Jane Walerud

Partner, Walerud Ventures

Jane Walerud builds companies, often around technical ideas. She’s done well since persuading Ericsson to release Erlang open source, with Klarna, Tobii, Lensway, as well as 16 other companies since selling Bluetail in 2000. Jane was the co-founder and CEO of Bluetail, invested in Klarna before incorporation, and was the executive chair of Lensway. She’s found that her companies do better the more she works early in a company’s life and subscribes full-heartedly to CDL’s founding hypothesis. Jane is a member and gold medalist of the Royal Academy of Engineering, a member of the SUP46 Hall of Fame, was awarded the King’s Medal in 2019, and holds an Honorary Doctorate from the Royal Institute of Technology. She was also a member of the inaugural Swedish Innovation Council.