Claes Mikko Nilsen

Claes Mikko Nilsen is the investment director at the Nordic & Baltic fund NordicNinja VC. He is a Finnish-Norwegian, quick-witted character, well-known for his pitch moderator skills and specialising in marketing and network building. Claes Mikko is an angel network expert and previously co-founded and worked as the first director of Finnish Business Angels Network (FiBAN), which is one of the largest and most active angel networks in Europe, actively inspiring private startup investing. FiBAN received the Finnish Internationalization Award of the President of the Republic in November 2017. After FiBAN, Claes Mikko moved over to manage the “Nordic angel Dating service” as the Managing Director of Nordic Business Angel Network (NordicBAN), which is driven by active business angels and angel networks. NordicBAN represents over 10 Nordic & Baltic business angel networks, linking over 1700 business angels, sharing angel investing best practices and supporting the matching of syndication ready startups.

In addition to angel activity, Claes Mikko has been part of developing Slush’s Investor Day concept, which today is one of the most important events in the North-European startup scene. Claes Mikko has also entrepreneurial background and during his studies was part of establishing student entrepreneurship society BoostTurku. Claes Mikko has worked with startup guiding at EnterpriseHelsinki and building their startup accelerator service, currently NewCo Helsinki. Claes Mikko was a steering board member at the Rising North Fund, which funded startup ecosystem initiatives supporting internationalization of Nordic startups.

Claes Mikko is fascinated about startup energy, being able to deliver, and finding that perfect one-liner.