Jane Walerud

Jane Walerud was born on 13 November 1961 in the United States and moved to Sweden at age 20 after meeting her husband, Bengt. She studied Cognitive Psychology and Computer Science at Stanford University and was later awarded an honorary doctorate by KTH Royal Institute of Technology. After working as a Sales Manager at Erlang Systems in 1997 — a period in which she famously helped persuade Ericsson to open-source the Erlang programming language — she left in 1998 to co-found Bluetail, a startup that built all its products in Erlang. Bluetail was acquired by Alteon Networks for roughly $152 million, establishing her reputation as both an operator and a technologist.

She became one of Sweden's most influential angel investors. In 2004 she met Klarna co-founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski, invested about €60,000 for roughly 10% of the company, and crucially introduced the founders to a team of programmers (who took ~37% equity) that built Klarna's first platform — making her Klarna's earliest backer and, for a time, its executive chair. Across her career she has been involved in 15+ startups, including Tobii Technology, Teclo Networks (mobile broadband, sold to Sandvine), Lensway, Racefox, and Graphmatech.

Since around 2016, Walerud has concentrated on deep tech that serves environmental sustainability through Walerud Ventures, the family firm she runs with her husband Bengt and daughter Caroline. She is a co-founder and chair of Paebbl (CO₂-mineralizing building materials) and chair of Mycomine (fungal processing of waste). She typically provides early funding plus hands-on operational support, then transitions to a board role as companies mature.

She is a member of the Swedish Government's Innovation Council and has received extensive recognition: induction into SUP46's Swedish Startup Hall of Fame (2015), a gold medal from the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (2017), H.M. The King's Medal (2019), and repeated listings among Sweden's most powerful women (Veckans Affärer / Business Week, 2017–2020).

• Stated thesis: "Nordic, deep tech, pre-seed projects for the living planet" — she backs hard-science and engineering ventures with environmental/sustainability impact.
• Stage & involvement: Pre-seed and seed; she often co-founds or chairs companies rather than passively investing, providing capital plus deep operational support before moving to a board seat.
• What makes her say yes: A long-standing evaluation framework — she has spoken publicly ("What should you look for in a startup or a startup idea?") on judging founders and ideas. She prizes defensible, research-grade technology and strong technical teams; she reportedly targeted average annual returns above 60% since 2002.
• Sectors: Sustainable materials, climate/CO₂ capture, synthetic biology, advanced materials (e.g., graphene), AI/edge computing, and other deep-tech domains.
• Current posture: Walerud Ventures states it "works actively with several companies but is not engaging with new startups," and Walerud announced in late 2025 that she is winding down active investing.