"Outsized returns won’t come from yesterday’s technology"
Some investors chase hype, others chase comfort. Industrifonden is betting on founders who refuse to play nice and on technologies bold enough to bend the future, a perspective shared by Mala Valroy.
When Industrifonden looks at startups, it isn’t charm or consensus they’re after. What matters most is conviction.
Mala Valroy knows this from both sides of the table. As Investment Manager at Industrifonden, she works on the fund’s deep science and hard innovation portfolio. Her own path started in biochemistry and cancer research, moved through startups and heavy industry at Atlas Copco, and later corporate innovation at Ericsson. That mix of lab science, entrepreneurship, and global industry now shapes how she approaches venture investing.
– I want a difficult founder. I want someone full of conviction, brave enough and slightly crazy enough to take on this journey. It’s so hard to take something out of the lab and into the real world. You need audacity.
We’re still stuck in a "lagom box"
Mala’s attitude goes hand in hand with Industrifonden’s evergreen structure. Founded in 1979, the Stockholm-based fund reinvests all returns directly back into the portfolio. No limited partners, no ticking fund cycles. Instead, a patient pool of capital that stays with companies from seed through scale.
– We know this journey takes a while. We write the first check and then stay with you all the way through, says Mala.
That patience is crucial when dealing with frontier technologies. Industrifonden is active across advanced materials, new chip designs, fusion energy and biotechnology. Every deal requires more than a financial commitment. It requires deep diligence.
– This isn’t superficial tech, and it doesn’t allow superficial investing. We bring in experts, verify the claims, and spend the time it takes to really understand if performance is world-class, Mala explains.
The Nordic ecosystem offers strong academic spinouts and a history of industrial strength, but Valroy believes the region still needs to stretch further.
– In San Francisco, no dream is too big. Do you want to mine asteroids? Go ahead. Here we’re still stuck in a "lagom box". We need to stretch. The outsized returns won’t come from yesterday’s technology.
You need to soft launch your fundraise
So where will the next breakthroughs come from? For Industrifonden, frontier bets include energy storage, compute infrastructure and quantum.
– Quantum is going to be such a difficult problem, and such a mission critical one. I think it’s moving faster than people realize, Mala predicts.
Whatever the technology, Industrifonden ties everything back to resilience, whether in sustainability or in long-term relationships with founders. That’s why the fund prefers to engage well before a round begins.
– You need to soft launch your fundraise before you ever say you’re raising. If you only reach out when you’re desperate, you’re too late.
It’s advice that comes from experience. Valroy has seen companies fall into the two classic valleys of death: first at proof-of-concept, and later when scaling internationally. Closing those capital gaps will require bigger sums, and a new comfort with risk.
– Innovation can’t be decoupled from failure. If we don’t get comfortable with both the sums and the risks, we won’t build the future.