Norrsken Evolve hires venture partner for Estonia expansion: 'Ideal for resilience investments'

Last year, Norrsken Accelerator, part of the Norrsken Foundation, rebranded as Norrsken Evolve and launched a €57m fund focused on European “resilience”.

Among the LPs were the European Investment Fund (EIF), Smartcap Green Fund, and Skalla – the family office of Skype alumni and Wise co-founder Taavet Hinrikus and his Skype colleague Sten Tamkivi.

A couple of months earlier, Hinrikus and Tamkivi announced Kasvuhoone, a tech hub in Tallinn, Estonia, slated to be the largest of its kind in the Nordics once it opens in 2027. The first resident? Norrsken Evolve, which is expanding its presence in the Baltic country.

This week, the firm announced the hire of Siim Teller as venture partner and Merit Vislapu as platform and operations associate.

Here, the ties to Skype deepen further: Teller was head of Skype.com during its early years and knows Hinrikus and Tamkivi well. Since departing the company in 2010, he’s held several operational roles at startups and founded his own early-stage investment company, Lemonade Stand.

Teller’s focus at Norrsken Evolve will be “early-stage impact founders, building a strong local presence, and making sure the right deals get seen by the right people,” he wrote on LinkedIn.

Joining him in Tallinn is Merit Vislapu, who will support the growth of Norrsken Evolve’s presence in Estonia.

Rebecka Löthman Rydå, general partner at Norrsken Evolve, told Impact Loop that Estonia was a natural move for the firm.

“Estonia is a small country next to Russia, full of people with grit and determination,” she says. “It’s an ideal place to find, fund, and grow resiliency-focused startups.”

Estonia, home to just 1.3 million people, has one of the highest unicorn-per-capita counts in the world. Companies to emerge from the country include Bolt, Skype, and Wise (formerly TransferWise).

Norrsken Evolve currently operates out of the offices of the broader Norrsken Foundation, which has hubs in Stockholm, Kigali, Barcelona, Brussels, and, most recently, Amsterdam.