Investments in Danish startups and scaleups have decreased in the first half of 2025, but life science and software still attract capital, and the use of debt instead of equity increases, according to EIFO’s new report.
Key takeaways from the report, which gives an overview of the Danish capital markets from 2024 and the first half of 2025, include:
- Early-stage funding & crowdfunding: Public grants supported over 500 Danish startups and SMEs in 2024, boosting innovation and product development. Crowdfunding dropped 45% but upcoming regulatory changes could revive it, while Business Angels focused on fewer, bigger deals.
- Venture capital: Denmark remains a top VC market in Europe relative to GDP, with EUR 3+ billion invested from 2022–2024, mainly in early-stage startups. VC slowed 44% in H1 2025 due to economic and geopolitical uncertainty, though biotech continues to dominate through large funding rounds.
- Buyouts & foreign investment: Buyouts grew slightly in 2024, largely through add-on deals that scale existing companies. Foreign investors now back 80% of buyout deals, highlighting potential exposure to global market swings.
- Debt Financing: Corporate lending rose 6.2% YoY for May 2025, helped by improved economic conditions and banks easing SME credit standards, making debt more accessible.
- IPOs: Activity remains low, with no new listings in 2024, held back by market volatility and geopolitical uncertainty.
These trends are also seen in byFounders’ Q2 2025 market update. The key takeaways from the update include:
- Investments: EUR 251m was invested across 48 fundraising rounds, being a decrease from Q2 2024 by 27% and 21%, respectively.
- Round sizes: Median round sizes were quite stable, with the pre-seed median being EUR 1.3m, seed median being EUR 2.7m, and series A median being EUR 10m.
- Geographical density: Sweden led the pack being at the top of both number of investment rounds and invested capital with 17 rounds and EUR 97m invested.
- Sector focus: Macroeconomic tendencies are also reflected in venture capital, as seen by Frontier & DeepTech leading in both invested capital with EUR 78m and number of rounds with 9 in total.
