Ulrika Saxon

Ulrika Saxon is a Swedish executive, investor, and board professional best known for building Bonnier Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of the Bonnier Group. Pamica lists her as born in 1966, educated with an M.Sc. in Economics and Marketing from the Stockholm School of Economics, and formerly founder and CEO of Bonnier Ventures, CEO of Bonnier Growth Media, and CEO of Bonnier Magazines.

Before Bonnier Ventures, Saxon led Bonnier Tidskrifter / Bonnier Magazines for seven years. In 2012 she moved from that CEO role to become CEO of Bonnier Growth Media, a new Bonnier business area focused on growth outside traditional media. In 2013, Bonnier named her head of its Growth Media business area, covering digital toys, gaming, publishing tools, rights/moving image and related digital growth businesses.

At Bonnier Ventures, Saxon led a corporate VC platform that invested in digital growth companies including Acast, Natural Cycles, Resolution Games, Refunder, Daisy Grace, United Screens, Kitab Sawti and Sulapac. VO2 stated in 2022 that she had spent 10 years building Bonnier Ventures, had been part of Bonnier AB group management for nine years, and had completed roughly 100 company transactions ranging from startup investments to majority acquisitions.

Saxon left the Bonnier Ventures CEO role in 2022 and became Senior Advisor to the same business before taking the CEO & Secretary General role at Kungl. Lawn Tennis Klubben on January 2, 2023. She also holds board roles including Pamica Group, Adlibris, Aura Group, Bonnier News Business and VO2 Capital, according to Pamica and VO2 disclosures.

• Saxon’s Bonnier Ventures thesis centered on “fast-growing tech companies with international ambitions.”
• Bonnier Ventures was financially driven rather than purely strategic: Bonnier’s 2019 annual review said its investments were “of a purely financial nature” while also helping Bonnier enter new industries and markets.
• Team quality was a core filter. In a 2018 Bonnier comment on female founders, Saxon said one of Bonnier Ventures’ most important criteria was “exceptionally strong and dynamic” founder and management teams.
• She showed a clear preference for digital consumer and media-adjacent businesses where Bonnier could bring consumer understanding, scaling experience, governance and network access.
• Bonnier Ventures invested with a long-term orientation: by 2019 it planned to increase investment capacity to more than SEK 200 million per year, broaden outside the Nordics, make larger investments and continue backing successful companies over time.
• Current Bonnier Capital language, reflecting the successor investment platform, emphasizes “proven ideas and exceptional teams” in structurally growing industries and long-term growth without fixed fund holding periods.