This week, Andreas Munk Holm and Jeppe Høier sit down with Matti Rönkkö, Managing Director of Kiilto Ventures, the venture arm of Finnish family-owned Kiilto.
From Rocket Internet to running a corporate-backed, family-owned venture arm, Matti shares how Kiilto Ventures blends family capital, industry know-how, and VC pace to back startups in the sustainable built environment. They dive into portfolio examples, CVC vs VC dynamics, co-investing with generalists, and why superior product performance at price parity is the only path forward in climate and construction tech.
🎧 Here’s what’s covered:
00:30 – Cold open & setup: why this is a “CVC episode”
01:00 – Who is Matti? From Rocket Internet & scale-ups to Kiilto Ventures
02:00 – What is Kiilto Ventures: mandate, geography, and ownership model
04:56 – CVC, VC, or family office? Matti’s “best-of-all-worlds” answer
07:30 – How Kiilto’s mothership helps: labs, chemists, and customer intros
10:44 – Rocket Internet lessons: speed, scale, and culture
18:12 – The built environment’s big four problems: carbon, circularity, health, inefficiency
20:25 – Portfolio snapshots: Recoma, Nobody Engineering, SMB
24:21 – Co-investing & partnerships: specialists + generalists, and when offtakes make sense
37:27 – Macro & climate politics: why only price-parity products will win