Orkla, one of the largest food groups operating in the Nordic region, has become the latest company to set up an in-house venture fund to back start-up businesses.

The company today (17 March) announced the formation of Orkla Venture to build “a project portfolio consisting of exciting, relevant growth companies with significant potential”.

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Orkla will initially focus on businesses in the Nordic region and Baltic states. It has set aside NOK100m (US$11.8m) to invest.

“We will primarily focus on business concepts linked to consumer-related products, services, ingredients and processes, as well as the digitalisation of both goods flow and communication. A feature common to all the projects will be that they have an industrial logic and a potential that could be relevant for the future Orkla,” Peter Ruzicka, the company’s president and CEO, said.

“We believe that Orkla can be an attractive investor capable of contributing not only funding, but also industrial expertise from every part of the value chain.”

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