Introducing Eric Martin

Eric Martin is one of the first venture capitalists in Sweden. After a career as an executive in small businesses, he entered the venture capital arena in 1982. For more than 30 years, he has invested in and developed more than a hundred different companies. At least two of them; IVT Värmepumpar and Micronic Laser Systems, went from being tiny businesses to billion SEK companies. During his most active years, Eric himself was in contact with over 500 companies a year to select the companies he would put his efforts in. Over the years, Eric and his team had an IRR for capital invested of more than 30%. Eric has been a venture manager and executive of the following VC companies: Svetab, Småföretagsfonden, Företagskapital, Tuab and Aldano.

During Eric’s period as chairman for the Swedish Venture Capital Association (SVCA), he arranged a study tour with Ingenjörsvetenskapsakademin (IVA) to California, bringing the leading Swedish venture capitalists from San Diego to San Francisco. In San Diego they came in contact with the concept of Connect and brought it back to Sweden. Eric was also chairman for Connect Östra Sverige for a two years.

Eric is a graduate of the Stockholm School of Economics and attended the first class educated in economics for small businesses. Eric was taught venture capitalism in USA under the SBI program and trained in Europe within the EVCA program and the EVCA EBAN program. During Eric’s time as chairman for the SVCA, he started their education program for Swedish venture managers and was also one of the lecturers during the first years. He has been a lecturer for the KTH Executive School, KTH Industriell Ekonomi, SLU Uppsala, UIC Uppsala, Connect Estonia, and Venture Cup, as well as been the head coach of the Swedish National Waterski Team.

Eric is the author of the e-book “Med Hjärta, Hjärna och Plånbok” one of the few practical guides on how to think, reason and act as a venture capitalist.