Swedish impact firm makes first investment – two years since launch
Trio Impact Invest took a long time to get everything into place – but now Impact Loop can announce that the much-talked-about deeptech fund is making its first investment.<br><br>Here is the company in question.
In the fall of 2023, Trio Impact Invest took home the assignment to manage the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth's Stockholm Track for impact and research-related companies.
Behind the initiative are Stockholm University, Karolinska Institutet and KTH through their holding companies, with the ambition to get more research-intensive deeptech ideas to lift from lab to company.
The journey to realising it was then both prolonged and questioned: two years after Trio won the tender, no investments had yet been made – while the clock was ticking towards the fund's deadline.
But last fall, the news came that they had finally reached their goal, with an initial closing of around €10m.
First investment
Now Impact Loop can announce that it is time for the next milestone: Trio has made its first investment.
The investment, which equals SEK 5 million (€468K) according to information provided to Impact Loop, goes to Swedish AAX Biotech. It is a company that builds tools to make the development of antibody-based drugs faster and more accurate.
The idea is that the technology – in the form of a pair of platforms – will help pharmaceutical companies get a clearer picture of where antibodies attach. This will in turn make it easier to select and fine-tune the right candidates early in the process when developing a new drug.
"We are very excited to make our first investment from Trio in AAX Biotech and support a team whose enabling technology can improve how antibody-based drugs are discovered and optimised," says Siimon Vaske , CEO of Trio Impact Invest, in a press release.
The CEO of AAX Biotech, Daniel X Johansson , describes the investment as a puzzle piece for the company's next phase.
"With Trio's support, we can accelerate key technical milestones, deepen validation with partners, and broaden the impact of our platforms in antibody discovery and development," he says in a comment.
The company previously raised SEK 6.9m (€646K) in 2024 at a valuation of SEK 35 million (€3.2m) pre-money.
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