Jan Erik Hareld

Jan-Erik Hareid is the founder and chairman of Alliance VC, a Nordic early-stage venture capital firm headquartered in Oslo with offices in Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, and Copenhagen. Alliance’s team page says he founded Alliance Venture in 2001 after spending five years in Silicon Valley in the early days of the Internet.

Before Alliance, Hareid held executive roles in startups and large companies and worked with emerging technologies, innovation, and entrepreneurship. The Hub’s profile of Alliance Venture describes his prior experience as including management and business development for technology companies, five years as head of Innovation Norway in San Francisco, and work experience from Conoco, Kongsberg Norcontrol, and startups.

His education is listed by The Hub as an MSc in physics and industrial engineering from NTNU and the INSEAD International Executive Programme. Third-party board profiles describe him as a venture capitalist for more than 20 years, focused on value creation through building high-growth companies, with specialization in SaaS, deep tech, and global market expansion.

• Alliance’s stated thesis: “We invest in exceptional early-stage tech companies founded by entrepreneurs with global ambitions.”
• The firm looks for companies “solving real problems” where entrepreneurs improve how people live in a scalable way, creating long-term profit as well as environmental and social sustainability.
• Alliance Nordic III’s stated strategy is to back ambitious Nordic founders early, across pre-seed, seed, and Series A.
• Initial investments are typically €1-2 million, with a stated range of €300,000 to €3 million.
• Sector areas highlighted by Alliance include business efficiency, climate and energy, fintech, and digital health; Hareid’s third-party board profiles also point to SaaS, deep tech, and global market expansion.
• Alliance describes itself as a “partner-only” fund where founders meet decision-makers from the first interaction and partners continue working directly with portfolio companies.