Participated · Series A · Jul 2025

Vok Bikes designs and manufactures automotive-grade, four-wheeled electric cargo bikes built for commercial urban deliveries, featuring an in-house 4Drive drivetrain and automotive-level engineering. The company emphasizes durability, low maintenance and manoeuvrability as a direct alternative to vans in dense city centres. Vok highlights efficiency and environmental benefits: a Zoomo test showed a Vok XL beat a van by 20 minutes (44% faster), cost comparisons show up to 64% greater efficiency than small city vans over five years, and each e-bike can produce up to 95% less CO₂ while carrying up to 100 deliveries. Voks are already in use across 14 countries, with customers including Wolt (fleet scaled in seven countries), IKEA stores in Utrecht and Stockholm, and operators like Modern Milkman. With new funding, Vok aims to expand across Europe and accelerate the shift away from vans in city centres. Financially, the company has raised a $6M Series A and has $10M in total funding to date. Vok Bikes designs and manufactures electric cargo bikes for the last-mile delivery market, including its recently launched Vok XL model with a payload of up to 200 kg. The company builds most systems in-house and highlights features such as traction control, eABS and over‑the‑air updates, which it says give a reliability and price advantage. Vok already has hundreds of vehicles on the streets and is active in ten countries. The startup aims to scale rapidly and plans to deploy 1,000 more cargo bikes across Europe in the next year. Vok positions itself as a technology leader in a fragmented market and seeks to make cargo bikes a viable alternative to cars for urban transport. Headquarters are in Tallinn, Estonia. Vok Bikes, founded in 2019 and based in Tallinn, builds electric cargo 'pedelecs' specifically for couriers and postal workers. Its first delivery bikes offer a 100 km range and a top speed of 25 km/h. Early customers include Wolt, Lithuanian courier Ziticity, Tuul by Comodule and Eesti Post. The company has received external funding to scale manufacturing and geographic reach. The recent investment will be used to produce the next 100 vehicles and support expansion into a couple of major European cities over the next year. Co‑founders named in the coverage include Indrek Petjärv, Siim Starke and Riho Koop.

Led · Equity · Mar 2024

Themo develops smart thermostats powered by an electricity-optimization algorithm that considers time of day, weather forecasts and electricity spot-price fluctuations. When a frequency deviation is detected the algorithm can switch on thermostats briefly (for example 20 seconds) to provide aggregated balancing power without affecting home heating or costs. Themo allows electrically heated premises to earn compensation by participating in the reserve market while its thermostats also reduce consumption — customers can save up to 50% of electricity versus manual thermostats, with large rental-property operators or hotels able to save tens of thousands of euros. The company has verified 1 MW of power mass under Fingrid test conditions, has passed Fingrid's Frequency Containment Reserve (FCR-D) market requirements, and currently manages around 10 MW across its customer base. Themo plans to include B2C customers in the reserve market and aims to manage 60 MW by the end of 2026. The company also secured €1.3 million in growth funding to support product development.

Participated · Seed · Dec 2023

Founded in 2019 and based in Tallinn, UP Catalyst commercialises a molten salt electrolysis process that transforms industrial CO2 into high-performance graphite and carbon nanotubes for EV batteries and other industrial uses. The company claims lower energy use and a very low cradle-to-gate carbon footprint for its carbon nanotubes and battery‑grade graphite, verified by an LCA. In 2024 it opened an in‑house testing and validation facility and a new production plant in Estonia; product performance was validated in large‑scale battery cells using GEN3alpha in 2025. UP Catalyst plans to scale production to 270 tonnes of carbon nanotubes and 1,350 tonnes of green graphite per year by 2027, requiring about 6,000 tonnes of CO2 annually. The company aims to convert 250,000 tonnes of CO2 into carbon‑neutral raw materials by 2030 and was selected as a strategic project partner under the EU Critical Raw Materials Act in March 2025. The business positions itself to supply a significant share of Europe’s projected graphite shortfall as it scales. UP Catalyst produces battery-grade graphite and carbon nanomaterials directly from CO2 emissions using a molten salt electrolysis process. The company claims a very low carbon footprint: 0.07 ton CO2-eq per ton of graphite (20x lower than conventional graphite) and 0.7 ton CO2-eq per ton of carbon nanotubes (242x lower than CVD). It plans to accelerate construction of a first-of-a-kind industrial production unit and develop an industrial pilot reactor designed to process 100 tons of CO2 annually and yield 27 tons of advanced carbon materials. UP Catalyst has begun moving into a new facility adjacent to the Tallinn waste incineration plant to access hard-to-abate CO2 streams and scale production tenfold versus its current setup. Management frames the technology as a pathway to reduce EU dependence on imported fossil-based carbon materials and to provide industrial partners options to utilize CO2 emissions. The company cites a strategic target of utilising at least 200,000 tons of CO2 annually by 2030 as it scales. Up Catalyst develops an electrochemical reactor that converts CO2 in a molten-salt electrolyte into graphite that can be used in lithium-ion battery anodes. The process strips oxygen from CO2 so carbon accumulates on a cathode; the material is then removed and purified. The company can also adapt the process to make carbon nanotubes and graphite tailored for hydrogen fuel cells. Up Catalyst was started in 2019 and is based in Tallinn, Estonia. It highlights the climate and supply-chain rationale for its approach given China's dominance of global graphite supply and the high carbon intensity of Chinese-refined graphite. The startup is scaling its reactor design toward industrial production and aims to reach price parity with existing graphite sources as it grows. UP Catalyst is an Estonia-based deep tech startup developing sustainable carbon nanomaterials and graphite produced from CO2-rich flue gases for use in electric vehicle batteries. The company says its materials increase energy and power density, speed charging and improve battery lifetime, addressing range and charging concerns in the EV market. Founded in 2019 with R&D dating to 2016, UP Catalyst aims to scale by building the first industrial-scale prototype synthesis unit to supply larger volumes as demand already exceeds supply. Its process uses CO2-rich flue gases from heavy industry emitters as feedstock to avoid environmentally harmful conventional carbon production methods. UP Catalyst targets European battery manufacturers and lists potential customers including Tesla, Northvolt and CATL. Financially, the company secured a €1.59M grant from EIT RawMaterials earlier this year and closed a €500k pre-seed round, bringing total funding to €2.09M. The company plans to use the funding to accelerate production, expand R&D, and grow the team. Founded in 2019 and based in Estonia, UP Catalyst has developed a novel process to produce oxygen from the Martian atmosphere while converting the carbon monoxide byproduct into carbon nanomaterials. The company’s method operates at similar temperatures to NASA’s MOXIE experiment but differs by reprocessing CO into materials rather than emitting it. The produced nanomaterials could be used in batteries, ultracapacitors, conductive and strengthening coatings, polymer formulations and water filters for space applications. UP Catalyst says this approach enables a more sustainable use of both oxygen and carbon byproducts on Mars. The startup received €50,000 of seed funding from the 2021 ESA BIC programme for business and product development. In addition to funding, UP Catalyst receives technical support from the European Space Agency and hands-on mentoring from field-specific experts. The company is positioned to scale up its production method to support future human missions to Mars.