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Venture studio builds scalable from day 1: “There’s nothing more expensive than a cheap app”

Malthe Reipurth, partner and CTO, and Stefan K. Johansen, founder an CEO – Black Capital Ventures.
@Redaktionen
Cutting corners often comes back to haunt you, according to Black Capital Ventures, a venture studio that has been helping founders build solid tech startups from idea to business since 2018.
Cutting corners often comes back to haunt you, according to Black Capital Ventures, a venture studio that has been helping founders build solid tech startups from idea to business since 2018.

This post is also available in: Danish

Building a startup requires a solid foundation. Because if the foundation can not support the growth of the business, it often ends up getting expensive – and in worst case scenarios, it collapses completely.

That is why tech startups need to be built from the ground up, according to Black Capital Ventures, a venture studio specialising primarily in greentech and medtech. As former tech entrepreneurs themselves, the founders understand the importance of not only providing capital to a company, but also the right technical competences to build a strong tech product.

“We often say: There’s nothing more expensive than a cheap app,” Malthe Reipurth, Partner and CTO at Black Capital Ventures, begins with a smile.

“There are a lot of startups that have a great idea, build a cheap prototype, get traction, and all of a sudden they’re tied to a prototype that needs constant duct tape because it consists of third-party solutions. That way is insanely expensive to scale versus building it all yourself,” he continues.


Black Capital Ventures

  • Founded in 2018 by Stefan K. Johansen
  • 6 portfolio companies, 80% of which are in the healthcare sector
  • Has sister company Black Capital Technology
  • Focus on medtech, healthtech and greentech


Tech geekiness meets business acumen

One of the venture studio’s greatest strengths is its technical competences. With the sister company and consultancy firm, Black Capital Technology, all portfolio startups have access to technical insight and development resources. This means that consulting on infrastructure and tech architecture is as much a part of daily life as business planning and commercialisation.

“With our entrepreneurial and business experience, we help build a strong foundation from day 1”

“When we get involved with a company as early as we do, we help define the direction. With our entrepreneurial and business experience, we help build a strong foundation from day 1 to avoid all the startup ‘teething problems’,” Malthe Reipurth explains.

Black Capital Ventures engages with early-stage startups and often supports the development with strong industry expertise as they work towards market readiness. 

And it is precisely the combination of commercial and technical acumen that makes BCV unique, according to Mads Meincke, CEO and founder of the health platform Healthful – a startup in the venture studio’s portfolio.

“What’s special about BCV is that they have both insanely strong technical and business competences. This means that you produce the right product the first time around instead of burning a lot of capital on something that either commercially or technologically needs to be redesigned six months later,” he explains.

BCV-portfolio company HATO at the startup event Slush’D.

Real innovation

Black Capital Ventures takes a unique approach to entrepreneurship. The venture studio wants founders with practical experience from the area they are trying to innovate. This approach creates strong startups, the venture studio believes.

“If you want to create real innovation, it often comes from people who work with things in practice.”

“Our ambition is to help grow startups with a vision of making a positive impact on society. And if you want to create real innovation, it often comes from people who work with things in practice. We often see that the product-market fit is higher because the founder is almost an independent study of where the challenges lie,” Malthe Reipurth.

This means that BCV entrepreneurs are often highly motivated to solve the exact problem they have experienced first-hand. And the competences they may be lacking, the venture studio provides.

“If you’re a founder coming out of practice and have no entrepreneurial experience, it’s easy to build your product from 3rd party solutions because it may seem easier and cheaper. But there’s a huge value in owning your IP once you scale your business. That you lay a foundation that you can keep building on,” explains Mads Meincke.

UGENS STARTUP: