Principal at Icebreaker.vc with a portfolio of 100+ startups. The ex-growth operator of a 15% profitable MoM startup. Founder of a non-profit creating tech jobs for immigrant women Herizon.io. Investor of the year in NWITA.

I’m a self-taught human-centric growth tech nerd who started at age 12 when I received my first affiliate marketing commission from my Fallout 2 game fan page.

During my professional 20+ years, I’ve been involved in the growth of hundreds of clients and own projects for over 10 years in affiliate marketing and another 10 years in developing companies as a consultant or an in-house at startups and a VC firm. My sweet spot is early-stage: zero to seed/series A.

I’ve found my happy place at the iterative and constantly growing world of global tech startups such as Freska, Paxful, Yousician, and now a 140M€ early-stage VC firm Icebreaker.vc with 100+ early-stage companies in Nordics and Baltics while operating as a growth advisor at my growth hacking agency Truly and training growth hacking to immigrant women at my non-profit Herizon.

If you wish to use trendy terms like growth hacking, it was my pleasant hobby back at the end of the 90s and still is. 

My mission is to use my skills to help startups that actually wish to make things better and be good companies for the people. I believe in Nordic values of work-life balance and equality at work.

What I’ve done

• Scaled early-stage startups from <1M€ ARR to 10M€ ARR with profitable acquisition
• Raised funds from €50K angel rounds to €30M in ETH in ICO & seed and A rounds between €1M to €15M
• Built scalable and profitable go-to-market models for almost every continent
• Had the uncountable amount of 1on1s with 100+ startup CEOs from companies between 1M€ to 100M€ ARR about growth models implementation
• Created 1000+ meaningful jobs for people (especially for women, immigrants, and minorities)
• Won the Investor of the year 2022 title in the Nordic Women in Tech Awards for the work I’ve done to improve diversity in VC and tech
• Based on Spotify’s stats I belong in the top 0.5% of the listeners of the Finnish metal band Beast in Black.

Currently

• I’m a Principal in a 140M€ early-stage venture capital firm Icebreaker.vc with 100+ portfolio companies.
• I’m a partner and advisor of a growth hacking service agency Truly.
• I am a keynote speaker, produce products and write about everything related to early-stage startup growth.
• I run a community of 100+ alumni of my growth hacking internship and other growth professionals to learn together.
• I founded a non-profit Herizon.io which has helped to train and employ 100+ immigrant women in tech so far.

www.mariluukkainen.com