April 2026 - Engage//Innovate

Scaling Up in the New Nordics

35 million people. 85+ unicorns. The world’s highest unicorn density outside Silicon Valley. And yet — the New Nordics is still leaving enormous value on the table. Here’s why that’s about to change.

What is the New Nordics?

The New Nordics isn’t just a geography. It’s a mindset. Traditionally, “the Nordics” meant Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Iceland — a prosperous, high-trust, sustainability-driven corner of the world known more for ABBA and flat-pack furniture than for billion-dollar tech companies. With recent AI winners like Lovable, Legora and deeptech companies like Oura Health, that story is changing.

The New Nordics extends the frame. It brings Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania into the picture — creating a combined region of 35 million people, world-class technical talent, battle-tested digital government, and a startup density that outpaces virtually every other region on earth. Think of it this way: Sweden gave the world Spotify and Klarna. Estonia gave us Skype and Wise. Lithuania gave us Revolut’s first e-money license. Finland is home to Supercell and 15 unicorns. This is not a collection of small countries.

This is one of the world’s most formidable innovation corridors — when and if it acts like one.

Why the New Nordics is Punching Above Its Weight

Let’s look at the numbers. The Nordic startup ecosystem is now valued at $552 billion — 16 times its value just a decade ago. In 2024 alone, Nordic startups attracted $8.2 billion in VC funding, with international investors contributing two thirds of the capital. The region produced 82 unicorns by 2024, up from just 9 in 2014. For a region with 4% of Europe’s population, it accounts for 17% of all European unicorns. Per capita, the New Nordic countries are second only to Silicon Valley in unicorn production.

What’s driving this? Three unfair advantages that most regions dream about.

First, a culture of building for the world from day one. Nordic and Baltic domestic markets are simply too small to sustain a scale-up. This isn’t a disadvantage — it’s a trigger function. Founders here think globally from the first pitch deck. They have to in order to scale. Second, extraordinary digital infrastructure. Estonia runs the world’s most advanced digital government. Finland treats broadband as a legal right. Sweden has fibre optic networks reaching 96% of households. This isn’t a backdrop — it’s a competitive weapon. Third, a deeply rooted engineering culture combined with a pragmatic attitude toward risk. Strong social safety nets reduce the downside of failure. Technical universities produce founders, not just employees. And the culture of trust — among founders, investors, and public institutions — keeps transaction costs low and collaboration high.

Early Success Stories from the New Nordics

The success stories are no longer just from the last generation. They’re happening right now. Lovable, the Swedish AI startup, scaled to $200 million in annual recurring revenue within its first year — a trajectory that would turn heads in Palo Alto. Legora closed a $550M series D, with a who’s who on the cap table. Stendr raised a $5.4M pre-seed to build AI-powered drone defence systems in Norway, in an industry few investors would have touched just 24 months ago. Stegra, the Swedish green steel company, raised $1,6BN for industrial sovereignty. Kelluu secured Nato Innovation Fund’s first deal, a $15M series A, in Finland.

On the fund side, Voima Ventures closed a €100M+ Fund III focused on deep tech across the Nordic-Baltic region. Final Frontier is leading a new pack of defense funds. Norrsken VC committed €300 million to “AI for Good.” Maki.vc launched its third €100M fund for deep tech and brand-driven startups. Capital is no longer the bottleneck it once was.

On the ecosystem side, the launch of the Nordic Deep Tech Valley initiative in May 2023 — led by Startup Estonia alongside partners in Finland and Sweden — represents perhaps the most important strategic bet the region has made. The premise is simple but powerful: in the global competition for deep tech talent and capital, it is regions, not countries, that win. Estonia, Finland, and Sweden are pooling resources, aligning policies, and presenting themselves as a unified deep tech hub to the world.

The first Nordic-Singapore Innovation Days in 2025 took joint Nordic delegations to Asian markets — a tangible sign of what coordinated regional strategy looks like in practice.

Barriers That Are Holding the New Nordics Back

So why isn’t the New Nordics already Europe’s answer to our entrepreneurship ecosystem challenges? Because four stubborn barriers remain.

The European Paradox — alive and well in the north. The gap between world-class scientific research and commercial success is a genuine, region-wide problem. I see this very clearly in my work across Sweden and Finland. The Nordics produce exceptional researchers. They do not always produce exceptional deep tech companies. Labs and universities are full of breakthroughs that never find their way to market. Despite $2.4 billion in deep tech funding in 2024, early-stage ventures remain underserved.

Fragmentation. Walk into a startup event in Tallinn and ask who the key players are in Gothenburg. You’ll get blank stares. In Bergen, ask who the key angels in Copenhagen are, same thing. Cross-border cooperation happens, but far below its potential. There is no coherent big picture. Ecosystems compete for talent and capital that could flow across borders freely if the infrastructure existed.

The capital gap at the growth stage. Pre-seed and seed funding has improved dramatically. But the Series A, B and C gap — the so-called “valley of death” for scale-ups — remains. European investors tend to be more conservative and metrics-focused than their US counterparts. In our work at Link Capital, we see this across our portfolio as founders prepare to scale. Rounds are smaller, valuations lower, timelines longer. A company that raises $5 million in Oslo might raise $25 million for the same business in San Francisco.

Liquidity & exits – or lack thereof. We see this clear as day. Across Scale Up! Masterclasses, founder programs, angel workshops and venture fund discussions. We are not generating the liquidity that the ecosystem deserves. It is a systemic challenge. Founders are not prepared for it (we see this crystal clear in Scale Up!), angels and VCs don’t structure for it, and the secondaries funds are still too few and far between. Fix the liquidity, and more (pension) capital will flow. But it starts with the founders at day one.

Fixing liquidity with the Outcome Canvas, in Dubai. Now, we’re back in the Nordics

How to Solve Them The region needs to make four big moves — and it needs to make them together.

Move 1: Industrialize research-to-company pipelines. Estonia has set a target of 500 deep tech companies by 2030. Singapore — a city the size of a small Estonian island — already has 1,300. The gap is not in the research. It is in the infrastructure that converts research into startups. Entrepreneur-in-residence programs, IP frameworks, research accelerators, and cross-border mentorship need to become standard features of every university and science park in the region. Initiatives like the Nordic Deep Tech Valley’s Research Accelerator for HealthTech are the template.

Move 2: Build the common narrative — and stick to it. International capital is not interested in Norway or Finland or Sweden. It is interested in the region. The New Nordics needs a single, compelling story told consistently at every global stage — from Slush to TechArena to Singapore Innovation Days. This is what the ecosystem needs. Nordic Deep Tech Valley initiative is already building it, and it matters enormously. When the region acts as one, it carries weight on the other side of the globe. In my work with innovation clusters and ecosystems, we can do so much more to integrate our region far better.

Move 3: Fix the growth-stage funding gap. More regional fund-of-funds. More pension capital. More collaboration between Nordic institutional investors and international growth-stage capital. More angel networks — particularly those focused on deep tech — operating across borders. The Baltic and Nordic angel communities need more connective tissue. Structured syndication, shared deal flow, and regional SPV frameworks are not glamorous. They are the plumbing that turns a good ecosystem into a great one. We need to enable more of it.

Move 4: Boost liquidity across the investment landscape. Look to Sweden, study how Sweden has become an investment powerhouse. Study Nasdaq First North Growth Market in Stockholm, now Europe’s Leading Marketplace for growth companies. Set up more secondaries funds. Make partial liquidity at A and B a real, accepted option for early-stage investors to cash out. Train and prepare founders for how to think ‘value’ and ‘liquidity’ at every step of the journey.

The Moment Is Now

Here is the thing about building ecosystems: windows open and close. Right now, the window is open. Silicon Valley is expensive, politically turbulent, and increasingly unattractive to international founders. Europe is hungry for an innovation identity. Genuine deep tech is having its moment — quantum, AI, climate, defence, biotech — and the New Nordics is positioned at the intersection of all of them. The foundations are extraordinary. What has been missing is the will to act as one region, not separate countries competing for the same scarce resources and founders.

Exploring Nordic Markets in Scale Up Nordics!

This is the challenge that inspired our work on Scale Up Nordics!

With over 7.000 participants; from startups, scale ups, angel networks, VCs, FoF’s, innovation agencies and ecosystem developers, it was time to do our part to support the New Nordics. It was time for Scale Up Nordics!

A new growth initiative, to support the startup- and scale up ecosystem across the New Nordics. We’ve developed the tools, the simulation, the academic foundation and the experience to support a generation of New Nordics founders, investors and ecosystem developers.

It’s time for the New Nordics to live up to its potential. It’s time to Scale Up!

Want to explore how your ecosystem or organization can be part of Scale Up Nordics? Get in touch.

April 16, 2026/0 Comments/by Christian Rangen

Accelerator, Insights, Strategy

12 ways to win at Scale Up!

With 100’s of sessions and 1000’s of participants, we’ve seen every outcome imaginable in Scale Up! One thing we learned: clearly define a ‘winning goal’ that resonates with your participants. Here are 12 ways you, the facilitator can define ‘winning’ in Scale Up!

Why winning matters

In Scale Up! founders, investors, students, angels, ecosystem builders form teams, select a case company and race to outcompete their fellow ecosystem founders. With Accenture in London a few years ago, we had 15 teams. In Vancouver recently, we had 12 teams, in Dubai we had four teams; all leaning in to outcompete the market.

Just like in real life, scaling a young startup is a race, it is a competition. You are competing for market share, for investor attention, for the best advisors and, ultimately, for the best outcome for the people sitting on your cap table. Startups are inherently competitive. So, it makes perfect sense to bring the same attitude, the same animal spirit into the Scale Up! programs. In fact, there is no doubt, that pushing the competitive spirit, pushing the ‘winning’ narrative move the best teams to step up and scale up. Winning, if you will, make everyone do their best work.

How…… winning?

So, if that’s the case, who should teams be structured to win? What should or could be the winning aspiration? What’s the goal line? In real life, these goal lines are fledging. Raising a seed round marks a big LinkedIn celebration, hitting 25M ARR and securing a Colt title in Dealroom’s data set is ‘winning’, hitting Unicorn is ‘winning’, even delivering a wildly successful IPO is ‘winning’, even if it might crash just weeks later (case in point, Figma (down 42%), Klarna (down 65%) and Stubhub, down 71%). I guess, in some cases, doing an IPO might need feel like winning just weeks after (remember, most shareholders have six-month lock-ups….)

Given that, how can you, as facilitator structure ‘winning’ in Scale Up? We offer three categories and 12 options you can explore.

Winning also happens online; running Scale Up Africa Rising! with global south founders, 2026

Introduction level

For entry-level participants, your definition of ‘how to win’ should be simple to understand and simple to achieve. Yes, might want to throw in some Founder Tasks, Strategic dilemmas and canvases, but the idea is, keep it simple. This also applies if your are running short Discovery sessions, where time is limited.

1. First team to complete a round (one year)

2. Raise three rounds, make it across the ‘goal line’

3. Raise 10M, make it across the ‘goal line’

4. Hit 10M ARR, make it across the ‘goal line’

1. First team to complete a round (one year) The first one is easy. First team that makes it one round around the board, without going bankrupt, wins. Using a single dice, that should be around 10-15 throws of the dice. Enough for a taster.

2. Raise three rounds, make it across the ‘goal line’ More interesting, more realistic even, is the ‘equity fundraise’ focus. Raise three rounds (psss…, you can select ‘any instrument’ or ‘only priced rounds’. Once a team has completed three rounds, you need to review and approve their cap table. Then, they still need to pass whatever space is left to pass ‘goal’. This version allows you to keep a tight focus on equity fundraising.

3. Raise 10M, make it across the ‘goal line’ Almost identical, but with a slightly different metric. First team to raise 10M in investor financing – and make it across – wins. Allows for more luck and randomness, as a single round can be 50.000 or 20M depending on deal terms.

4. Hit 10M ARR, make it across the ‘goal line’ Similar, but with a go-to-market, market expansion and revenue focus. Secure 10M ARR, by any mean possible, and make it across ‘goal’. This version allows you to push cap tables and deal structures way into the background. Great for shorter sessions or with teams with a limited understanding of entrepreneurial finance.

Across these first four, they are all simple to follow, require only a limited amount of prep work and reduce cap table math to a bare minimum.

Entry-level groups, keep cap tables on paper. Easy, Austria, 2020

Intermediate level

At this level you expect more from the participants. You expect people to be more experienced, more prepared and better equipped for the work ahead of them.

5. Outperform

6. Survive

7. Expand

8. Five rounds

5. Outperform In this scenario, you select a widely recognized scale up in the ecosystem and ask ‘can you outperform’? For MENA, we use Careem, $3,1BN exit in just seven year. In Africa, we use MOOVE, $2BN valuation and global market expansion. For Europe we use Helsing’s Rocketship journey, with €12BN Series D in just four years. You can choose your own ‘outperform benchmark’, but the point is you use an actual, real-life company everyone can recognize and challenge teams to outperform them before time runs out. Personally, I’ve seen this work very well multiple times, and you can score winning on valuation, dilution and time to get there.

6. Survive Can you scale to a 1BN valuation – or a 10BN valuation – before going bust? Can you race against rising burn rates, demanding investors and meticulous cap table requirements? Can you survive to Unicorn? In this version, you focus on equity fundraising, cap table management and ‘first team to hit unicorn’. You also turn up the heat, the burn rate and keep tough market news coming. In Survive, you expect most teams to go bankrupt, move back, start over again, and run fast for a second or even third time. This is fast-paced, hard-charging scale up entrepreneurship in action.

7. Expand First team to (XX) Active Markets – and make it across the goal line wins. In this version, global expansion is the name, and aggressive growth is what it takes. You set the target, I prefer 20 active markets, first team wins.

8. Five rounds This feels a bit simple, but first team to complete year five is another easy winning milestone. I don’t really like it, as I expect more at the intermediate level, but for an easy facilitated session, this works pretty ok.

Can you scale to Colt, Unicorn or Elephant? 2026

Advanced level

In advanced, you want to make sure you have scorecard mindset, and aim for a successful exit transaction. You also keep a strict eye on the cap table, auditing all transactions.

9. 50M ARR, 10 markets, 1 syndicated round, ‘best’ exit

10. 100M ARR, 15 markets, ‘best exit’

11. 100M ARR, 15 markets, ‘best exit’, founders retaining 40% equity

12. Best IPO outcome

How to win, Scale Up BC! Masterclass, Vancouver, BC, 2026

9. 50M ARR, 10 markets, 1 syndicated round, ‘best’ exit A great, balanced approach. Teams have multiple milestones to hit, but none of them too challenging. The 10M ARR can be delivered by most teams. The 10 markets are possible but more challenging. A syndicated investment round is not too difficult. Along the way, teams are likely going to raise between two and 15 rounds of financing, raising capital, taking dilution hits and trying to keep their cap table clean. Ending that the best possible exit outcome is a great way to run a Scale Up! Counting ‘best exit’, leave a bit of flexibility for the facilitator, considering highest exit value, lowest dilution, best outcome for investors and best outcome for founders. Sometimes, in low- and medium case exit transactions, we’ve seen preference shares and liquidation stacks really bite. Good lesson, all around.

10. 100M ARR, 15 markets, ‘best exit’ Along the same lines, but more expansive. We here aim for 100M ARR (which should imply a 1BN valuation), more active markets and still the ‘best exit’. Run this if you have more than two days. If not, stick with the one above.

11. 100M ARR, 15 markets, ‘best exit’, founders retaining 40% equity Ok, this winning scenario is really interesting. We recently ran a version of this in Canada. Turned out, not a single team could claim undisputed winning. ARR, markets and exits; all good. But retaining 40% equity going into the exit transaction, turns out to be really hard. Equally, scaling to 100M ARR requires hard focus, and we see teams slipping up and forgetting that 40% founder equity was even a target.

12. Best IPO outcome Advanced groups only, let them race towards ‘best IPO outcome’. Sure, revenue, product development, GTM and market expansion all matters, but ultimately, teams are only assessed on their IPO performance. This scenario is suitable for real-life startups, like the teams we worked with in Dubai recently, where an actual, real-life IPO is something tangible on the horizon. For very early-stage founders, don’t’ try this one, as they might find it ‘too unrealistic’, given the early stage they are at.

Do you want to learn more about the Strategy Sims methodology? Check out the 2025 Strategy Sims in Action report, co-authored by the global ST community. Get it today.

Planning your next session

For your upcoming Scale Up! session, think about your audience, think about their interest, think about how much time you have available and use that to set your ‘winning’ scenario. Only got a few hours? Keep it simple with the entry-level options.

Got an advanced group? Aim for a balanced scorecard with a mega-exit at the end? Got early-stage founders who are raising their first or second round of financing in real life? Aim for Outperform and have some fun with early-stage investment instruments, conversion and cap tables cleanliness as companies scale. Whichever you choose, feel free to experiment with what winning looks and feels like in your program.

Want to bring Scale Up! to your ecosystem, classroom or accelerators? With over 50 certified facilitators globally, we deliver high-impact Masterclasses and Programs for innovation agencies, accelerators, angel networks and investment firms globally. Contact us today.

April 14, 2026/0 Comments/by Christian Rangen

Insights, Strategy, Tools

Taking Scale Up! to Market

Scale Up! is a powerful tool for building entrepreneurial skills, supporting founders, angels, investors and ecosystem builders. Globally, 6.000+ have been through Scale Up! But, as a new Scale Up! Facilitator and Partner, how do you actually take Scale Up! to market? In this article, we explore elven proven ways to bring Scale Up! to your market.

By Chris Rangen, Sanjana Rehaja & Stuart Morley

Congratulations, you have gotten trained, certified on Scale Up! Or, maybe you want to support the ecosystem by taking Scale Up! into your part of the world. Maybe you are ready to bring Scale Up Africa Rising! Into the African ecosystem? Or Scale Up MENA! into the MENA ecosystem? or maybe ready to bring Scale Up Europe! into the European ecosystem?

But how, exactly, do you start on taking Scale Up! to market? What are the first steps and what are the best ways?

Before tactics, partnerships, or pilots, there is one uncomfortable truth: Scale Up! does not spread because it is good. It spreads because someone decides to take personal ownership for bringing it into their market.

In every ecosystem where Scale Up! has taken root, there has been at least one individual who stopped waiting for inbound, funding, or perfect conditions—and instead acted with full accountability for the outcome.

This mindset shift matters. Because the early phase of taking Scale Up! to market is not an institutional motion; it is an entrepreneurial one. You are not “rolling out a program.” You are compounding credibility, relationships, and proof—one decision, one session, one conversation at a time.

If you are looking for certainty before you act, you will wait too long. If you are willing to act before certainty, the market starts to respond.

In our experience, working with global partners across 50 countries, these are the nine most common ways to bring Scale Up! to market.

Who attends Scale Up? Nor sure who your target participants are? Check out this article first.

Note, this article discuss how to take Scale Up! into a new market. Once you are in the market, once you have run your first 5-6 paid programs, the dynamics changes a bit.

Scale Up! is now available in Scale Up! (Global), Scale Up Angel!, Scale Up X!, Scale Up MENA!, Scale Up Africa Rising!, Scale Up Europe! and Scale Up Nordics! In this article we use the term ‘Scale Up!’ covering all or any of these.

Who buys Scale Up!? Not sure who the buyers are? Check out this article first.

Before we start… What’s your level of Scale Up! expertise?

Running Scale Up! is challenging. It’s technical. It requires you to do cap table math in your head, explain 3x liquidation preference and convert five stacked SAFE notes with different terms, while at the same time you need to teach the Founder’s Journey, explain long-term funding strategies and share personal experiences from scaling a high-growth tech startup.

If you are planning to run Scale Up!, you should have a meaningful amount of experience across the startup ecosystem, as an operator, founder, investor, program manger or startup mentor.

Your expertise should cover two domains; domain knowledge about all things startup growth and facilitation knowledge, to run complex groups. If you don’t have sufficient depth in both domain areas, bring one or more partners to work with you.

Alone -or in groups? Anyone can run Scale Up! by themselves, but that does not mean you should. We have much more fun, we learn more and it usually becomes a better experience for everyone if you have a team with you. Two people work well, three or even four people is absolutely a possibility. You decide.

Faculty, mentor, early-stage investor, global Scale Up! Expert, Few can match the expertise level of Scott B. Newton.

The eleven Ways to Bring Scale Up! to market

Existing clients
Existing relationships
Domain expert
The first one is free
Engaging the ecosystem
The targeted approach
The mapping approach
Find the problem-owner approach
The hard work approach
Scale Up! GTM Workflow
Being active, waiting for random luck

1. Existing clients

The fastest way to get Scale Up! into the market is simple. Work with already existing clients. They trust you. You have a relationship. You already have ongoing work. All you have to do is plug Scale Up! into a workshop or a program you are already running. There is no sales process, no discussions around budget because you already have a contract or collaboration you are working off of.

When Rick first got his hands on Scale Up! back in 2019, it was pretty easy for him to bring Scale Up! into his classroom in Silicon Valley. He was already teaching. This would fit perfectly into one of his already planned classes.

If you have pre-existing clients, projects, programs or classes, bringing Scale Up! into your market is an obvious quick fix. If that option is available to you, go for it.

Rick, our #1 Scale Up faculty, bringing Scale Up! from Europe to the Valley

2. Existing relationships

With existing relationships you already know your buyer. Maybe you’ve worked together in the past. Maybe she is a for former client. Maybe he just transitioned into a new role in the startup ecosystem. Reaching out to existing relationships will usually lead to a fast uptake of Scale Up! They know you, trust you and are – usually – willing to follow your recommendations.

When Michael first saw Scale Up! in Norway, during the Master Trainer program, he knew exactly who he needed to bring this to. In an instant, he knew the buyers, the pain points and how much they would love seeing Scale Up! in Canada. With strong, pre-existing relationships, Michael could easily and without much delay bring

A useful filter for “existing relationships” is this question: Who already trusts your judgement when you say, “This matters—now”?

In practice, early Scale Up! adoption rarely comes from cold outreach. It comes from people who have already seen you operate under pressure, solve real problems, or lead through ambiguity.

When you frame Scale Up! not as a product, but as the next logical move for their founders, investors, or portfolio, decision-making accelerates. You are not selling; you are guiding.

Trust collapses sales cycles. Credibility compounds adoption.

3. Domain expert

A domain expert is already recognized as an expert in this field. You are possibly business school faculty teaching entrepreneurial finance or startup ventures. Maybe you are the founder of the leading accelerator in your region, or head of investments at a pre-seed VC fund.

In your role, people recognize you as an expert; when you bring Scale Up! into the market, there is only a short path for you to find your buyers and sponsors. It might even happen within your own university or your own startup programs.

First time Mohammed saw Scale Up MENA!, he knew he had to bring it back to his ecosystem in the Middle East. “Can I take this with me?”, was one of his first questions; and he did. As a domain expert, there are usually multiple programs to explore for bringing Scale Up! into the ecosystem.

Being a domain expert is not only about credentials—it is about pattern recognition. Founders, investors, and ecosystem leaders listen to people who can clearly articulate:

What most startups get wrong
Why those mistakes repeat
And what disciplined alternatives actually look like

Scale Up! gives domain experts a structured way to translate lived experience into repeatable learning. When positioned correctly, the program becomes an extension of your professional identity—not an add-on offering.

This is where authority turns into leverage.

Mohammed, Rumbi, Chris working with Falak Startups & the Egyptian ecosystem

4. The first one is free (or, a lot of free pilots)

With the first one is free, you bypass the traditional client and buyer profile. Instead, you go directly to the ecosystem. You engage with founders, not gatekeepers. Following ‘the first one is free’, you run a large number of pilot sessions, free to attend, free for everyone. These are unlikely to be full, multi-day Masterclasses, but they are significant enough that startup founders, angels, investors and ecosystem builders get a sufficient taste for Scale Up!; and get a chance to realize the value and benefits of Scale Up! Of course, your skills with Scale Up! need to be decent, or at least rapidly improving.

‘’WOW! Every startup should learn this”, said Costa Rican tech founder Juan Carlos Marti, of Remora XYZ, after attending a free pilot Scale Up! workshop in Oslo, in early 2019.

In total, as we have been rolling out Scale Up!, we have probably delivered 50+ free, unpaid Scale Up! sessions, maybe more. Test sessions, pilots, free Train-the-trainers, discovery sessions; they all serve the same goal, get many more people to try out Scale Up! – and then ask for more, spread the word and help take this into programs and buyer connections.

A dual bonus with ‘the first one is free’ is obviously, you get a lot of practice. From rapid-fire introductions to explaining tricky term sheets for the 12th time; free pilots double as your training ground. Make use of it!

Importantly, going to market with ‘the first one is free’ requires a few more steps to be successful.

“Free” only works when it is intentional.

The purpose of early free pilots is not generosity—it is momentum. Each session is a compounding asset:

Your facilitation sharpens
Your language tightens
Your confidence increases
Your reputation spreads

The facilitators who succeed treat every pilot as if it will be quoted, referenced, and remembered—because eventually, it will be.

The goal is not volume alone. The goal is belief transfer: when participants leave convinced that Scale Up! is something their ecosystem cannot afford to ignore.

Capture, capture, capture

Use this to get photos, quotes, comments, feedback. Write blogposts. Write case studies or even mini-cases. Capture quotes. Capture learnings.

2. Ask for referrals, introduction and ‘where should we take this’?

When running free pilot sessions, carve out at least 15. Minutes at the end to ask for ‘where should we take this?’, and ‘is there any program you’d like to see us run this in?’ or ‘is there anyone you know we should talk to’.

3. Follow-up

Immediately after, reach out to the new contacts and referrals. Be disciplined about reaching out to everyone while this thing is still warm. 24 hours, 48 hours tops. Be active, reach out and follow-up.

Going to market with ‘the first one is free’ can be a great way to break into a new market, and you can reach a lot of startup founders early on, helping you build momentum and a following around your work with Scale Up! Expert facilitator Enrico recommends 20 or more sessions in the first year to build your facilitator mastery; that’s easily achieved with this approach.

5. Engaging the ecosystem

Engaging the ecosystem is a tricky way to get to market. Often, it entails many conversations. Many loose meetings. Many coffee conversations. We have seen this approach take up a lot of time, but yielding little results.

With ‘engaging the ecosystem’, you go out and have a large number of conversations. That’s a good thing, but we find that these conversations sometimes lack a plan, a structure and a clear go-to-market workflow. Engaging the ecosystem can lead to great insights from local accelerators, wonderful discussions with key team member at the innovation agency and great conversations with founders. But that all comes to naught if there is no clear distinction between champions, buyers and sponsors.

Many people, first time exploring their local markets for Scale Up! end up, almost accidentally, ‘engaging the ecosystem’, and it kind of stops there. Don’t be that person.

Ecosystems do not move because they are informed. They move because someone takes responsibility for alignment.

“Engaging the ecosystem” fails when conversations remain polite but non-committal. Progress happens when you deliberately classify people into:

Champions (who advocate)
Buyers (who decide)
Sponsors (who fund or legitimize)

If every meeting does not move one of these three closer to action, you are networking—not building a market.

Engaging the ecosystem, Digital Switzerland, 2019

6. The targeted approach

In your ecosystem, find one of the top three ecosystem players, be it an accelerator, incubator, business school, innovation agency or economic development agency.

Reach out to them with a clear understanding of the current challenges and problems they are working on. Position Scale Up! to be a part of their solutions roadmap. Partner closely with one or more of these top three ecosystem players.

Build (Scale Up!) programs that are designed around their strategies, their mission and their key performance metrics. Go to market in close, close partnership with one of these three. Using this approach, you can easily end up working ‘under’ your client, with the program becoming theirs, not yours.

Be aware of this and collaborate constructively on joint communications, case studies and post-program learning.

When Marcus first brought Scale Up! to Japan, he knew exactly which conference he wanted to partner with for the first-ever Scale Up! Masterclass in Japan.

Scale Up! goes to Japan, highly targeted

7. The mapping approach

Like the name implies, the mapping approach requires a deep insight and understanding of your local market.

You need to spend time to appreciate the key challenges, the struggles and setbacks local founders experience. You are likely a recognized mentor, startup coach. You have access to founders; you spend time with founders. You know the market and the ecosystem in detail.

With this foundation, you spend time, using any tool, to map out and clearly segment, structure and identify the market. once you have a crystal-clear market map, and only then, do you engage with the top stakeholders.

Always, starting from a position of understanding the challenges and how your Scale Up! programs can solve them.

ST partners at work in MENA, with Sanjana,

8. Find the problem-owner approach

Every ecosystem has challenges, problems and gaps between ambition and reality. If you can find, connect and address the owners of these problems, you might find a very short path to a positive outcome.

What are the key problems the ecosystem has?

Who feels them? (often, startup founders, ecosystem builders)

Who owns them, and are responsible to get them solved?

Who lies awake at night, thinking about how to solve these?

Use your toolkit and network. Ask and listen. Do your research. But map out and find the problem-owner. Connect with high-quality content. Be relevant. Be helpful. Be understanding. Be empathic to the problems. Be clear on the solution. You might find this to be a good path to solving real client problems and also bringing Scale Up! to market.

9. The hard work approach

Like the name indicates, our next approach takes …. a …. lot … of work. Here are the steps we have identified.

A. Map the market

B. Define the problem-statement

C. Define the problem-solution

D. Build your domain expertise

E. Learn case studies from the ecosystems (study top companies and investors)

F. Revisit the problem-solution

G. Nail your solution-statement

H. Run three free pilots (small, short)

I. Capture video, photos, quotes and testimonials. Get references and referrals

J. Build your skills

K. Identify GTM partners

L. Identify target participants

M. Test your value proposition

N. Engage with your Champions, Buyers and Sponsors

O. Run three more pilot sessions

P. Capture video, photos, quotes and testimonials. Get references and referrals

Q. Write three case studies and blog posts from your sessions and insights to date Capture different angles, focus on the problem-solution narrative. Focus on outcomes.

R. Identify your Champions, Buyers and Sponsors (three ICP)

S. With the case studies, go back to your buyers, verify the problem-solution-value proposition. Focus on how Scale Up! can help the ecosystem and your buyers

T. Secure 2-3 paid pilots

U. Run pilots

V. Capture video, photos, quotes and testimonials. Get references and referrals

W. Write 2-3 case studies from pilots and evolution so far

X. Write 2-3 content expert pieces. Publish in different channels

Y. Launch a dedicated website, possibly a sub-page, focus 100% on the problem-solution-value proposition. Develop the page with Bolt, Gamma or Lovable, but write it with a Problem-Solution framing

Z. Use your video, photos, quotes and testimonials.

AA. Engage with the next set of Champions, Buyers and Sponsors

BB. Secure next 20 paid programs and Masterclasses

CC. Scale from there

DD. Become a widely recognized domain expert

That’s all. but, seriously, the ‘hard work approach’ is built around a few key steps.

– Start small, pilot and ramp up

– Focus on the problem-solution, every step

– Run pilots, but make sure to capture everything

– Communications, communications and communications

Run many programs, develop, become an absolute expert over time

This approach is not for everyone. It requires a long-term mindset. It requires dedicated. But most of all, it simply requires a lot of hard work.

The hard work approach succeeds for one reason: it rewards consistency over intensity.

No single workshop changes a market. No single partnership creates credibility. No single post generates sustained demand.

What does work is disciplined repetition—showing up, delivering value, capturing proof, and doing it again.

This is not a launch strategy. It is a leadership practice.

10. Scale Up! GTM Workflow

Over the past few months we have been exploring the topic of Scale Up! go-to-market, in-depth. “How can we get more full-sized Scale Up! Masterclasses, in successful collaboration with our global partners?”

We had building blocks, elements, but not the entire go-to-market playbook. So, we developed it. For Strategy Tools Partners and certified Scale Up! expert facilitators, we share the entire, 18-step, GTM workflow.

ST Community GTM workflow. Join us to unpack this together.

Not yet partner or expert facilitator? Explore how you can partner with Strategy Tools.

11. Being active, waiting for random luck

Eleventh and last, we wait for luck. If you are already using Scale Up! in one market, you can run it here, across education, accelerators, ecosystem development. You use social media well. Run a great IG account. Write great content on LinkedIn, and suddenly your inbox pings. “Hey, can you come and run….”, from a brand new market. It happens. It’s happened to us more than once. You just need to be active – in some markets – and then wait for luck to strike. It happens.

Time to get started

If this all feels familiar, it should.

Taking Scale Up! to market follows the same logic founders face when going from zero to one:

There is ambiguity
There is resistance
There is no shortcut to credibility

But there is also upside. When done well, you are not just running programs—you are shaping how an ecosystem thinks about growth, capital, and decision-making.

And that impact compounds long after the first cohort ends.

Late stage founders, hard at work, Scale Up MENA!, Dubai 2025

If you are a certified Scale Up! facilitator, you fully understand the early stages of 0-1, of early product-market fit, of nailing your ICPs, your channels, your value proposition. It’s the same here.

You are, in some respect, a founder with a new product in a new market. How you go to market, matters, a lot.

Hopefully, this article has helped shed light on some of your future options, on how you can take the Scale Up! series to market in your region – and hopefully build a sustainable, lasting business, while also driving development of the ecosystem.

After all, that’s why we developed Scale Up! in the first place, to better develop the entrepreneurial ecosystem and help more founders scale.

Want to learn more about the Scale Up! series? Check out ST.io

Interested to join the global partner community? Visit our Partner page.

Curious to bring Scale Up! to your ecosystem? Get in touch today, Chris@strategytools.io

April 13, 2026/0 Comments/by Christian Rangen

Insights, Startups, Tools

Startup Founder? 15 Steps to Upgrade Your Deck.

We have just finished reviewing a large number of startup pitch decks. Founders from across the ecosystem, at various stages, preparing for fundraising. Some early-stage, some early growth-stage. Some first-time founders, others serial entrepreneurs.

It was a revealing exercise.

There is a lot of raw founder talent out there. Real problems being solved. Genuine ambition on display. And yet, deck after deck, we kept seeing a pattern of missed opportunities. The same structural gaps. The same underselling of genuinely strong companies.

So we wrote it all down.

What follows are 15 firm, honest, and we hope — useful — recommendations for any founder currently building or upgrading their pitch deck. These are not abstract principles. They come directly from what we saw, and what we know many investors look for.

Take them seriously. Your deck is often the first impression. Make it count.

1. Don’t build tiny companies.

This may sound blunt, but it needs to be said. If your deck describes a business that will generate $2M in revenue and employ 12 people, you are not describing a venture-backable company. You may be describing a fine business. But not a venture-backable one. Investors are not looking for small. They are looking for transformational. Before you write a single slide, ask yourself honestly: are we building something genuinely big?

2. Do build scalable, high-growth companies.

The corollary to point one is this: build for scale from day one. That means a business model that can grow without linear cost increases. A product that can reach new markets without rebuilding from scratch. A team that can scale with the company. When you sit down to work on your deck, ask: where does the hockey stick come from? If you cannot answer that clearly, the deck is not ready.

3. Know which deck you are building.

There is not one pitch deck. There are several. The teaser deck. The investor deck. The demo day deck. The full due diligence deck. Each has a different purpose, a different length, a different level of detail. We see founders send a 40-slide full due diligence deck as their first outreach. We see others send a 6-slide teaser when they are already in detailed conversations. Know your audience. Know your moment. Build the right deck for the right context.

4. Don’t waste prime real estate.

Every slide has a headline. Most founders waste it. Instead of writing “Market Size”, write: “The European SaaS market is €48B and growing at 22% annually.” Instead of “Team”, write: “We are the most qualified team in Europe to solve this problem.” The slide headline is your most valuable real estate on the page. Use it to make a point, not label a category.

A practical habit: write the slide type — Team, Market, Ask, Traction — in the upper right corner of the slide. Then use the headline to deliver the key message. Every. Single. Slide.

5. Be more ambitious.

We say this with respect, because we know how hard the founder journey is. But time and again, we see founders undersell themselves, their markets and their vision. The TAM is presented conservatively. The projections are modest. The ambition is hedged. Investors fund ambition. They fund founders who believe they can change an industry. Your deck should reflect that belief. If you don’t believe it, work on that first. If you do believe it, let it show.

6. Make your roadmap longer than 24 months.

A 12 or 18-month roadmap is not a vision. It is a project plan. Investors are thinking about 5-15 year return cycles. They need to see where you are going, not just what you are doing next quarter. Build a roadmap that goes beyond 24 months. Show the milestones, the market expansion, the product evolution, the team build-out. A longer roadmap signals strategic thinking. It shows you understand the journey ahead.

7. Share your funding plan alongside the roadmap.

The roadmap and the funding plan should live together. For each phase of growth, show what capital is required, what it will be used for, and what milestones it unlocks. This is not just good storytelling — it is good investor communication. It shows you understand the relationship between capital deployment and value creation. It makes the investment thesis clear. Roadmap without a funding plan is a wish list. Roadmap with a funding plan is a strategy.

8. Improve all things financials.

This is non-negotiable. Weak financial slides kill deals. If your revenue model is unclear, fix it. If your unit economics are missing, add them. If your projections have no logic behind them, rebuild them. Investors will stress-test your numbers. You need to know them cold, and the deck needs to show them clearly. This includes your burn rate, your path to profitability or next funding milestone, your key financial assumptions and your LTV/CAC ratios. Do the work. The numbers matter.

9. Focus on your top 3 selling points.

We see decks that try to say everything. They end up saying nothing. Identify the three most compelling reasons to invest in your company. Make those three points impossible to miss. Put them front and centre. Repeat them across the narrative arc of the deck. Everything else is supporting evidence. Investors remember three things. Make sure you choose which three.

10. Show your AI slide.

If you are building in 2026 and you do not have a clear AI story, you are leaving a major question mark in the investor’s mind. This does not mean adding “powered by AI” to a bullet point. It means showing how AI is structurally embedded in what you are building. For example: “We have built a unique end-to-end AI stack. Two people and ten agents work like a team of twenty would have done two years ago.” Show the leverage. Show the efficiency gain. Show the defensibility. Your AI strategy is now a core part of your investment thesis.

11. Add your own GTM slide — and make it count.

There are certain slides that should appear in every deck, yet we regularly see them missing or buried. Your deck must clearly address: your value proposition, your beachhead market, your go-to-market channels, your traction to date, and your early customer love. Do not assume investors will piece this together from context. Give each its own moment. A great customer quote, an early logo wall, a clear pipeline breakdown — these build confidence rapidly. These slides tell investors that you understand your business, your market, and your customer.

12. Address investor liquidity and exit — head on.

This is a sensitive topic. Some founders love talking about it. Some feel it is premature. Some worry it signals they want to exit early. Here is our view: the topic is too important to ignore, and ignoring it does not make it go away. Investors in your company have a fiduciary obligation to return capital. They need a credible path to liquidity. Show that you have thought about it. Present your exit strategy — whether that is an M&A pathway, a strategic acquirer, an IPO horizon, or a secondary transaction mechanism. You do not need to have all the answers. But you need to have the conversation.

Talk liquidity and exit from first investors coming in.

13. Show the round, the momentum and the closing strategy.

Your Ask slide is not just a number. It is a story of momentum. Who is already in? What are the terms? What is the timeline to close? What milestones will this round unlock? Strong rounds have social proof and urgency. Show that the round is moving. Show that serious people are already leaning in. If you have a lead investor, say so. If you have soft commitments, reference them. Investors want to join a round that is moving — not one that is stuck.

14. Show how you can build a venture-size, backable company.

This is the meta-question behind every investor review. Can this company return the fund? Is this a real venture opportunity? The entire deck, in a sense, is an answer to this question. But it is worth addressing it directly. Show your market scale. Show your margin structure at scale. Show your competitive position five years out. Show why this company — with this team, in this market, at this moment — can become something truly significant. That is what backable means. Make the case.

15. Focus on your top key metrics.

Founders often drown investors in data. More metrics do not equal more credibility. In fact, the opposite is often true: a founder who can identify and explain the three or four metrics that truly drive their business demonstrates a level of strategic clarity that inspires confidence. Pick your north star metric. Show its trajectory. Show what drives it. If you are pre-revenue, show the leading indicators that matter. If you are post-revenue, show ARR growth, NRR, CAC payback and gross margin. Know your numbers. Own your narrative.

A Final Word

The founders who raise successfully are not always the ones with the best product. They are often the ones who communicate their vision most clearly, who understand what investors need to see, and who treat the deck as a serious strategic document — not an afterthought.

Use this list. Work through it slide by slide. And go build something great.

April 9, 2026/0 Comments/by Christian Rangen

Ecosystem, Insights, Strategy

Who Attends the Fund Manager Masterclass?

This year we will pass 2.000 participants in the Fund Manager! Masterclass. Since launch, participants from 50+ countries have mastered new elements of the venture capital fund journey with the Masterclass. But who are they, and who joins the Fund Manager! Masterclass?

70+ Masterclasses. 5 Continents. 33 Participant Groups

In most parts of the world, venture capital has historically been a ‘black box’, hidden, secret, unavailable to most. This insight led to the development of the Fund Manager! simulation. Today, across emerging and established markets alike, a new generation of fund managers, fund investors, and ecosystem developers is rising. They are structuring new investment funds, deploying capital into underserved markets, and redefining what it means to build the venture capital ecosystem from the ground up.

Based on 70+ Masterclasses, in places like UK, North America, Germany, Fiji, Singapore, Dubai, Western Balkans, Switzerland, Nordics, Mauritius, Egypt, South Africa, Belgium and numerous online cohorts, we’ve seen firsthand how diverse, and how powerful, the participants in a Fund Manager Masterclass can be.

Developing early investment strategy. Cairo, Egypt, 2024

Five Categories. 33 Groups. We’ve Seen Them All

Over these 70+ Masterclasses, we have observed a consistent, fascinating truth: the room is never just one type of person. Based on experience across every program we’ve run, we categorize participants into five main categories — spanning 33 distinct types of participants.

Each group brings different questions, different urgencies, and different assets to the room. Together, they create something extraordinary: a living simulation of the full venture capital ecosystem.

We’ve structured these five categories, 33 groups into the “Who attends a Fund Manager Masterclass” canvas, a handy overview for any ST partners, clients, Masterclass partners and business schools. Download it here.

Five groups, 33 categories of Fund Manager Participants

1. Aspiring and Future Fund Managers — Building Tomorrow’s Funds (8%)

These are the people that show up to learn, to soak in and translate the new knowledge into new, actual venture funds. Participants in this this category come from many different backgrounds. Consulting, finance, corporate; many are MBA candidates,.

They share one thing; a desire to learn ‘all things venture capital’, with the goal of either starting their own fund in the future or seeking a job in the venture capital industry.

Out of this group, we see 5% – 8% following through and launching their own funds, going from masterclass to market in just a few years.

“Wow, there is a lot to take in, and a lot to manage. Extremely challenging and extremely helpful” is a common phrase heard amongst the Aspiring and Future Fund Managers

Following Fund Manager Masterclass participants transition into first-time fund managers. Belgrade, Serbia, 2025

2. Emerging Fund Managers — The Builders of New Funds (40%)

Emerging fund managers, and their new team members, are the true pioneers in the VC space. Many join a masterclass with a fund strategy forming in their minds. Some are deep into legal setup, regulatory requirements and LP pitches.

Emerging fund managers are raising their fund I, II or III. For many, this can be a 10-year journey, maybe more. Some emerging fund managers build out teams, bring in new team members and recruit young talent; suddenly realizing they also need to be training their teams, while also navigating the learning journey themselves too.

“Even with years of experience, there are plenty of concepts we don’t fully utilize or grasp. This program clarified them significantly and gave me new insights.“

-Enrique Alvarado-Hablützel, Co-Founder & Chief Investment Officer, Chi Impact Capital

“This is so realistic. These are just the challenges we are facing right now”, is a common theme heard amongst emerging managers.

Emerging fund managers, in deep concentration closing a deal. Toronto, Canada, 2024

3. General Partners and Current VC Team Members — The Operators of Today’s Funds (30%)

At the core of every Masterclass are the active GPs and their teams — the fund architects already in the field, deploying capital, managing portfolios, and navigating the full complexity of fund lifecycle management.

These participants don’t come to learn what venture capital is. They come to sharpen what they’re already doing — and to solve the hard problems that don’t come up in LP reports. When they join, they understand the basics of thesis, strategy, deployment pace and LP reporting. But, two challenges stand out. Number one, how to ‘get better at exits and liquidity’, second, how to better embrace the 15-year life span of a fund, and using that insight to manage multiple funds on the same platform.

Senior GPs and Founding Partners

These participants are operating funds — often regional or sector-focused — and arrive to explore advanced themes: portfolio construction at scale, follow-on strategy, exit & liquidity strategy and LP alignment ahead of a new raise.

In one recent European cohort, several founding GPs used the Strategy Tools canvases to redesign their LP stack and stress-test their fund economics in real time — with peers who had done it before.

Managing Partners and Investment Partners

Driving investment decision-making, managing the portfolio, and building LP relationships — these participants often use the Masterclass to pressure-test their fund model and build a shared language with their team before entering a critical fundraising window.

Venture Partners and Operating Partners

Part-time, sector-specific partners who need a full-system view of how a fund works — and how their role fits into the larger GP machine.

Investment Team: Principals, Associates, Analysts

From deal flow analysts to senior associates, junior team members join to build a holistic view of how funds operate — from fund mechanics and portfolio modeling to LP relationship management and exit dynamics.

The result? They walk out able to contribute at a level far beyond their job title.

“It’s one thing to read about VC in books, but you only ‘get it’ under pressure.”

— IMD VAM Participant, Lausanne, Switzerland

Seasoned fund managers, partners and investment associates, online 2026

4. Limited Partners — The Capital Behind the Funds (15%)

Every great fund manager needs a counterpart: the Limited Partners who provide the capital, mandate, and long-term stability that allow funds to be born, grow, and ultimately deliver returns.

In the Masterclass, LPs join for two critical reasons: to understand how to identify and back the right GPs — and to co-design new investment structures that align with their own mandates and constraints.

The LP participants we see span the full spectrum of capital:

High-Net-Worth Individuals (HNWIs) and Angel Networks evolving from direct startup investing into fund-level participation — moving from writing cheques to committing to fund structures
Family Offices seeking diversification, access to innovation, and long-term exposure to early-stage growth
Corporate Ventures (CVCs) and Fund-of-Funds, participating to identify sector-focused or geography-specific GP partners
Foundations and Endowments exploring catalytic capital models and impact-first fund structures
Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) and Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) playing a foundational role in developing VC ecosystems
Pension Funds and Insurance Capital beginning to explore venture as an asset class — a shift accelerating across Europe and emerging markets alike

In Egypt, institutional LPs and national agencies explored how to design new LP frameworks that would enable more first-time fund managers to launch — sitting in the same room as the GPs they would later consider backing.

In the IMD classroom, some of the largest LP organizations in the Middle East, used the experience to sharpen their LP skills for future fund allocations in ultra-competitive markets.

In 2X Ignite, South Africa Masterclass, DFIs worked on new fund structures to channel growth capital into underserved markets, learning alongside the very fund builders they intended to support.

This cross-pollination — between capital providers and fund builders, in the same room, on the same simulation — is one of the defining features of the Fund Manager Masterclass.

Family offices, Fund-of-funds and an Australian DFI, working alongside emerging fund managers, 2X. Singapore, 2023

5. The System Builders — Designing the Venture Ecosystem Itself (7%)

Then there’s the fifth group — and perhaps the most fascinating.

These are not the fund managers. Not the LPs. These are the architects of the broader venture capital system — the people designing national strategies, regulatory frameworks, accelerator programs, and the policy environments that either enable or constrain everything else.

System builders arrive at the Masterclass because they seek to understand the full machine — not from a textbook, but from the inside. They include:

VC ecosystem builders and program funders creating national accelerators, sector programs, and capital formation strategies
Government agencies, innovation authorities, and regulators exploring how fund structures, incentives, and public-private co-investment can drive growth
Economic development organizations and capital market institutions looking to mobilise private capital into strategic sectors
Universities and faculty members designing or evolving courses, research programs, and academic ventures into fund strategy and ecosystem design
Service providers — lawyers, fund administrators, accountants, and advisors building practices around the VC ecosystem
Journalists and analysts gaining first-person insight into how venture capital truly operates behind the scenes
MBA students and research fellows exploring fund management as a career path or research domain

In Fiji, Egypt, and Singapore, government innovation agencies and DFIs attended side by side — using the Masterclass to co-design a more dynamic national VC landscape. In the DFDF VC program, national ecosystem builders used the immersive experience to strengthen the collaborative tissue between various GPs in the ecosystem.

In Mauritius, service providers, fund administrators and fund-of-fund allocators came together to gain a deeper appreciation of the complexities of managing a full 15-year fund journey.

This system-level participation is what makes each cohort genuinely unique — connecting micro (fund-level) thinking and macro (ecosystem-level) design in a single, intense learning environment.

Connecting the ecosystem, ocean impact x pacific. Fiji, 2025

Inside the Fund Manager Masterclass

Each Masterclass blends strategic learning, competitive simulation, and hands-on fund design. The core simulation — Fund Manager! — compresses 10–15 years of fund lifecycle into just a few intensive days. Participants don’t just learn about venture capital. They live it.

Across the Masterclass, participants work through the full fund journey:

Early team formation – owning the key roles on a GP team
Fund design and investment thesis — scoping strategy, sector focus, geographic mandate, and fund size
LP engagement and capital stack design — sourcing, pitching, and closing Limited Partners on Fund I, II and maybe III
Portfolio construction and follow-on decisions — deploying capital, managing dilution, and defending the portfolio
Exit execution and DPI optimization — navigating acquisitions, secondary sales, and IPOs
Outcomes and performance — tracking record performance, managing LP distributions and outperforming peer fund managers

Accenture Fund Manager Masterclass. Frankfurt, Germany, 2025

The numbers from recent cohorts speak for themselves. At the IMD Venture Capital Asset Management Programme in Lausanne, six teams collectively deployed $2.2 billion across 153 investments, executing over 100 exit transactions — with fund returns ranging from a respectable 3.0x to an extraordinary 672x net DPI.

In Belgrade, eight competing funds from across the Western Balkans deployed $1.8 billion in simulated capital across 84 investments and 55 exits — in three days.

“I honestly didn’t believe it is possible to transmit that much information in such a short timeframe. Your unwavering support, energy and patience made sure everyone was at their highest learning potential!”

— Nastja Preradovic Visic, Western Balkans Masterclass

A Global Community of Fund Builders

From Cairo to Copenhagen, Toronto to Lausanne, Brussels to Mauritius, the Fund Manager Masterclass attracts a truly global cohort — connected by a shared ambition: to design, learn, build, and scale the next generation of venture capital funds.

The alumni network spans:

GPs raising their first or second fund, now with a global peer group to call on
LPs exploring new emerging markets— with the GP relationships to match
DFI’s with a newfound respect for the complexities of managing investment funds
Policy shapers designing capital market reforms and national VC infrastructure
Innovation agencies building the scaffolding for entirely new ecosystems
Corporate leaders engaging with emerging GPs for strategic collaborations

Together, these participants represent the full system of venture capital — from the first dollar raised to the last exit realised.

Designing the Future of Venture Capital

The Fund Manager Masterclass is more than an executive program. It’s a catalyst for VC ecosystem transformation. Each session becomes a micro-lab for fund design, VC innovation, and cross-border collaboration — the kind of convergence that doesn’t happen at conferences.

Whether delivered by European Women in Venture, Invest Europe, IMD, Newton Venture Program, Dubai Future District Fund, or in partnership with national development agencies, the experience is built around one fundamental belief:

Anyone can learn to navigate the full 15-year fund journey, ultimately unlocking a new generation of GPs, LPs and VC ecosystem developers globally.

Download the canvas

Get the “Who attends a Fund Manager Masterclass” canvas. Download it here.

About the Fund Manager Masterclass

The Fund Manager Masterclass is a Strategy Tools program delivered globally in partnership with governments, DFIs, business schools, and ecosystem programs. It has been run in 20+ countries across 5 continents. For information on hosting or partnering for a Masterclass, contact Chris Rangen (Chris@strategytools.io) or visit Strategytools.io

April 1, 2026/0 Comments/by Christian Rangen