Taaleri expands into early-stage venture funds

Translation: Original published in Finnish on 04/13/2026 at 09:18 am EEST

Taaleri announced it would acquire a 51% majority stake in Nordic Science Investments Oy (NSI). With this arrangement, the company expands its operations into early-stage venture funds in line with its strategy. We are preliminarily positive about the arrangement, even though its impact on Taaleri's financials is still small at this stage.

The NSI arrangement expands the fund offering in a welcome way

NSI is a Finnish venture capital fund manager whose first fund, established in 2024 with 45 MEUR, has invested in 22 early-stage companies. We believe the fund has already invested a significant portion of its capital, and therefore, fundraising for the next fund could begin relatively soon. We have previously found the introduction of new strategies to the selection highly desirable, as the outlook for Taaleri's Other Private Equity Funds segment has been subdued for both product lines (Real Estate and Bioindustry). The NSI deal addresses this concern and supports the company's targeted expansion into new fund strategies during the 2026-2028 period. We also consider it positive that the acquired target offers a genuinely differentiated product, and the company did not end up expanding into, for example, fund-of-funds private equity, where differentiation in Finland is becoming very difficult.

The short-term impact of deal is limited

The acquired company's revenue is estimated to be around 1 MEUR, with earnings approximately at zero. Thus, the transaction has no material impact on Taaleri's full-year 2026 earnings. Taaleri's goal is naturally to significantly scale the size of NSI's funds, and we believe the target size of the next fund will be between 100 and 200 MEUR. The Finnish VC landscape is currently strong, and we consider the starting points for raising capital in this market to be good. Naturally, much also depends on the development of the first fund, for which we currently have no visibility.

The deal structure seems reasonable

The parties are not disclosing the exact purchase price, but the arrangement includes an earn-out mechanism and conditions, upon the non-fulfillment of which both parties have the right to cancel the transaction. We believe this point is directly related to the fundraising for the next fund. The purchase price payable now is likely very modest on Taaleri's scale, but the next phase's additional purchase price could also be significant for Taaleri (several millions). The success and sensibility of the arrangement ultimately depend on the success of the next fund's fundraising. The finalization of the transaction still requires the approval of the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority.