Espen Kjeldsen

Espen Kjeldsen is a Partner at Skagerak Capital, a Norwegian venture and regional-fund manager. He began his career in venture capital in 2005 and joined Skagerak in 2016, bringing a hands-on, board-level approach to industrial and technology companies. Across roughly two decades in the business, his personal portfolio has included companies such as 1X Technologies (humanoid robotics), Labrador (journalism CMS), Swipload (logistics), Inline-Test, Trysil RMM and FeltGIS.

At Skagerak Capital he is actively involved in venture investments, the firm's regional funds, new deals, business development, M&A and portfolio follow-up. He serves as the responsible partner and head of Friar Venture — a regional fund that "accelerates growth in tech companies in Telemark and Vestfold" — and is also a lead on Skagerak's First Seed / Hedmark-focused seed vehicle and the Skagerak Maturo fund (whose website, skagerakmaturo.no, now points to skagerakcapital.com).

He is based in Skien, in Norway's Telemark region, and is a regular participant in the Herøya industrial-park and Proventia incubator ecosystems from which much of the regional deal flow originates. In a March 2025 interview he described evaluating roughly 100 cases over the prior year while making only a handful of investments.

• Invests in industrial and technology companies, from seed/early stage through growth, with a bias toward Norwegian regional startups.
• Runs a co-investment strategy: "We prefer that other investors take the lead. We always co-invest." — Espen Kjeldsen
• Targets a disciplined pace of "3–4 companies per year" through Friar Venture, from ~100 evaluated cases annually.
• Values companies that emerge from selective incubator programs — he noted that "companies from the Proventia ecosystem perform strongly compared to many others," crediting rigorous screening.
• Sector interests span robotics, renewable energy/cleantech, materials science, forestry/AgriTech, SaaS and digital platforms.