About us

Open Ocean Capital is the leading investor in Community and Open Source Business. With hands-on assistance and funding, the Open Ocean team uses its broad and deep experience from MySQL AB and similar highly successful business cases to help start-ups with established user bases build scalable global businesses.

We believe that a multi-stage investment model is best for developing the start-up to global success. Our typical initial investment is 0.5-1M€, with one or several follow-on investments tied to growth targets. The maximum investment is 6M€ per portfolio-company.

With this investment focus, Open Ocean launched Fund Three in May 2011 with 40 M€ in capital in the first closing. We are currently working on a second closing, targeting 60M€ in total for the fund.

History

Open Ocean was originally established in Luxemburg, as Open Ocean S.à.r.l. by the MySQL founders (Michael Widenius, David Axmark and Allan Larsson) as the holding company for their joint ownership in MySQL AB. Ralf Wahlsten and Berndt Karsten invested in Open Ocean S.à.r.l. and MySQL AB, while helping the MySQL founders with the initial growth phases of MySQL AB.

After the MySQL AB acquisition by Sun Microsystems in 2008, Open Ocean was transformed into a venture capital operation and moved to a Finland-based entity, owned by the Open Ocean Capital management team. The team launched the first fund in 2008, which has invested in six companies. The name of this investment fund was chosen to be Open Ocean Fund Two, to reflect the history of the company as one of the main owners in MySQL AB  (Open Ocean “One”).