the Nordics and Baltics. Categories include Best Newcomer, Best Fintech, and Founder of the Year.
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NorthCap
NorthCap (Northcap Partners) is a Copenhagen-based venture capital firm founded in 1999, focused on B2B and B2B2C technology companies across the Nordics, with a particular emphasis on SaaS, cloud computing, and mobile services. The firm invests from seed stage (Denmark only) through growth stage, with ticket sizes ranging from $1 million to $25 million, and draws on more than 100 investments of operational experience to support founders in scaling and internationalization. Notable investments include GAN Integrity and Visiopharm.
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Novo Holdings
Novo Holdings is the investment arm of the Novo Nordisk Foundation and the largest life science investor in Denmark. It backs biotech, medtech, and health innovation across seed, venture, and growth stages while also managing the foundation's long term ownership in Novo Nordisk and Novozymes. The firm provides patient capital, deep scientific expertise, and global networks for founders building therapies, diagnostics, and industrial biotech solutions. Novo Holdings is a cornerstone of the Danish life science ecosystem.
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Odense Robotics
Odense Robotics is Denmark's national robotics and automation cluster, connecting companies, universities, and public partners in the Odense region. The hub supports startups through business development, talent programs, and investor matchmaking, and it helps scale a dense robotics supply chain anchored by global leaders. Odense Robotics also promotes Denmark internationally as a robotics hub and drives collaboration in areas like drones, cobots, and industrial automation. It is a key engine behind Denmark's robot valley reputation.
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Ondřej Mirtes
Czech software engineer and creator of PHPStan, the popular static analysis tool for PHP that helps developers find bugs before runtime. He is a confirmed speaker at Laravel Live Denmark 2026 in Copenhagen, where he discusses static analysis and code quality in modern PHP.
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Pauline Vos
Software engineer working with MongoDB and an active voice in the Laravel and PHP developer community, focused on databases and backend engineering. She is a confirmed speaker at Laravel Live Denmark 2026 in Copenhagen, addressing data persistence and developer experience.
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Penneo
Penneo is a Copenhagen-based digital trust company, legally Penneo A/S, offering Penneo Sign, Penneo Collect, and Penneo Verify to digitally sign, collect data for, and verify the identity behind business documents with cryptographic, court-admissible evidence. It is a Qualified Trust Service Provider (QTSP) under the EU eIDAS regulation, generating certificates, signatures, and timestamps on hardware security modules in Danish, EU-based data centres, and it holds ISO 27001 certification. Penneo reports serving more than 3,500 companies across Europe, primarily in audit and accounting, finance and banking, legal services, and real estate.
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Pleo
Pleo is a Copenhagen-founded B2B spend-management unicorn that replaces paper expense claims with smart Mastercard-powered cards for employees and a real-time software platform for finance teams. Founded in 2015 by Jeppe Rindom and Niccolo Perra (former Tradeshift colleagues), it covers corporate cards, invoice management, vendor cards, multi-currency accounts and, since 2025, a full cash-management and treasury suite. As of mid-2025 Pleo serves 45,000+ businesses and over a million employees across 16 European markets, with the UK its largest. Pleo reached unicorn status in 2021 and closed a $200M Series C extension led by Coatue in December 2021 at a $4.7bn valuation, then Denmark's most valuable private tech company. Total funding exceeds $476M, backed by European investors Kinnevik (Sweden), Creandum (Sweden), Founders (Denmark) and Seedcamp (UK) alongside US growth funds Stripes, Coatue and Thrive Capital. FY2025 net revenue was about €130M (up 25%), with break-even targeted for 2027 and a possible Copenhagen IPO under consideration.
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Podimo
Podimo is a Copenhagen founded subscription platform for podcasts and audiobooks, focused on local language content and creator revenue sharing. Launched in 2019, the company built exclusive catalogs in markets such as Denmark, Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands, and later expanded to Latin America. Podimo uses a subscription model that pays creators based on listen time, giving podcasters an alternative to advertising. The company has raised significant funding to scale its content studio and international footprint.
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PreSeed Ventures
PreSeed Ventures (PSV) is a Copenhagen-area venture house rooted in the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), and Denmark's most active pre-seed investor. It operates three vehicles: PSV Tech (early-stage software, AI and digital-infrastructure fund), PSV Hafnium (Denmark's first dedicated deep-tech fund) and PSV Foundry (DTU's investment and incubation arm). PSV provides the first institutional capital to university spin-outs and technical founders, typically at idea or prototype stage, writing tickets of roughly €0.1–1.5M. PSV Tech's first independent fund closed at DKK 412M (~€55M) in 2022, backed by Denmark's ATP pension fund, EIFO and Vækstfonden, with a €70M Fund II in fundraising. PSV Hafnium closed an oversubscribed €60M in December 2025, anchored by the European Investment Fund and EIFO, to back around 25 science-rooted spin-outs across quantum computing, cleantech, new materials, biotech and new space. PSV has backed early Danish successes including Trustpilot (LSE IPO, 2021), Glycom (acquired by DSM), Vivino, Lunar and Labster, and remains a crucial bridge from Nordic research to venture.
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Rasmus Errboe
Rasmus Errboe is CEO and Group President of Ørsted, the world's largest offshore wind developer headquartered in Fredericia, Denmark, with operations in Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Americas. He became CEO in February 2025, succeeding Mads Nipper, having previously served as Deputy CEO, Chief Commercial Officer, and Interim CFO since joining Ørsted in 2012. He was responsible for Ørsted's 2016 IPO and the 2017 divestment of its oil and gas business, and is a member of the Confederation of Danish Industries' Main Board.
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SEED Capital
SEED Capital is Denmark's largest early stage venture fund and a first check investor for many of the country's most successful startups. The firm invests at seed and Series A and supports founders with hands on company building and follow on fundraising. SEED has backed Danish scale ups across SaaS, fintech, and consumer tech, with notable wins including Trustpilot, Vivino, Templafy, and Lunar. It is a key pillar of the Danish venture landscape.
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Shane Rosenthal
Software engineer and co-founder of NativePHP, a framework for building native desktop and mobile applications with PHP and Laravel. He is a confirmed speaker at Laravel Live Denmark 2026 in Copenhagen, presenting on cross-platform application development with PHP.
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Siteimprove
Siteimprove is a Copenhagen-based SaaS company founded in 2003 that provides a comprehensive website governance and digital experience platform covering accessibility compliance, SEO optimization, content quality, and analytics. The platform helps enterprises and public sector organizations ensure their websites meet WCAG accessibility standards, maintain brand consistency, and perform well in search rankings. With over 500 employees and thousands of customers worldwide, Siteimprove is a market leader in digital accessibility tooling and one of Denmark's most established B2B software companies.
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SMIL 2026
A one-day startup festival in Aarhus bringing together 700+ founders, investors, and operators in small, curated, participatory sessions. Hosted by Startup Aarhus, designed for real connections and practical progress beyond traditional panel formats.
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SMIL 2027
SMIL'27 is confirmed for 27 May 2027, with tickets now live. The one-day Aarhus startup festival brings together 850+ founders, investors, and operators in small, curated, participatory sessions rather than traditional panels.
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Symbion
Symbion is one of Denmark's oldest science parks and incubators, founded to support research driven startups in tech and life science. It provides office space, labs, business services, and community programs for hundreds of early stage companies, and it hosts accelerators and investor events on site. Symbion is located in Copenhagen's innovation district and acts as a bridge between universities, corporates, and founders. Many Danish startups begin their journey inside the Symbion campus.
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Tactile
Tactile Games is a Copenhagen-based mobile gaming studio founded in 2008, known for hit casual puzzle titles including Lily’s Garden and Cookie Cats. The company has achieved hundreds of millions of downloads and generates strong recurring revenue through free-to-play mechanics and live ops. With over 360 employees, Tactile is one of the largest independent game studios in the Nordics and a key player in Denmark’s thriving gaming ecosystem alongside SYBO and Hugo Games. The company builds its games in-house and focuses on narrative-driven casual experiences that retain players over months.
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Taylor Otwell
Creator of the Laravel PHP framework and founder of the company behind it, one of the most widely used open-source web frameworks. He is a confirmed speaker at Laravel Live Denmark 2026 in Copenhagen, where he addresses the Laravel ecosystem and modern PHP development.
