Mari Luukkainen

Short: Principal at Icebreaker.vc with a portfolio of 100+ startups. Ex-growth operator of a 15% profitable MoM startup. Founder of a non-profit creating tech jobs for immigrant women Herizon.io. Investor of the year in NWITA.


I’m a self-taught human-centric growth tech nerd who started at age 12 when I received my first affiliate marketing commission from my Fallout 2 game fan page.

During my professional 20+ years I’ve been involved in growth of hundreds of clients and own projects for over 10 years in affiliate marketing and another 10 years in developing companies as a consultant or an in-house at startups and a VC firm. My sweet spot is early-stage: zero to seed/series A.

I’ve found my happy place at the iterative and constant growing world of global tech startups such as Freska, Paxful, Yousician, and now a 140M€ early-stage VC firm Icebreaker.vc with 100+ early-stage companies in Nordics and Baltics while operating as a growth advisor at my growth hacking agency Truly and training growth hacking to immigrant women at my non-profit Herizon.

If you wish to use trendy terms like growth hacking, it was my pleasant hobby back in the end of 90s and still is. ❤️


My mission is to use my skills to help startups that actually wish to make things better and be good companies for the people. I believe in Nordic values of work-life balance and equality at work.


What I've done

  • Scaled early-stage startups from <1M€ ARR to 10M€ ARR with profitable acquisition
  • Raised funds from €50K angel rounds to €30M in ETH in ICO & seed and A rounds between €1M to €15M
  • Built scalable and profitable go-to-market models for almost every continent
  • Had the uncountable amount of 1on1s with 100+ startup CEOs from companies between 1M€ to 100M€ ARR about growth models implementation
  • Created 1000+ meaningful jobs for people (especially for women, immigrants, and minorities)
  • Won the Investor of the year 2022 title in the Nordic Women in Tech Awards for the work I've done to improve diversity in VC and tech
  • Based on Spotify's stats I belong in the top 0.5% of the listeners of the Finnish metal band Beast in Black

Currently

  • I'm Principal in a 140M€ early-stage venture capital firm Icebreaker.vc with 100+ portfolio companies.
  • I'm a partner and advisor of a growth hacking as a service agency Truly.
  • I'm a speak as a keynote speaker, produce products and write about everything related to early-stage startup growth.
  • I run a community of 100+ alumni of my growth hacking internship and other growth professionals to learn together.
  • I founded a non-profit Herizon.io which has helped to train and employ 100+ immigrant women in tech so far.

I'm the most active on LinkedIn. Other ways to contact me you can find here. To get an alert when I write something new, you can simply subscribe.

Check Press Kit if I'm already booked somewhere.

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