Inside EIFO Strategy, Interview with Tamara Savic

While global enthusiasm toward ESG (environmental, social, governance) investing is cooling off, Denmark’s Export and Investment Fund (EIFO) remains committed to the green transition. 

The state-owned fund, which is both a national promotional bank and export credit agency, backs Danish companies by injecting long-term capital into the country’s ecosystem, both directly in startups, indirectly through funds and by financing energy and other projects around the world. 

Tamara Savic, Investment Director at the financial institutions Fund Investments team, is part of the efforts spearheading EIFO’s investments into national and international funds that focus on especially climate technologies, life sciences, and deeptech companies – the latter being another burgeoning sector both in Europe and the Nordics. 

“We’ve had a continued focus on this area [climate tech] despite the market being more selective in its bets within the space,” she told European Women in VC in an interview. While climate tech funding has seen a decline year-on-year – startups in Europe raised €7.4bn in H1 of 2024, compared to €6.2bn in H1 of 2025 – Savic is “hopeful that it will surge in the coming months, as investors are eying breakthrough technologies that will solve real world problems better than existing solutions, driven by business potential rather than purely environmental concerns“. Denmark is home to a bustling wind sector, which has sparked a focus on developing new energy efficient and climate-related technologies, and makes Denmark well-positioned to lead these global efforts. 

As a state-owned fund, EIFO can be more patient and place bets more presciently, with the expectation of getting returns on investments across a longer period. 

The Danish ecosystem is maturing

Over the past few years, Savic has found that the calibre of research and founders coming out of Denmark have constantly elevated the bar for talent proliferating its tech scene. There are plenty of boons for investors looking to pump capital into the ecosystem, she said. 

“Danish startups have proven to be globally minded from day one, capital efficient and adaptable to economic and geopolitical shifts,” she said, and adds that “this creates a great foundation for delivering good risk adjusted returns for investors”. Savic adds, ”international investors are recognizing and seizing this opportunity as well. Although there was a 44% YoY drop in investments in H1 of 2025, there has been an uptick in interest from international investors – especially at the earlier stages. Data from EIFO shows that during the first half of 2025, the share of rounds [in Danish startups] by foreign investors alone reached a record level of 38 percent. And we continue to see an increased interest from our international fund managers such as Sofinnova, Creator Fund and Giant in the Danish ecosystem.”

Denmark has evolved into a remarkably dynamic venture market, and the ecosystem has entered a new growth phase. The number of scaleups has nearly doubled over the past five years, and founder profiles are maturing significantly. They are seeing a sharp increase in technically skilled and industry-experienced founders, as well as a growing share of unicorn founders from Denmark. This signals a deepening local talent pool capable of building globally competitive tech companies. 

 “There is a growing level of sophistication among both investors and founders, combined with the ecosystem being highly interconnected as universities, corporations and the industry work together, which makes Denmark an exciting place to invest” she said. 

Savic highlighted companies Dawn Health, Nordic Salt Cycle and Agreena as standouts that exemplify this. “The cases really showcase how they’ve managed to leverage the Danish R&D ecosystem to grow and scale efficiently,” she told EWVC. 

Another recent success for the ecosystem includes EIFOs partnership with Novo Holdings to establish 55 North, the world’s largest quantum-only fund, which is set to raise €300 million, highlighting Denmark’s  vibrant deeptech scene and its legacy from quantum research pioneer Niels Bohr. 

Pension funds can catalyse more innovation 

Still, the Danish ecosystem could benefit from more risk-willing capital being put into play by Danish pension funds and other institutional investors to reach its full potential. Pension funds generally require large-scale investment opportunities, which often exceed the capacity of most Danish venture funds. As a result, many pension funds are effectively precluded from participating in this sector. Savic hopes that pension funds will be more open to adapting their strategies to participate more in increasing innovation at the early stages, whilst still enabling a safeguarding of their resources and deployment of substantial capital.

“On the public side, we see the EU Commission being willing to provide solutions to overcome some of the regulatory barriers that exist. However, it still demands some change from the pension funds themselves, in capturing the asset class’s full potential” she said, pointing to EWVC’s recent report. She continues, “the median VC fund in Europe, is well below EUR 100 mio in size, so even if all regulatory barriers were removed for pension funds, they still would not be able to invest in the average European Fund because of their deployment strategy, unless they are willing to look into how to overcome these barriers on their own internal execution”, she said. 

“We’re a sovereign player but we have a really high interest in getting more private capital into the innovation ecosystem, especially from pension funds, which will help drive more of these innovations and boost economic value, benefiting the whole market, including investors and their stakeholders,” she added. 

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As Denmark’s national promotional bank and official export credit agency, EIFO works to open doors for global business, drive the green transition, advance innovative technologies, and contribute to Denmark’s security. With total commitments exceeding EUR 22 billion and activities in more than 100 countries, EIFO provides financial solutions to Danish companies and their global partners. EIFO is also Denmark’s largest venture investor, investing in both startups and funds. In 2024, EIFO invested in 78 companies and 16 funds.

Tamara Savic is an Investment Director at EIFOs fund investment team, where she has been the past 7 years, leading investments into more than 25 funds. Before joining EIFO, she was working in the fund investment teams of Danske Private Equity and Danish pension fund, PKA’s alternative investment arm, investing in buyout funds throughout Europe and in the US. She holds an MSc in Mathematics-Economics from the University of Copenhagen. 

Learn more about EIFO here.