General Partner at Maki.vc (Web3)
Check size: Maki's published sweet spot is first rounds below EUR 5 million from day zero; this is a firm round-size criterion, not Paavo's personal check range. Fund III is the active new-investment vehicle, with selective follow-ons from older funds.
Paavo backs Nordic deep-tech founders at their first institutional round when a radical scientific or engineering advance can overhaul an industry. He requires a credible technical foundation, balanced technical and commercial talent, control of a valuable position in the value chain, deep customer understanding, and a distinctive brand capable of making complex technology category-defining.
Address all six published criteria directly: quantify the radical performance jump; establish the team's research, IP, and development credibility; show commercial leadership; map your owned position in the value chain; prove customer demand; and articulate the category brand. Add manufacturing, regulatory, capital, and milestone plans from prototype through the first commercial facility or product.
Radical rather than incremental breakthroughs, years of relevant research or defensible IP, technical-commercial founder balance, clear customer pain, full-product ownership, industrial-scale economics, global ambition, and a brand that translates hard science into a compelling category.
Paavo explicitly warns against incremental gains too small to change industrial behavior, research without a credible development timeline, science searching for a customer problem, weak early commercial hiring, licensing strategies that surrender control of market adoption, and technical products without a clear brand or category story.
Score radical breakthrough, technical foundation, technical-commercial team balance, value-chain position, customer understanding, and distinctive brand before advancing a deep-tech opportunity.
Determine whether core scientific uncertainty has been reduced enough that the remaining work is estimable development compatible with venture timelines.
Assess whether the startup sells and delivers the full solution, owns the customer relationship, and can drive deployment instead of depending on a licensee that may abandon commercialization.
Quantify whether performance, cost, emissions, safety, or capability improves enough to overcome industrial switching risk and win executive attention.
Investable deep tech combines a radical breakthrough, credible technical foundation, technical-commercial balance, value-chain control, deep customer insight, and a distinctive category brand.