We are thinkers and doers with a mission to improve the quality of lives and our environment through innovation. Meet the Accelerace team here.
Team
Peter Torstensen
Peter Torstensen
CEO
Peter Torstensen Cases:
Søren Lottrup
Søren Lottrup
Partner, Business Accelerator & Investment Manager
Søren has been with Accelerace since the beginning and has seen more startups than most. He is a Swiss Army knife in disguise. Throw any task at him and he will take it on. When he doesn’t mentor startups or launch new corporate innovation programs he keeps the Accelerace business on track. He is a serial dad in a pink universe trying to regain his manhood through Bob the Builder projects and other cool man stuff.
M: +45 31177976
David Ventzel
David Ventzel
Partner, Business Accelerator & Investment Director
David is a tech entrepreneur who loves to help other entrepreneurs. He gets his energy from solving hard problems and turning ideas into businesses. David rarely talks about anything else than startups, technology, and financial markets. You always see him wearing earplugs because he is listening to some podcast. He is also a popular blogger and is often featured on LinkedIn by the editors. Founders who worked with David report they feel they got a new co-founder. He adopts every problem as his own and takes personal pride in all startups helps. David is a big believer in Blockchain and got most of the office to buy Ethereum. He is also known for deconstructing every subject and creating general theories of everything.
Claus Kristensen
Peter Birk, Ph.d.
Peter Birk, Ph.d.
Partner, Business Accelerator & Investment Manager
Business Accelerator & Investment Manager
Partner, Business Accelerator & Investment Manager
M: +45 21262430
Jes Nordentoft
Jes Nordentoft
Business Accelerator & Investment Manager
Business Accelerator & Investment Manager
M: +45 30897869
Søren Ammundsen
Søren Ammundsen
Business Accelerator & Investment Manager
Søren is a CBS business major by training and has always had a keen interest in technology – from early-days C-64 programming to MIT classes at Griffith University, Australia. After starting his career in a ‘normal’ job in the telecommunications industry, Søren has dedicated his life to startups, ramping up almost 14 years of building and growing his own companies. Among others, he co-founded what became one of the world’s largest online gaming communities for girls – goSupermodel – this startup attracted investment from Tier-1 venture capitalist Accel Partners from Palo Alto. Prior to joining Accelerace Søren spent 3 years investing and working with startups from the Copenhagen-based investment company Sealand Capital, gaining valuable insights from ‘the other side of the table’.
Søren is in love with his iPad, Real Madrid and – oh yes – his 3 children 😉
M: +45 29828456
Oliver Repenning
Oliver Repenning
Business Accelerator & Investment Manager
Oliver labels himself a “Creative Hybrid” with a multidisciplinary interest in establishing business’ and building brands. He thrives in value driven settings with ambitions to make a dent in the universe and strongly believes technology can democratize and make the world a better place. Oliver about Oliver: “I love the city, but live in the country side (on purpose), I was raised in a world gone digital, but enjoy going off the grid. I’m (really) impatient by nature and always looking to build something, but value off-time with my wife and three kids more than anything”. Oliver worked 7 years with marketing and business development, was named Top 100 talent under 35 in 2015, and now put his energy into accelerating start-ups towards success.
M: +45 21592535
Thomas Wiborg Steen
Thomas Wiborg Steen
Business Accelerator & Investment Manager
Thomas started his entrepreneurial ventures at an age of 15 from his teenage room - building custom computers. At an age of 21 he won the startup competition Venture Cup and following that, he received his first round of investment and dropped out of university to build his first scalable tech start-up. Since then, Thomas has been part of several start-ups in different ways; both in operations, as chairman/member of the board and as an investor. When Thomas is not next to a whiteboard, you’ll find him on the water sailing, playing with his newborn son or enjoying classic movies and musicals along with a glass of wine.
M: +45 22401084
Thomas Wiborg Steen Cases:
Arvind M. Hundal, Ph.d.
Arvind M. Hundal, Ph.d.
Business Accelerator & Investment Manager
Experience: Roche, AstraZeneca, Praecis Pharmaceuticals Inc, Zealand Pharma, 7TM pharma, Ziarco.
Arvind says she is a Brit who loves working with start-ups as much as she loves a good cuppa. I am enthusiastic about getting a company off the ground and being part of the process of turning an idea into a reality that has the potential to have a real impact on our lives or our environment. It is the type of joy I get when I discover a new band and once they hit the big time I can say I knew them way back when.
M: +45 31450060
Jón Ingi Benediktsson
Jón Ingi Benediktsson
Business Accelerator & Investment Manager
Jón Ingi has worked broadly in life science nearly all his professional life. An Icelander with strong Danish roots who is a passionate hobby chef who thrives best in his kitchen with good music at full blast while making his creations for family and friends. As with experimental cooking, he applies his knowledge and experience from the worlds of sales, marketing and investments to help find the perfect combination for each startup by setting their plans and strategies and finding the way to achieve them.
M: +45 40280048
Anders Handlos Grauslund
Anders Handlos Grauslund
Business Accelerator & Investment Manager
Anders is a geek and polymath hobbyist. Fascination with technology started early for Anders, as a self-taught pyro-technician in grade school and a molecular imaging entrepreneur in university. As far back as he can remember, he has been passionate about fundamental science, financing, and bringing novel technology into the living rooms of the world. Independent skeptical thought combined with enthusiastic drive and a passion for the cutting edge of technology and the frontiers of the unknown provides the basis of Anders work. Prior to working in Accelerace, Anders has worked for Novozymes, NASA, DONG Energy and as an independent technology investment advisory.
M: +45 22114859
Martin Holmboe
Martin Holmboe
Business Accelerator & Investment Manager
Martin is a food entrepreneur with 15y+ experience in business development. With a background in classical management consulting and corporate strategy, Martin turned his energy into startups. Martin has started a number of businesses within the corporate world, from high end chocolate to clean tech. Listening to customers and understanding the market, delivering that something extra to the consumers that make them exited! Martin loves to help other entrepreneurs going to market, and puts a lot of passion and dedication into helping them turning their ideas into commercial successes.
M: +45 2210 97 84
Michael Rohde Böwadt
Michael Rohde Böwadt
Business Accelerator & Investment Manager
Michael Böwadt has dedicated his career to work within the sound industry with 20+ years of experience. It all started out helping musicians playing at festivals and clubs in Denmark and Europe and then focused on management of business, products, projects, and engineering within brands like TC Electronic, Lab Gruppen, Tannoy and Dynaudio. In that regard, Michael has wide expertise within the sound industry in many different segments and verticals.
Today, Michael is passionate to help startups accelerate and counseling corporates, using his knowledge and expertise from the sound industry.
M: +45 22 12 42 42
Michael Kragelund
Valentin Lubbe
Julie Siler
Julie Siler Cases:
Nana Christiansen
Nana Christiansen
Marketing Development & Stakeholder Engagement Manager
Nana is the creative marketing & partnership go-to-girl thriving at the intersection between startups and corporates. Except for a small detour around management consulting and global pharma, she’s born and raised in a startup world with the primary focus on business development and attracting and nurturing talent.
Being a multi-passionate nerd, she’s a foodie by heart, loves artsy city-stuff, intercultural meet-ups of any kind and gets insanely happy from dancing to 90’s music and playing Bubble Bubble at the office-Commodore. Other than that, she's just plain excited about helping startups succeed, contributing to the ecosystem and sharing her own personal & Accelerace’ knowledge with the external world.
Being a multi-passionate nerd, she’s a foodie by heart, loves artsy city-stuff, intercultural meet-ups of any kind and gets insanely happy from dancing to 90’s music and playing Bubble Bubble at the office-Commodore. Other than that, she's just plain excited about helping startups succeed, contributing to the ecosystem and sharing her own personal & Accelerace’ knowledge with the external world.
M: +45 52195599
Nana Christiansen Cases:
Mary Apostolaki
Mary Apostolaki
Head of Innovation Academy
Mary has been working with Corporate Entrepreneurship and Leadership Development for many years, helping organizations and their teams embrace innovative and entrepreneurial culture. With rich and diverse international commercial experience from both corporations and consultancies, she has initiated several entrepreneurial activities in Saudi Arabien, Greece and Denmark.
She loves teaching and mentoring at Aarhus Business School and Aalborg University, where she is an external lecturer on Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation. She is passionate with doers, science fiction and her men (husband and two boys).
Phone +45 91525366
Emailmap@accelerace.io
Mary Apostolaki Cases:
Simone Okkels
Simone Okkels
PR Manager
Simone is a journalist, traveler, and explorer of tomorrow. Based in Copenhagen, her office is the world. Just the past year she has worked from the US, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Portugal, Germany, Spain, and Israel. She has been in the media industry for the past ten years gradually transitioning into the startup world writing about entrepreneurship, tech, and innovation and being part of startups herself. Simone has always been fascinated by technology. Her latest gadget is an RFID chip in her hand. Combined with her inquisitiveness, her enthusiasm about future trends around the globe have given her insights into what's to come and who's at the forefront. Living life as a digital nomad, Simone runs the blog techandtravel.dk with tips and stories for other tech and travel enthusiasts. Other than that, Simone strives to tell all the cool stories about the startups, consultants, and collaborations within Accelerace and is always happy to connect like-minded people. Feel free to reach out to Simone with press inquiries on:
M: +45 26838914
Simone Okkels Cases:
Marco Schneider
Marco Schneider
Marketing & Communications Consultant
Marco is part of our Marketing and Communications team and he’s in charge of developing market initiatives to boost the startup ecosystem.Besides assisting Accelerace, Marco is studying Innovation and Entrepreneurship at CBS and the decision to start this particular master program was heavily influenced by the series Silicon Valley. As far as Netflix allows, Marco is also addicted to sports such as running, cycling (condition for getting residence in Denmark) or playing ice hockey. Moreover, he’s dreaming of a Marzocco espresso machine and trying to figure out which business idea can generate the required cash flow. Prior to joining Accelerace, Marco worked as Marketing Manager at EY being responsible for their financial services go-to-market strategy. He could also live out his weakness for data analysis at the asset manager QCAM where he was crunching numbers.
Marco Schneider Cases:
Lene Schackinger Juhl
Lene Schackinger Juhl Cases:
Martin Holm Mortensen
Martin Holm Mortensen
Director International Programs
Professionally Martin works as a consultant, mentor, investor in start-ups and as an advisor on a number of advisory boards. Martin’s professional career focus has been on business development, sales and marketing with many years of both strategic and operational responsibility in companies such as MondoSoft, Computer People and CapaSystems in Denmark and the US. Privately Martin also loves to make ice cream and cook – especially BBQ grill. In 2014 he won first prize and the title of “Grill Master” in a 7-week grill challenge on Danish public TV.
Besides this, Martin has a great love for old sports cars, his wife, and 3 kids.
M: +45 29668682
Christine Ritter
Christine Ritter Cases:
Anders Berg Poulsen
Anders Berg Poulsen Cases:
Niels Henrik Olsen
Niels Henrik Olsen Cases:
Frederik Stoltze
Frederik Stoltze
Digital Marketing Manager
Frederik is a part of our Marketing and Communications team and he is in charge of digital marketing initiatives within Accelerace. Frederik has a background from service design and has been in digital agencies for 3 years, working with digital marketing and design. Frederik is a data-driven, creative and sound profile, skilled within planning and reporting.
Frederik is a digital native, with a skilled passion for creative optimization and digital marketing. As a bold person, Frederik is never afraid of using new technologies, processes and ideas to innovate and digitize processes, services and products
M: +4551895354
Frederik Stoltze Cases:
Daniel Pedersen
Daniel Pedersen
Program Coordinator
Daniel helps coordinate the accelerator program for our SoundTech vertical, which involves the maintenance of high quality and satisfaction within the cooperation with startups. Besides, Daniel is passionate about business development and improve business models, which involve building a sustainable future for the SoundTech vertical. Next to his work in Accelerace, he studies innovation management and business development at Aarhus University, where he currently is writing his thesis. Prior, Daniel has worked as a web coordinator and assisting business developer within a corporate for 3 years, but he is very passionate about entrepreneurship and strives to become an entrepreneur himself one day.
M: +45 28 68 96 01
Daniel Pedersen Cases:
Anna Vibe Pedersen
Anna Vibe Pedersen
Assistant Event Planner
Anna is part of the marketing and communication team, working with event planning, and she is a student of performance design at Roskilde University. Anna, besides her studies, has been working with live journalism (a mix between performance art and journalism), festival production and project management."
M: +4528966263
Anna Vibe Pedersen Cases:
Dominic Parr
Dominic Parr
Venture Scout
Dominic works as one of our Venture Scouts, predominantly for the FinTech vertical. Alongside working with Accelerace, Dominic is studying Economics at the University of Copenhagen. While being staunchly opposed to buzzwords, he is a firm believer in ‘tech for good’ and to this end is exploring the appetite for Impact Investing in Denmark through his Master’s thesis. Having previously dedicated his life to going backwards on water as fast as possible (aka rowing), his main hobbies still involve sitting down: cycling and music. Prior to joining Accelerace, Dominic worked as a digitalisation consultant in Danske Bank giving him an understanding of the innovation challenges facing large corporates. He has also interned for a London-based seed and series-A venture capital fund, opening his eyes to the other side of entrepreneurship.
M: +45 91 56 06 64
Dominic Parr Cases:
Katharina Sofie Zwielich
Katharina Sofie Zwielich Cases:
Nikolaj Bødker Wilckens
Nikolaj Bødker Wilckens
Student Analyst
Nikolaj joined Accelerace as a Student Analyst in September 2018, focusing on Accelerace’s venture capital investments. His primary tasks consist of data structuring, fund reporting, and process development. Besides his work at Accelerace, Nikolaj studies International Business at CBS and runs his own startup, Mimer. Prior to Accelerace, Nikolaj spent a year abroad, organizing worldwide conferences for the private capital industry, resulting in a strong network in the industry
M: +45 20769650
Nikolaj Bødker Wilckens Cases:
Elias Weike
Elias Weike
Venture Scout
Elias has joined the Accelerace family as a Venture scout in February. Besides studying Business Administration and Engineering in Germany he was a trainee and later an executive assistant at a major German electronics and automation company. His main responsibilities included the development and communication of business strategies and the facilitation and support for internal change processes. After working with startup matchmaking and innovation management from the perspective of a corporate he now supports the Accelerace team with identifying promising start-ups.
Elias Weike Cases:
