Maki.vc
Maki.vc is a Helsinki-based, pre-seed and seed-stage venture capital firm backing deep tech and brand-driven founders across the Nordics and Northern Europe. It manages around 260 million euros across three funds and writes a startup's first institutional cheque, leading the round. As of 2026 it has backed 2 water companies across 2 deals.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
Maki.vc is the fund Finnish angel investor Ilkka Kivimäki built in 2018 to be a founder's very first institutional cheque. Maki backs deep tech and brand-driven companies at pre-seed and seed, a startup's earliest outside funding: the scientists with hard intellectual property on one side, the consumer brands rewriting a category on the other. It almost always leads the round rather than tagging along, and today Maki.vc manages around 260 million euros across three funds, the latest a 100 million euro vehicle opened in late 2024.
Maki.vc is not a water fund, and that is exactly what makes its two water bets worth a look. Both treat water as an industrial sensing-and-maintenance problem, not a treatment-plant one. Altum Technologies, out of Helsinki, fires high-power ultrasound through the walls of industrial pipes to shake loose the fouling and scale that clog them, with no chemicals and no stopping the line. Lightsonic, founded in Norway, turns the fibre-optic cable already buried alongside a water main into a live sensor that can hear a leak or a dig strike the moment it happens.
Maki.vc shows a newcomer what water looks like when a generalist deep-tech investor stumbles into it: not pipes and pumps, but software, acoustics and materials science aimed at infrastructure that already exists. Maki leads its rounds and reserves roughly two-thirds of each fund for follow-on, the later cheques into the same company, so the ones it backs early it tends to keep backing. Watch it for the next place a sensor or a sound wave turns an ageing water network into a smart one.
Water Commitment Score
Compiled from official filings, third-party records, and direct intelligence from investors and founders, in Leviathan · recomputed monthly · as of Jun 2026.
How they invest
Portfolio · 2 water companies
Invests alongside
Highlighted = profiled on (don't) Waste Water.
Frequently asked
- What does Maki.vc invest in?
- Maki.vc invests in pre-seed and seed-stage deep tech and brand-driven startups across the Nordics and Northern Europe, from scientific hard-IP companies to consumer brands challenging a category. Its small water list sits on the deep-tech side: industrial ultrasound cleaning and fibre-optic infrastructure sensing, not municipal water treatment.
- Who runs Maki.vc?
- Maki.vc was founded in 2018 by Finnish angel investor Ilkka Kivimäki and is run today by a partner team of Kivimäki, managing partner Pauliina Martikainen, founding partner Pirkka Palomäki and general partner Paavo Räisänen, backed by a network of more than 50 founder limited partners.
- Where is Maki.vc based?
- Maki.vc is based in Helsinki, Finland, at the Maria 01 startup campus, and invests across the Nordics and Northern Europe. Founded in 2018, the firm manages around 260 million euros across three funds and writes a startup's first institutional cheque at pre-seed and seed stage.
- What stage and check size does Maki.vc invest at?
- Maki.vc invests at pre-seed and seed, the earliest outside funding rounds, and almost always leads. Its third fund, a 100 million euro vehicle opened in 2024, writes initial cheques of roughly 300,000 to 3 million euros and reserves about two-thirds of the fund for follow-on rounds.
- Is Maki.vc a water-focused fund?
- No. Maki.vc is a generalist pre-seed and seed deep-tech and brand investor, not a water fund. Within its portfolio (don't) Waste Water tracks 2 water companies across 2 deals, Altum Technologies in industrial ultrasound and Lightsonic in fibre-optic infrastructure sensing, and rates its water commitment Committed.