Invests in
Sectors:
Locations:
Min Investment:
$1,000,000.00Max Investment:
$10,000,000.00Target Investment:
$5,500,000.00
Skills
Education
- Uo
- SI
Lists including Caroline
Investments
Work Experience
2020
Executive Chairman, Cofounder & Investor
2020
Weâre #ReinventingForestry with electric drones. By eliminating access roads and the damage heavy machines do in the forest, AirForestry enables better biodiversity, gentler thinning and higher uptake of carbon dioxide. In Sweden alone, the method can reduce direct emissions by more than 150,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year and increase our forests' carbon dioxide uptake by one million tonnes per year. www.airforestry.com/en I joined as the fourth co-founder, now we are 30 people. During our first two years, I implemented and ran the quarterly and yearly goals process, drove productivity habits, wrote copy for our English communication inc website, wrote several winning grant applications, ran our angel investment rounds and the preparation for our next round, hired key talents in tech and marketing, built our careers site from scratch, set up TeamTailor as our recruitment platform and implemented the employee options program. Today, in addition to being Chairman of the Board, I am part of the company's leadership team, run the high level communications and strategy work, work on financing with the CEO and CFO, I continue to run the options programs, and am responsible our engagement in the CDL Accelerator program.
2012
Chairman and Cofounder
2022
Shaping a world free from sizes, where every body fits.
Executive Chairman and Cofounder
2015 - 2022
Caroline cofounded Volumental in 2012, with the mission to shape a future free from sizes, where every body fits, through 3D scanning and artificial intelligence. With partners such as New Balance, XXL, Bauer Hockey and Fleet Feet Sports, Volumental has helped over 17 million people so far find perfect fit shoes, in over 3000 stores in over 45 countries. Volumental is building the platform for the future of product customization, with several of our customers creating custom shoes for better performance based on our service. Based in Stockholm, Sweden, we have 60+ employees representing 20+ nationalities. Weâve topped most rankings for Swedish startups of our size. For example Wired ranked us as one of Europe's hottest startups 2015, Internetworld ranked us as hottest entrepreneurs 2013 and our incubator STING awarded us Rookie of the Year, Best Internet/Media pitch and Best pitch overall at STING Day 2013. In addition, in 2013 when I was 23, the Swedish business magazine Veckans AffaÌrer ranked me #1 super talent of the year in a list of 101 super talents under 40 years old. I was on Forbes 30 under 30 Europe Leaderboard and Retail section 2016.
CEO and Cofounder
2012 - 2015
As CEO during Volumental's first three years, I grew the team from four founders (myself and three computer vision PhDs from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm) to 20 people. I brought in $3M in venture capital from Silicon Valley and Stockholm and we brought in almost $2M in grants from Sweden and the EU.
Advisory Board Member
2015
A forum to develop Stockholm's startup ecosystem, where I work on strategic issues with CEO PĂ€r Hedberg. Sting ranked 1st in Sweden and 4th in the world in the 2013 Global benchmark for university incubators. Volumental was there 2013-2014.
Entrepreneur and Member
2015
We aim to inspire and support young people to become entrepreneurs. The group, sponsored by the Royal Academy of Sciences and HRH Prince Daniel, includes CEOs and founders of some of Swedenâs most successful companies. Concretely, I regularly speak at panels and moderate roundtables about entrepreneurship at high schools and colleges around Sweden.
2016
Partner
2016
Walerud Ventures joins pre-seed deep tech companies for the living planet. We are three serial entrepreneurs working together on our next projects, but not taking on any new investments. We like investing at the earliest stages, up to âŹ1M per startup, and act as part-time employees and advisors to get the company going. Since we help operatively we take on max two active investments per Partner. Portfolio companies include Klarna (fintech unicorn where we were the first investors and Jane chaired the board), Graphmatech (world-changing graphene materials), Satcube (fast lightweight satellite terminals), Swedish Algae Factory (advanced material from algae), Ekkono.ai (AI for IoT), Midsummer (solar cells), Volumental (FitTech through 3D and AI, where I co-founded the company 2012 and WV has invested in rounds since 2018), and AirForestry (Re-Inventing Forestry with electric drones). At WV, I built the website and copy from scratch and manage content, I picked and manage our PR and admin consultants, manage our resource database with templates etc for our portfolio companies, and handle around half our incoming leads. I am currently fully occupied as Co-founder and Executive Chairman at AirForestry and Volumental. I am looking for one board position at a larger company. Once one of my companies "graduate" or I invent a time turner, I'll look more in areas such as biotech, advanced materials, AI, synbio, or something great for biodiversity / resilient ecosystems.
2020 - 2021
Mentor
2020 - 2021
I will pro bono mentor climate startups 1-2 days a month during the program period, October to June. Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) is a nonprofit organization that delivers an objectives-based program for massively scalable, seed-stage, science- and technology-based companies. For founders developing high impact and scalable solutions to help preserve and protect the natural world. The CDL Climate Stream at CDL-Paris and CDL-West will provide high impact contributions to climate challenges by unlocking the potential of cutting-edge research and accelerating its path to commercialization. CDL startups work with CDL mentors to sharpen objectives, prioritize time and resources, raise capital, and engage with experts working on the frontiers of climate research. With the CDL process and structure, we will help founders accelerate the commercialization trajectory of novel innovations to become massively scalable ventures that have substantial positive climate and societal impacts. The startups attend five in-person objective-setting sessions between October and June. CDL is a non-profit organization. There are no fees for participation and CDL does not take any equity.
2018 - 2020
Board Member
2018 - 2020
Swedish Algae Factory extracts a unique nanoporous silica material from algae that has exceptional light altering and absorbent properties. These are useful in several industries, where the material can replace harmful and less efficient chemical substances, and increase the efficiency of solar power. We already have customers in the cosmetics space and have testing partnerships in the solar energy and industrial coating industries. Patent pending. We are backed by several EU and Swedish Energy Agency grants, Chalmers Ventures, KIC Innoenergy, Almi Invest and Almi Greentech, AquaSpark (a Dutch aquaculture investor), Walerud Ventures and a former president of AkzoNobel. I worked part-time with business development since we invested in summer 2018, and joined the board in October 2018. In March 2020, when new investors Aqua-Spark and Almi Greentech joined the board, WV gave up our board spot.
2017 - 2017
Jury member for Rivstart, impact startup competition
2017 - 2017
The jury consisted of previous foreign minister Jan Eliasson, CEO Stockholm Resilience Center Johan Rockström, entrepreneurs/investors Caroline Walerud, Ash Pournouri, Aurore Belfrage, Sara Wimmercranz, Richard BÄge, Entrepreneurship Professor Mats Lundqvist, and Swedbank CEO Birgitte Bonnesen.
2015 - 2016
Member of the Government's Entrepreneurship Reference Group
2015 - 2016
One of 13 members of the Swedish governmentâs reference group for strengthening entrepreneurship in Sweden (Referensgrupp till Entreprenörskapsutredningen). We reported to Mikael Damberg, Minister for Enterprise and Innovation, with benchmarks and suggestions in these areas: taxes on entrepreneurship, regulations for reconstruction and bankruptcy, support structures and ecosystems, circular economy, internationalisation, digitalisation and skills supply. I was particularly involved in subgroups focussed on three areas: internationalisation, digitalisation and skills supply. This covered immigration, education, housing and tax policy, etc.
2012 - 2013
Consultant / Research Assistant
2012 - 2013
Research at the Center for Strategy and Competitiveness and European Cluster Observatory at Stockholm School of Economics (SSE). Wrote a report on international networks of cluster organisations for the European Commission, at the Centre for Strategy and Competitiveness (Part of the Marketing and Strategy Department) and the European Cluster Observatory, under supervision of PhD Candidate Assia Viachka and Dr Göran Lindqvist. Spoke at a DG Enterprise and Industry workshop in Brussels on "International Cluster Cooperation for SMEs: Towards a European Approach", on 12/12/2012, in a panel titled "Interest and need for shaping European Strategic Cluster Partnerships to better address international markets jointly" Also did data analysis and some writing for a report on the impacts of cluster cooperation on companies in Northern Mid Sweden, with Professor Ărjan Sölvell and Mr Mats Williams. Other than the research, I was faculty representative on the jury for the SSE Business Committee Case Competition (BCCC) 2012, in the area of Strategy and Management.