XY Ventures

XY Ventures is a $15M seed-stage venture capital fund founded in 2020 by Managing Partner Simon Olson, a former venture capitalist and entrepreneur who is a Founder Institute VC Lab alumnus. The firm operates across two of Europe and North America's most unicorn-dense ecosystems, Stockholm and the Nordics and the San Francisco Bay Area, and explicitly positions itself as a bridge between them. Its investment focus is pre-seed, seed and Series A software with a strong tilt toward disruptive digital and AI businesses; sector breadth in the existing portfolio spans Enterprise Applications, High Tech, HealthTech and roughly a dozen other categories, generally as a co-investor. XY targets companies with Nordic heritage and follows on into accelerator graduates from Techstars, Y Combinator, Founder Institute and Singularity University, leveraging an angel network and Bay Area venture partners for deal flow. Check sizes are reported at $250K to $1M per company, and the team is small, roughly two partners, both US-based. The portfolio includes 18 companies and has produced two IPOs and five acquisitions. Marquee outcomes include SentinelOne, a NYSE IPO in June 2021 at roughly $8.97B market cap, EV Connect, and Laudio, acquired by Ascend Learning in September 2025, the firm's most recent exit. XY's overall investing pace has been deliberately concentrated, with each portfolio company receiving meaningful operator support beyond capital. By bridging the Nordics and the Bay Area and following on into top accelerator graduates, XY Ventures backs Nordic-heritage software and AI founders.