Heidi Lindvall

Background

Heidi Lindvall is a General Partner and Co-Founder of Pale Blue Dot, a Malmö, Sweden-based venture capital firm focused on early-stage climate technology startups ¹. She co-founded the firm in 2020 alongside Hampus Jakobsson and Joel Larsson ².

Before venture capital, Lindvall had a career spanning documentary filmmaking, human rights, and technology startups. She holds a BA in Film and Television Studies from Brunel University and an MA in Human Rights from City, University of London ³. She founded CODOC, an award-winning documentary film production company, and spent years in post-conflict zones making documentaries on social and global issues ⁴. She then co-founded Storygami, an interactive video startup, alongside Guy Gunaratne in 2013; the pair pitched their prototype to Sir Richard Branson as part of the Virgin Media Pioneers program, raised angel funding, and graduated from 500 Startups in Silicon Valley ⁴. Storygami eventually shut down in 2019 ⁵. She also co-founded Maven Video, another interactive video platform ⁴.

Following her startup career, Lindvall served as Startup Programme Manager for Data Pitch at the Open Data Institute (2017-2018) and as Program Manager and Startup Advisor at Minc, Malmö’s startup incubator (2018-2020), where she helped build the FastTrack Malmö accelerator ³⁶. This combination of entrepreneurial experience and startup ecosystem work led her to co-found Pale Blue Dot in 2020 ².

Stated Thesis

Lindvall and Pale Blue Dot publicly describe their focus as investing in pre-seed and seed-stage startups that “reduce, reverse, or help communities adapt to climate change” across Europe and the US ⁷. The firm organizes its investment strategy under three categories: Optimize (decarbonizing existing systems), Adapt (climate resilience technologies), and Pioneer (breakthrough innovations) ⁸.

In February 2025, Pale Blue Dot announced it would no longer call itself a “climate fund,” with the co-founders stating in a joint newsletter: “Climate as a concept has become politicised, limiting and narrow” and “the word climate has become synonymous with a very narrow set of problems and how to invest, which we don’t subscribe to” ⁹.

Lindvall has stated publicly that she wants portfolio companies to be fundable by generalist VCs, not only climate-focused investors: “We are a climate investor…but quite a lot of times you don’t have to convince us…We just want to make sure that you can build a billion dollar company in that area” ¹⁰. She has also expressed particular interest in nature-based solutions including biodiversity and oceans, beyond carbon-focused investments ¹⁰.

On carbon accounting specifically, she has noted: “Two years into the fund, we started tracking all the carbon accounting tools. And once we got to about 132, we just said, ‘Okay, let’s stop tracking’” ¹¹. She remains skeptical of companies that solely monetize through carbon markets ¹¹.

Inferred Thesis

Based on 47 verified portfolio companies across Pale Blue Dot’s two funds ⁷¹², the following patterns emerge. Note: Pale Blue Dot is a three-GP fund where all partners co-lead decisions without hierarchy ⁸, so Lindvall’s personal portfolio substantially overlaps with the firm’s.

Sector distribution (based on 47 verified investments): - Enterprise software / data / analytics: ~13 companies (28%) — Climate X, Overstory, Amini, Infyos, ClimateAligned, Way, Maiven, Atlas, Nala Earth, Care Weather, Opna, JaroFleet, Improvin’ - Mobility / transport / logistics: ~6 companies (13%) — Monta, Pelikan Mobility, Hived, PIONIX, Cosmic Aerospace, SnoFox Sciences - Food / agriculture: ~5 companies (11%) — Phytoform, Hier Foods, AgroLeague, BettaF!sh, VEAT - Industrial / materials / manufacturing: ~5 companies (11%) — Paebbl, CBAMBOO, Solarock, Brineworks, VARM - Fintech / climate finance: ~3 companies (6%) — Green-Got, Patch, Sphere - Fashion / consumer: ~2 companies (4%) — Hack Your Closet, Madefrom - Other sustainability: ~3 companies (6%) — Podero, Pivotal, CirPlus - Remaining: ~10 companies across various climate-adjacent sectors

Sample too small for some categories; percentages are approximate and based on publicly available sector classifications.

Stage distribution: Predominantly pre-seed and seed. The firm has made select follow-on investments into Series A (Solarock, Monta, Paebbl) for its strongest performers ¹².

Geographic focus: Pan-European with some US deals. Key clusters in the UK, Nordics (Sweden, Denmark, Finland), Germany, France, and the Netherlands ⁸. The Amini investment in Kenya represents an exception for African climate tech ¹³.

Check size: €200K to €2M, with a sweet spot around €1.1M. The firm targets 10%+ ownership and predominantly leads rounds ⁸¹⁴.

Portfolio composition: Approximately 70% software companies in Fund I, a deliberate strategy to demonstrate that climate investing can match generalist VC returns ¹¹.

Co-investor patterns: Frequent co-investors include Seedcamp, Frst, Powerhouse Ventures, and various Nordic angel networks. The LP base includes Prima Materia (Daniel Ek / Shakil Khan), Atomico, H&M family office Ramsbury Invest, Saminvest, and founders from Contentful, Supercell, Zendesk, Wise, and Delivery Hero ²¹⁵.

Notable gap: Despite claiming openness to US deals, the portfolio is overwhelmingly European. The “Pioneer” category (breakthrough innovations) is less represented than “Optimize” (decarbonization tools).

Portfolio

This table represents approximately 39 of 47 known investments (~83%). Many dates are approximate (marked with ~), derived from fund deployment timelines rather than confirmed announcement dates. Fund I (€87M, closed 2021) invested in 28 companies ¹⁵; Fund II (€93M, closed 2023) is actively deploying into approximately 35 additional companies ¹⁵.

In Their Own Words

“Climate tech is here to stay. As long as the climate crisis has not been solved, we will need to keep investing more money into tech solutions.” — Heidi Lindvall, FemWealth interview, 2023 ¹⁹

“We are a climate investor…but quite a lot of times you don’t have to convince us…We just want to make sure that you can build a billion dollar company in that area.” — Heidi Lindvall, CleanTechies Podcast, July 2023 ¹⁰

“Two years into the fund, we started tracking all the carbon accounting tools. And once we got to about 132, we just said, ‘Okay, let’s stop tracking.’” — Heidi Lindvall, Sifted Podcast, 2024 ¹¹

“We normally say we invest in ‘reduce and reverse’ but also ‘prepare for a new world.’” — Heidi Lindvall, Sifted Podcast, 2024 ¹¹

“Companies that only monetise through the carbon markets…those are things that I’m still very sceptical of.” — Heidi Lindvall, Sifted Podcast, 2024 ¹¹

“As investors, we can not stay silent.” — Heidi Lindvall, Impact Loop interview, on investor responsibility and speaking out on social issues, 2024 ²⁰

“I’d rather go straight through difficult conversations than avoid them.” — Heidi Lindvall, Impact Loop interview, 2024 ²⁰

“Climate as a concept has become politicised, limiting and narrow.” — Pale Blue Dot co-founders (Jakobsson, Lindvall, Larsson), joint newsletter statement, February 2025 ⁹

What Founders Say

Lindvall commented on Climate X founders Lukky Ahmed and Kamil Kluza: “Lukky and Kamil are two amazing founders with the domain expertise that we believe is necessary to win in this market. We are very excited to join them on this journey and see Climate X introduced to the world” ¹⁷. Note: This is an investor quote about founders, not a founder quote about the investor.

Joel Larsson (Pale Blue Dot co-founder, not a portfolio founder) said of Overstory: “Forests and healthy ecosystems are vital for negative emissions and the health of the biosphere…We loved how the team at Overstory built a solid technology and data, and already got it out there with customers” ¹⁶.

No independently sourced founder testimonials about Heidi Lindvall or Pale Blue Dot as an investor were found after dedicated searching. The firm has published its standard term sheet template publicly to help founders understand deal terms ²¹, which suggests a founder-friendly orientation, but no direct founder quotes about their experience working with Lindvall were located.

Connections

• Board Member, VARM — portfolio company focused on building insulation and energy efficiency (since August 2024) ²²
• Board Member, Sphere — climate-aligned investment company offering fossil-fuel-free 401(k) funds ¹⁸
• Board/Advisor, Climate X — climate risk data analytics company ²²
• Co-Founder, The Drop Conference — annual climate tech unconference in Malmö, Sweden, hosting 500-1,000 attendees including founders, VCs, LPs, and scientists (since 2022) ²³
• Speaker, ARCTIC15 — Helsinki startup conference (2023) ⁶
• Former Program Manager, Minc — Malmö startup incubator (2018-2020) ⁶
• Former Startup Programme Manager, Open Data Institute — Data Pitch program (2017-2018) ³
• 500 Startups alumna — graduated with Storygami ⁴

Frequent co-investors: Seedcamp, Frst, Powerhouse Ventures, Techstars, Futuristic VC (based on co-investment in portfolio companies) ¹²¹⁶.

Sources