Overview
Askel Ventures at a glance.
Company
Askel Ventures Oy
Strategy
Micro private equity — buy, operate, grow, selectively exit
Sectors
Cleaning, laundry, waste collection, maintenance, industrial trades
Geography
Finland (primary) · Sweden & Estonia (secondary)
Team
4 founders, serial entrepreneurs, hands-on operators
Deal profile
Revenue €400K–1.5M · EBITDA €100K+ · entry ≤€1M
Platform
Steve — proprietary AI sourcing system, live and sourcing today
Advantage
Documented operational playbook + AI sourcing — no passive PE competes here
Round
Raising up to €1M, ordinary shares, min ticket €100K
Mission
Acquiring boring businesses. Building compounding value.
The Opportunity
A wave of succession transitions
no one is equipped to handle.
73,000+
Finnish entrepreneurs aged 54+
34,000
intend to sell to an outside buyer within the decade
20,000+
viable businesses at closure risk — no suitable buyer exists
The silver tsunami is here. Essential small businesses are profitable and resilient — but founder-led and approaching succession transition.
Structural gap in the market. Too small for traditional private equity, too operationally demanding for passive investors.
Attractive entry multiples. Stable, cash-generative businesses at 3–4× EBITDA — unavailable at scale in any other asset class.
Find01 / 03
We find acquisition targets
before they reach the market.
94+
companies analyzed
100+
brokers tracked
50-item
DD framework
<100 days
first close
Sourcing
Weekly
→
Screening
Active
→
IC
Selective
→
DD
Rigorous
→
Acquired
✓
Steve — AI sourcing agent. Runs weekly sweeps across broker networks and weak signals, scores targets against thesis criteria. Human judgment closes; AI never sleeps.
Broker network. Active relationships with 100+ brokers across Finland and Scandinavia — many of our best leads arrive off-market.
What Is a Boring Business
"Boring" is a feature,
not a compromise.
01Essential, not optional
Customers can't skip it — cleaning, waste, laundry, maintenance.
02Recurring, not one-off
Contracts and repeat relationships, not project-by-project revenue.
03Low disruption risk
No venture-backed competitor is reinventing industrial laundry.
04Undermanaged, not broken
Profitable today, run on paper and instinct — not systems.
05Founder-dependent
One person's retirement is the whole risk — and the whole opportunity.
06Real, proven cash flow
10+ years old, real customers, no story — just proof.
Grow03 / 03
The Askel Effect — how boring
becomes extraordinary.
Proof of Playbook
We're not pitching a plan.
We're showing our work.
✓
35-point Screening ChecklistApplied to every lead before it reaches IC
✓
20-point Due DiligenceFramework that closed our first deal in <100 days
✓
Knowledge Transfer charterPost-acquisition handover, every time
✓
Key hire recruitmentFilled critical operating roles at Melers
✓
Sales CRM built & liveFrom spreadsheets to a real system
✓
Sales SOP active€100,000 in qualified pipeline, running today
Fund02 / 03
Equity in Askel Ventures.
Raising up to €1M.
Instrument
Ordinary shares via private placement. Same share class as founders — no preference stack.
Use of funds
Next 5 acquisitions to reach compounding scale.
Financial target
Grow portfolio companies 10–20%/yr. Exit at 6–8× EBITDA. Target holdco IRR 25–35%.
Minimum ticket
€100,000. Closing on a rolling basis.
The Vision
One acquisition is proof.
A portfolio is the business.
Compounding toward
€100M+
A portfolio of 3–5 verticals — cleaning, laundry, waste, maintenance, trades — running roll-ups within each.
Selective exits of mature companies at premium multiples, proceeds reinvested into the next wave.
Not a thesis — a trajectory already underway, with acquisition #1 cash-flowing and #2 closing.
The Team
Four founders. Four obsessions.
Varia Wahlroos-Kaitila CEO
Obsesses over whether the numbers and the people both check out.
Founded 5 companies, built one to €2M ARR, ran the bank negotiations that got Melers over the line.
Niklas Slotte CRO
Obsesses over whether it'll actually sell.
Scaled a business to €8M ARR internationally. Sharp commercial read on any deal.
Mikael Ylinen Board
Obsesses over whether the operation survives contact with reality.
Decades of operational depth — on the ground and in the boardroom.
Mike Solomon CTO
Obsesses over whether it can run itself.
PhD Mathematics, Stanford. Built Steve, the AI sourcing system doing deal discovery right now.
