Sven LINGJAERDE
President, European Tech Tour Association
General Partner, Vision Capital
Sven Lingjaerde is a founding partner of Vision Capital, a Trans-Atlantic venture capital firm established in 1996, investing in European technology companies seeking to enter the US market. From its offices in Silicon Valley and Switzerland, Vision Capital has invested in over 25 companies from Funds representing $175M in capital.
Previously, Mr. Lingjaerde was the Managing Director of Genevest Consulting Group SA, a Swiss venture capital firm founded in 1983. Through his leadership, Genevest developed an outstanding track record of early to expansion stage investments in IT and Life Sciences ventures on both sides of the Atlantic. His investments include companies such as Sandisk Corporation, SCM Microsystems, Actelion, Axovan and Paion.
With over 18 years of Venture Capital experience, Mr. Lingjaerde has developed an extensive network in Silicon Valley, Boston and in Europe. This network of contacts was leveraged through the European Tech Tour Association that he founded in 1998. The European Tech Tour Association is an independent non-profit organization that identifies and promotes emerging European technology companies and exposes them to a selective group of high level executive representing large technology corporate, international venture capital firms and corporate advisors. Mr. Lingjaerde was listed amongst the 10 leading Venture Capitalists in Europe by Convergence Magazine (a Wall Street Journal European Summer 1999 edition); and mentioned two years in a row amongst the top “Time Digital Europe 25” at Time Magazine Europe (ed. October 29th 2001 and October 14th, 2002) which combines a list of people considered to contribute the most to shape Europe's technology future.
As a General Partner at Vision Capital, Mr. Lingjaerde is responsible for the European deal sourcing and currently sits on the Boards of Atempo, France, Avalon Photonics, Switzerland and Sphera in Boston.
Sven studied business administration at HEC, Lausanne, and graduated from the ECADE business school, also in Lausanne. He is fluent in French and English.
