Varma, one of the mainstays of Finland’s private sector occupational pension provision, has announced new investments in four Finnish unlisted growth companies, declaring such equity investments to be a key part of its strategy.
The €64.9bn mutual pension insurance company, which provides statutory earnings-related pensions for nearly a million people, said it had recently participated in funding rounds “supporting the scaling and international growth of four Finnish growth companies” – space technology firm ReOrbit; AI cloud service firm DataCrunch; battery technology provider IONCOR, and quantum computer business IQM.
Varma declined to tell IPE how much these individual investments were worth.
However, it said that of the four companies, the largest overall funding has been raised by Espoo-based IQM. The quantum computing firm said earlier this month it raised $320m (€272m) in the venture capital funding round, naming other investors including pension insurer Elo.
Markus Aho, Varma’s deputy chief executive officer, said: “Private equity investments in unlisted growth companies are a key element of the modern capital market.”
“Investing in growth companies also offers security, which is essential for a pension company’s investment operations,” he said, adding that private equity investments were, for Varma, “the most natural way to finance Finnish growth”.
The announcement comes at a time when politicians in Finland have been calling for pension assets to be used to help domestic economic growth – pressure that pensions lobby group TELA has pushed back on, with the association’s head of legal affairs warning that Finnish pension funds had to be primarily guided in their investment by the goal of keeping the pension system sustainable.
Varma has increased its geographical asset allocation to Finland significantly over the first six months of this year, however. Figures in its January-to-June 2025 interim report show domestic investment overall expanded to 21% from 19%.
Within that 21% slice of assets under management invested domestically, which equalled €13.7bn at the end of June, 7% – just under €1bn – was in unlisted and private equity, according to the report.
Tommi Walther, Varma’s head of private equity and debt, said today that return-seeking investments in growth companies were at the higher end of the risk spectrum in the pension insurance company’s broad private equity portfolio.
“At the same time, however, they act as an element of diversification, which can improve the return-risk ratio of the portfolio,” he added.
Varma said the pension reform currently being laid out in Finland would increase pension insurance companies’ opportunities to invest in pursuit of high returns.
“Investing in growth companies thus aligns with the goals of the pension reform,” the Helsinki-based firm noted, adding that it had an excellent ability to bear risk in a more return-seeking investment environment, thanks to its strong solvency.
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