Nikolaj Nyholm (Judge)

Nikolaj Nyholm has an impressive repertoire of experience in founding, managing, and investing into media and technology growth companies. In 2016, Nikolaj founded BLAST and Astralis with the ambition of bringing esports into the mainstream through the creation of the highest performing teams, progressive esports leagues, and great digital and TV entertainment.

Nikolaj previously founded Polar Rose (exit to Apple), Imity (exit to Vodafone) and Speednames (exit GroupNBT). Between 2010- 2016, Nikolaj was General Partner at Heartcore, a northern European VC firm. At Heartcore, he built the then largest European VC gaming portfolio and was advisor to Stockholm-based Minecraft creator, Mojang. Nikolaj was the first or early investor in, among others, Neo4j, Seriously (acquired by Playtika), Metacore (acquired by Supercell), Peakon (acquired by Workday), GetYourGuide, Podio (acquired by Citrix), Cloudmade (acquired by Valeo), and Futureplay (acquired by Plarium). sports.