EQT Ventures

Overview

EQT Ventures is the early-stage and growth venture-capital strategy of EQT AB, the Stockholm-headquartered, Nasdaq Stockholm-listed investment organisation. Launched in 2016 by Hjalmar Winbladh, who subsequently left the organisation in 2020, EQT Ventures announced its first fund at EUR 566 million in May 2016, targeting minority equity investments of roughly EUR 1 million to EUR 50 million in European and US technology companies. A second fund, EQT Ventures II, closed at EUR 660 million according to the firm's own communications. EQT Ventures has become a regular participant in DACH technology financing rounds, including as an early lead investor in Berlin-founded Parloa.

Why this matters

As part of EQT AB — a publicly listed, multi-strategy investment group spanning private equity, infrastructure and real assets alongside venture capital — EQT Ventures brings balance-sheet scale and brand recognition that most independent early-stage European VCs do not have, and it has used that position to lead early rounds in several companies that later raised large late-stage rounds from US growth investors. Its DACH investments, including Parloa and the Stuttgart-founded remote-access software company AnyDesk, are cited in Startuprad.io's own coverage as evidence that not all of the capital fuelling German AI and software scale-ups originates outside Europe, even where later-stage rounds are dominated by US funds.

Company

EQT Ventures operates as a venture-capital strategy within EQT AB, drawing on EQT's broader Stockholm-based investment infrastructure while running its own investment team across several European and US offices, per the firm's own site and portfolio disclosures. The strategy has publicly disclosed a proprietary AI-assisted deal-sourcing tool, Motherbrain, associated in press coverage with EQT Ventures partner Henrik Landgren; other named partners in press profiles include Alastair Mitchell. Publicly disclosed portfolio companies include Wolt, Netlify, HackerOne, AnyDesk, Einride, Varjo, Natural Cycles, Handshake, dott and Beamery, spanning consumer, developer-tooling, cybersecurity, mobility and climate-adjacent sectors, alongside DACH-region investments such as Parloa.

Role in the ecosystem

EQT Ventures sits among the small group of European early-stage funds with the balance-sheet backing of a listed parent, which lets it write larger early cheques and follow on through later rounds than most independent seed funds. In DACH-specific coverage, it recurs as an early-stage lead investor that subsequently co-invests alongside larger US growth funds once a portfolio company reaches Series B or C, a pattern documented in Startuprad.io's own coverage of Parloa's funding history, where EQT Ventures led the Series A in 2023 and continued participating through the company's Series B, C and D rounds alongside Altimeter Capital, Durable Capital Partners and General Catalyst.

Selected relationships

Parent organisation: EQT AB, Stockholm, Sweden, listed on Nasdaq Stockholm. Founder: Hjalmar Winbladh (2016; departed the organisation in 2020). Named partners in press profiles: Alastair Mitchell, Henrik Landgren. Selected DACH portfolio relationship: Parloa (Berlin) — EQT Ventures led Parloa's 2023 Series A and participated in its subsequent Series B (2024), Series C (2025) and Series D (2026) rounds, per Parloa's own funding disclosures and press reporting, alongside investors including Altimeter Capital, Durable Capital Partners and General Catalyst. Other publicly disclosed portfolio companies include Wolt, Netlify, HackerOne, AnyDesk, Einride, Varjo, Natural Cycles, Handshake, dott and Beamery.

Startuprad.io relevance

Startuprad.io's own coverage has referenced EQT Ventures twice: in a December 2022 GSA monthly wrap-up reporting the close of EQT Ventures III, described in that reporting as Europe's largest early-stage venture capital fund at the time — a characterisation attributed to contemporaneous press coverage rather than independently verified here — and in a listicle profiling venture firms investing in cleantech, which describes EQT Ventures as focused on sustainable innovation.

Public source context

Sources reviewed for this record include EQT Ventures' own site and fund-announcement pages, the EQT AB and EQT Ventures Wikipedia entries, press profiles of Alastair Mitchell and Henrik Landgren, EQT Ventures' own account of its Fund II close, Parloa's own funding-round disclosures (cross-referenced against Startuprad.io's Parloa entity record), and the two Startuprad.io coverage items listed below. Fund-size superlatives (e.g. "Europe's largest") reflect contemporaneous press framing at the time of a given fund close and are not independently re-verified as still accurate.

Startuprad.io coverage

This Month in German, Swiss, and Austrian (GSA) Startups — December 2022 Wrap-Up
Published: 15 March 2026
Last updated: 20 September 2026
Coverage type: News
https://www.startuprad.io/post/this-month-in-german-swiss-and-austrian-gsa-startups-december-2022-wrap-up

Top VC Firms Investing in Cleantech Startup
Published: 29 July 2025
Last updated: 20 September 2026
Coverage type: Explainer
https://www.startuprad.io/post/top-vc-firms-investing-in-cleantech-startup

There is more to this story
For Entrepreneurs Vault members, I go one level deeper: how EQT Ventures' early-lead-then-follow-on pattern shows up across its DACH portfolio
We look at the full Parloa cap-table sequence from EQT's Series A lead through the Series D, why a listed-parent VC's balance sheet changes which German AI rounds get led by Europeans versus Americans, and what that means for founders and investors mapping who actually leads DACH deep-tech rounds.
The full Entrepreneurs Vault analysis is available to members.
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