EQT Ventures launched in 2016 as the dedicated venture capital arm of EQT AB, the Swedish investment manager founded in 1994, bringing serial entrepreneur Hjalmar Winbladh alongside Kees Koolen and Lars Jörnow to build a multi-stage, sector-agnostic fund at a moment Europe's venture ecosystem remained a fraction of Silicon Valley's scale. The firm built a genuinely distinctive sourcing edge through Motherbrain, a proprietary AI platform used to identify and evaluate deals, combined with operational experience from partners with backgrounds at Booking.com, Wrapp, and King. That approach produced EQT Ventures' defining outcome: Wolt, backed from a 2016 seed investment through DoorDash's $8.1 billion acquisition in 2021, a reported 200x return. EQT Ventures has raised three funds totaling more than €2.3 billion, also backing Small Giant Games, Peakon (acquired by Workday), and Sonantic (acquired by Spotify).
Wolt's $8.1 billion acquisition by DoorDash in November 2021 - Sifted reported this delivered a roughly 200x multiple on EQT Ventures' original 2016 investment, one of the largest returns in European venture history