Hampus Jakobsson

Who they are

Hampus Jakobsson is General Partner & Co-Founder at Pale Blue Dot — previously co-founded The Astonishing Tribe (TAT), a mobile UI firm acquired by BlackBerry for $150 million in 2010.

Person

Hampus studied Pharmaceutical Sciences at Uppsala University and Engineering at Lund University, graduating in 2004 — an unusual dual background that surfaces repeatedly in how he thinks about hard, systems-level problems. His career opened at Novartis and then pivoted sharply: he co-founded The Astonishing Tribe (TAT) in 2002, a mobile UI company whose interfaces shipped on over 500 million devices before BlackBerry acquired it for $150 million in 2010. Post-exit, he didn't retire — he founded Brisk.io in 2012, a sales productivity tool used by companies like Evernote, Hootsuite, and Zendesk, which folded in 2016. After Brisk he moved into investing, first as an angel (100+ companies by his own account), then as co-founding partner at EQT Ventures, a pan-European firm. He joined Pale Blue Dot in 2020 when it was pre-first-close, a seed-stage climate tech fund he co-founded in Malmö. He also founded Malmö Startups and organises The Drop, an annual climate conference. The through-line is serial institution-building: he doesn't just join movements, he starts the organisations around them. He writes annual year-in-review essays on Medium at hajak.medium.com — covering investing, personal growth, and climate — and in 2025 began writing a book about how people become who they are. He speaks regularly at SuperReturn Venture, SOSV Climate Tech Summit, MCJ, and Love Tomorrow, consistently on the 'Climate First' thesis: designing companies around the underlying problem, not incremental sustainability improvements.

Network

Hampus's closest working relationships are at Pale Blue Dot itself: Heidi Lindvall and Joel Larsson are fellow General Partners at the fund. Beyond the firm, he has connections across European VC — Staffan Helgesson at Creandum, Albert Wenger at USV, and prior institutional ties to Atomico — reflecting a network built over two decades of founding, angel investing, and fund-building across Scandinavia and Europe.

Heidi Lindvall· General Partner, Pale Blue Dot
Joel Larsson· Partner, Pale Blue Dot
Staffan Helgesson· Investor, Creandum
Albert Wenger· Investor, USV

How they likely show up

Co-founded TAT, Brisk.io, EQT Ventures, Pale Blue Dot, and Malmö Startups — across employed and independent tracks — → high agency operator who defaults to starting things rather than joining them.
Moved from pharma (Novartis) → mobile UI founder → sales SaaS founder → angel → VC → climate VC → a pattern of complete domain reinvention every 5–8 years, suggesting comfort with steep learning curves and low attachment to sunk expertise.
Annual year-in-review essays on Medium plus active conference speaking (SuperReturn, SOSV, MCJ, Love Tomorrow) → comfortable being publicly accountable for his thinking, probably responds well to direct challenges to his stated views.
Pale Blue Dot was co-founded pre-first-close in 2020, a structurally difficult moment to launch a fund → appetite for conviction-first moves ahead of social proof.
Organised The Drop (an annual climate conference) and founded Malmö Startups alongside full-time VC work → adds infrastructure around ideas he cares about rather than delegating community-building to others.
Started writing a book in 2025 about how people become who they are → reflects a long-form, introspective side alongside the public investor persona; likely thinks carefully about identity and motivation, not just returns.

Conversation tips

→ Reference his 'Climate First' framing specifically — it's a distinct thesis (design around the underlying problem, not incremental sustainability) and he'll engage more if you engage with the idea rather than just the fund.
→ Ask about the TAT-to-BlackBerry transition and what he took from it — a $150M exit at a mobile-UI company is an unusual origin story for a climate investor, and he's clearly made sense of the arc.
→ He writes annual reviews and started a book on personal development — he responds to reflective, considered questions, not just deal-flow or portfolio talk.
→ He's based in Malmö, not Stockholm or London — don't assume he's optimising for the mainstream European VC circuit; the Malmö-Minc-Nordic Makers thread is a deliberate geographic bet.
→ Don't treat him as a generalist ESG investor — Pale Blue Dot is seed-stage, climate-specific, and he uses 'Climate First' as a filter; generic sustainability language will land flat.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on the TAT acquisition — he built a mobile UI company that shipped on 500 million devices and sold to BlackBerry for $150 million in 2010, which is an unlikely origin for a climate seed investor; asking how that exit shaped his framework for what a 'real' outcome looks like is a strong opening.
Reference his 2025 book project — he publicly noted he started writing a book about how people become who they are; that's a pointed thing to start in the middle of running a VC fund, and asking what triggered it will open a different conversation than a standard investor briefing.
Bring up The Drop conference — he organises it annually on top of his GP role, which signals he thinks climate change requires new gathering infrastructure, not just capital; asking what he's learned from running it versus investing in companies is concrete and specific.

Discovery questions

You've described the 'Climate First' approach as designing around the underlying problem rather than incremental improvements — how does that filter play out at the term sheet stage when a company is solving a real climate problem but through a business model you're uncertain about?
Brisk.io found the fastest paths to sales for SaaS companies and then shut down in 2016 — what did running and closing that company teach you about what you look for in the founders you now back?
You co-founded EQT Ventures and then left to start Pale Blue Dot pre-first-close — what did the EQT experience tell you about what a climate-specific fund needed to be that a generalist platform couldn't provide?

Avoid

Don't conflate Pale Blue Dot with mainstream ESG or impact-washing narratives — he's publicly committed to 'Climate First' as a rigorous investment thesis, and treating it as a values overlay rather than a distinct analytical lens will signal you haven't done the work.

Make it yours