Verdane

Co-founders Bjarne Kveim Lie and Staffan Mörndal remain deeply involved in investment committee decisions, but the firm has transitioned day-to-day approval authority to a broader group of partners including Pål Malmros, who focuses on software investments. The IC operates with a consensus model rather than a single-approver structure, and the in-house Elevate operational team provides a dedicated diligence report assessing each target's digital maturity before decisions are made. Major sovereign co-investors in Verdane's larger deals also receive observer seats on the committee for those transactions.

Verdane sources primarily through thematic mapping of software and consumer niches where European fragmentation creates buy-and-build opportunities—it identifies 10 to 15 sub-verticals per year and pursues the leader in each. The Elevate team's pre-deal operational diagnostics also function as a sourcing tool, because founders in Nordic and DACH markets often grant exclusivity in exchange for the operational blueprint. Approximately 65% of Verdane's deals are negotiated bilaterally without a full auction process, according to the firm's public statements.

Verdane is an institutional asset manager that raises committed capital from external limited partners. Its LP base includes European pension funds, US endowments, sovereign wealth funds, and development-finance institutions. The firm has no single-family-office roots, though its co-founders have significant personal capital committed alongside LPs in every fund.

Verdane operates across late-stage venture, growth equity, and small-cap buyout—it typically enters at Series B or later for software companies and at proven unit-economics stage for consumer internet. It also executes direct secondary transactions where it acquires LP stakes in individual growth-stage companies, which accounts for roughly 15% of deployment volume. The firm does not invest at seed or Series A stage.

Verdane explicitly avoids deep-tech hardware, biotech, and traditional industrial manufacturing, sticking to its mandate of digitalisation and decarbonisation. It also does not invest in fossil-fuel energy generation, gambling, or defence technology. The impact fund Idun adds an additional exclusion for companies with material exposure to fast fashion or single-use plastics.

Verdane invests almost exclusively in direct deals with portfolio companies; it does not run a fund-of-funds programme. It occasionally takes minority positions in other specialist European venture funds for strategic co-investment access, but those commitments total less than 3% of assets. The firm's direct-secondaries strategy is executed on a deal-by-deal basis, not through fund commitments.

Elevate is a standalone 30-person unit with its own P&L, sitting alongside rather than underneath the investment team. It deploys specialists in performance marketing, product growth, sustainability, and talent into portfolio companies for 12- to 24-month engagements that begin during due diligence. The team's compensation is partly linked to portfolio-company revenue growth, aligning it with investment-team incentives rather than functioning as a cost centre.