Joachim Karlsson
Investor at vloxq CPQ
Joachim Karlsson
Investor at vloxq CPQ
Stockholm County
Overview
Work Experience
Investor and Chairman of vloxq International
2023 - Current
As Chairman of Vloxq, I oversee strategic direction and governance, ensuring we lead in CPQ innovation. Vloxq empowers companies to generate accurate quotations swiftly, eliminating the inefficiencies of manual, Excel-driven methods. Our solutions streamline quoting processes, prevent errors, and position companies for success.
Chief Executive Officer
2021
As CEO of Almi Invest, Sweden's most active startup investor, I lead a team of over 65 professionals managing €350M across nine funds—eight regional and one national greentech fund. We make more than 50 new investments and 200 add-on investments annually, with a current portfolio of 320 companies across Sweden.
Board Member
2019 - 2021
As Board Member of Univrses, I contributed to guiding the company's strategic vision and governance. Univrses is at the forefront of 3D Computer Vision and Machine Learning, delivering cutting-edge technologies to drive the autonomous future.
Chief Strategy Officer
2017 - 2021
As Chief Strategy Officer at Bisnode, I lead a team of 10 professionals in driving the company's strategic transformation across 19 countries. Our efforts, impacting over 2,000 employees and 100,000 customers, focus on M&A, Corporate Development, Challenger Sales training, and Innovation Strategy. Since my entry, we have tripled Bisnode's enterprise value, doubled EBITDA, and significantly enhanced employee and customer satisfaction. My team and I facilitated the acquisition of six companies and played a key role in Bisnode's successful exit to Dun & Bradstreet for 7.2B SEK in October 2020. Me and my team’s responsibilities also include M&A, Corporate Development, Challenger Sales training and Innovation Strategy. Since my entry, we have tripled the enterprise value of the Bisnode, doubled the EBITDA, dramatically increased employee and customer satisfaction. Me and the team have been responsible for the acquisition of six companies and recently contributed to the exit process of Bisnode to Dun & Bradstreet at 7,2B SEK in Oct, 2020.
Group Director of Innovation and Chief Product Officer
2015 - 2017
Group Director of Innovation at Bisnode responsible for innovation in 19 countries and 2000 employees. Achievements: Introduced open innovation, external hackathons, innovation contests and sprinnovations in all countries. From August 2015 to August 2016: Chief Product Officer at Bisnode with responsibility for 100+ products, 100+ employees and 100+ million euros in revenue. Member of Group Management Team. Achievement: Increased Engagement Index from 23 to 56, while reducing cost dramatically, maintaining revenue and increasing profit margin.
Management Consultant
2012 - 2016
Advisor to a Inlandsinnovation - a Venture Capital fund; advisor to a US based software and services company and a three months assignment as CEO for a startup.
Head of Information and Communication Technologies Department
2013 - 2015
Financed a startup every 4th hour! With a budget responsibility of €30M and a team of 14 highly experienced professionals, I made Sweden more innovative by financing exciting companies with ambitious projects and talented teams mainly in the IT-sector. Over my two year tenure at VINNOVA, I financed more than 1000 startups.
Partner
2007 - 2012
Partner at a venture capital firm focusing on software and high-tech. Funded by the Wallenberg foundation, SEB and IndustriFonden. €35M under management. As partner, I was responsible for finding exciting companies with great growth potential, selling them the idea they would benefit from an investment, and explaining what kind of advice and service we can provide. Once an investment was made, I was responsible for rapidly growing the portfolio company. I was Chairman of the Board of Efield AB (now ESI Group), and member of the Board of ZealCore AB (now Enea AB), Proxio AB, op5 AB and Mips Helmet AB. Notable Accomplishments: • Assessed investment opportunities in over 400 ICT companies. • Took op5’s from zero growth in revenue to 60 % growth in annual revenue. • Reengineered ZealsCore’s sales process and sold the company to Enea. • Led the turn around of Efield, led the international expansion and sold it to the French company ESI. • Changed business concept and sales approach for Mips leading to ten new significant customers. • Helped Proxio reinvent their sales and go-to-market strategy and close their most important deals.
Executive Vice President
2005 - 2006
Telelogic is a leading global provider of ALM software and services targeting the ICT sector. As Executive Vice President, I had full profit and loss responsibility for Telelogic's largest, fastest growing and most profitable business area with $100M+ in annual revenue (about 50 % of Telelogic's total revenue). I was responsible for sales strategies, for increasing sales and profitability worldwide, as well as adapting the product and service portfolio to meet customer needs. I was member of the Telelogic Executive Management Team. IBM acquired Telelogic in April 2008 for $845 million. Notable Accomplishments: • Developed sales strategies for rapid rollout of software and services to a global sales organization. • Ensured rapid growth in global sales • Repacked products and services to better meet customer needs • Gave numerous talks on Telelogic’s products and services all over the world. • Successfully negotiated with the largest customers such as Ericsson, Nokia and Morgan Stanley.
President & CEO
1997 - 2005
Focal Point is today considered a world leader in software and services for requirements and product management with an annual turnover exceeding $20M in recurring revenue, best-in-class profit margins and tens of thousands of users. Customers include Ericsson, Nokia, ABB and Saab. I started Focal Point in 1997 and sold it to Telelogic in 2005. Notable Accomplishments: • Successfully led the IPO • Generated an IRR of 36% to the investors (7x the investment). • Ensured annual growth of 50% and still maintained a profit margin exceeding 20% the last three years of operation • Secured the expansion to Finland by a large deal with Nokia, to Denmark by a large deal with Maersk and to the UK by a large deal with Symbian. • Moved to San Francisco in 2004 to start the US operation. Closed successful reseller agreements as well as substantial deals with Logitech, Texas Instruments and Reuters/Thomson Financial.
Senior Consultant
1995 - 1996
SoftLab had 50 consultants mainly in software engineering and software management. I developed SoftLab’s reputation in Requirements Management, wrote several reports to Sveriges Verkstadsindustrier and arranged multiple conferences.