Episode 148 · 2022-08-15 · 41:06 · Original in Finnish
Voland's Technology Fund | Veera Sylvius and Erkka Niemi | Negotiator 148
Originally published as “Voland teknologiarahasto | Veera Sylvius Erkka Niemi | Neuvottelija 148”
Veera Sylvius and Erkka Niemi are raising Voland Partners' 80 million euro technology fund, which takes minority stakes in profitable Finnish technology companies; first close was on 30 June 2022 at roughly half the target. Sylvius ran Space Systems Finland for ten years and led a management buyout of it, Niemi was Siili's chief technology officer while the company grew roughly tenfold to a thousand people, and Jyrki Laune and Samuli Siljamäki complete the four. The episode covers the fund's position between venture capital and private equity, a deal-flow band of five to thirty million in revenue, a hundred-day plan, and why Finland has lacked a growth financier at exactly this stage — with the consequence that companies are sold abroad too early. Responsibility produces the sharpest disagreement with the host. Also SaaS multiples falling from sixteen times to seven, the return of cloud ERPs, MedTech and hardware-enabled SaaS.
Core theses
- The gap the fund is built for is structural: profitable Finnish technology companies at five to thirty million in revenue have no domestic growth financier, so they sell abroad early.
- The guests reject the premise that responsibility, competitiveness and returns pull against each other — the episode's sharpest exchange with the host.
- In a technology company the weight of ESG falls on S and G rather than E, which changes what the framework is actually measuring.
- SaaS multiples falling from sixteen times revenue to seven is what makes this vintage attractive to a buyer and painful to a seller.
Watch and listen
Key moments
- 00:00 — The guests, and how Voland Partners came about
- 01:04 — The team of four: Jyrki Laune and Samuli Siljamäki
- 02:12 — Veera Sylvius's background in space technology
- 04:30 — Voland's position in the Finnish investor field
- 05:25 — Why the fund was set up
- 07:19 — Fundraising, an 80 million fund and first close
- 08:45 — The team and the advisers
- 09:44 — The megatrends: technology and responsibility
- 11:01 — Does responsibility create value or reduce returns
- 12:17 — ESG in a technology company: the weight falls on S and G
- 14:50 — Deal flow and Voland's competitive advantage
- 16:50 — Value creation and the hundred-day plan
- 18:40 — Finnish companies are sold too early
- 20:09 — Technology expertise and sparring for portfolio companies
- 22:02 — An entrepreneur team as an alternative to a banker team
- 23:10 — Falling SaaS valuations and the fund's vintage
- 24:41 — Investment criteria: profitable, with a proven business model
- 25:52 — A growth fund between venture capital and private equity
- 27:19 — Responsibility, competitiveness and returns at the same time
- 29:08 — Acquisitions as an instrument of growth
- 30:38 — Siili's growth story and the Finnish IT market
- 32:11 — B2B, B2C and cloud-based ERP systems
- 34:23 — Vertical and horizontal SaaS
- 35:12 — MedTech and hardware-enabled SaaS
- 37:16 — Energy and data as a new growth area
- 38:04 — The first investment and the fund's time horizon
- 39:59 — Veera Sylvius reads a poem to close
Summary
Veera Sylvius and Erkka Niemi are raising Voland Partners’ 80 million euro technology fund, which takes minority stakes in profitable Finnish technology companies; first close was on 30 June 2022 at roughly half the target. Sylvius ran Space Systems Finland for ten years and led a management buyout of it, Niemi was Siili’s chief technology officer while the company grew roughly tenfold to a thousand people, and Jyrki Laune and Samuli Siljamäki complete the four. The episode covers the fund’s position between venture capital and private equity, a deal-flow band of five to thirty million in revenue, a hundred-day plan, and why Finland has lacked a growth financier at exactly this stage — with the consequence that companies are sold abroad too early. Responsibility produces the sharpest disagreement with the host. Also SaaS multiples falling from sixteen times to seven, the return of cloud ERPs, MedTech and hardware-enabled SaaS.
The stage nobody in Finland finances
A profitable technology company with five to thirty million in revenue is too large for venture capital and too small for most private equity. Voland’s argument is that this gap is why such companies get sold to foreign buyers before they have grown — the exit is the only financing event available. Whether an 80 million fund closes that gap is a separate question from whether the gap is real.
The disagreement worth listening to
The host puts the conventional trade-off — responsibility against competitiveness against returns — and the guests reject it outright. Their supporting point is narrower and more interesting than the headline: in a software company there is very little E to measure, so an ESG framework applied there is really measuring people and governance.
Sixteen times to seven
The collapse in SaaS revenue multiples over the preceding year sets the terms for everything the fund will buy. It is the reason a 2022 vintage is a good one to deploy and a bad one to have raised against, and the episode is candid about both halves.
Watch
The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: Voland teknologiarahasto | Veera Sylvius Erkka Niemi | Neuvottelija 148. A Finnish edition of this episode is published at www.neuvottelija.fi.
In depth
The Neuvottelija AI editions carry a long-form write-up of this episode: English · suomeksi.
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People and topics
Guests: Veera Sylvius, Erkka Niemi
Topics: SaaS & Software M&A & Exits Ownership, Capital & Tax