15.6.2021

Antti Vepsä Brings New Fund Expertise to Castrén & Snellman’s PE&VC Team

Castrén & Snellman’s Private Equity & Venture Capital service has hired a new fund expert: Antti Vepsä, Master of Laws, M.Sc. (Econ.) will join the team as a senior associate at the start of August.

Antti is joining the firm from OP Financial Group, where he has worked extensively on fund-related projects. Antti has researched the regulation of investment funds, particularly foreign fund regulation and market practices. He is currently working on a doctoral dissertation at the University of Tampere on the regulation of funds established as variable capital investment companies.

‘I am looking forward to working on assignments at C&S. I anticipate that my skills and research findings will be of great benefit to the fund projects of the firm’s clients. In the current market situation, alternative asset categories have raised their profile: new and innovative products are being developed and there is motivation to offer them to a wider pool of investors. On the other hand, there is a will to develop the regulation of funds established as variable capital investment companies, as we saw in the project to reform fund regulation that ran from 2016 to 2019. I believe that this matter will move forward in Finland in the next few years. When that happens, our team will be well placed to provide solutions to our clients’, Antti says.

‘Antti’s extensive experience on both the fund manager and investor sides supplements our team’s fund advisory resources and our ability to serve an extensive clientele well in the diversifying field of fund projects. The demand for our services has grown significantly over the past few years. Antti is an excellent addition to our team’, says Partner Jarno Tanhuanpää, the head of our Private Equity & Venture Capital service.

Among other things, Antti will focus on establishing alternative investment funds, fund due diligence projects, secondary market trading in limited partnership interests and other collective investment projects. Antti’s versatile and extensive experience as an in-house lawyer positions him well to support clients in fund-related product development, management, taxation and sustainable investment matters.

‘We are at an exciting place in sustainable finance. Investors expect concrete actions and proof that they have been taken as well as systematic measurement of impacts. The Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority is already requiring funds to clarify sustainability documentation and the authority’s interpretations have yet to become established. Helping clients in this dynamic situation is an interesting challenge’, Antti says.

Latest references

We successfully represented a panel of reinsurance companies in an international ad hoc arbitration. The dispute arose out of a reinsurance treaty under the terms of which the reinsurers had reinsured a portfolio of risks underwritten by the cedent. The parties disagreed as to whether the reinsurance provided coverage for a certain loss that had occurred because of the market turmoil caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The case involved highly complex legal and contractual questions requiring special expertise on reinsurance law and practice. The arbitral tribunal rejected the counterparty’s claims for reinsurance compensation against our clients in full. The amount in dispute was approximately EUR 34 million.
Case published 16.9.2025
We supported byFounders.vc as the Finnish counsel in their investment in DataCrunch Oy in a USD 64 million Series A funding round. DataCrunch provides scalable AI compute solutions from energy-efficient data centers in Iceland and Finland. byFounders.vc is the community-powered early-stage venture fund investing in globally ambitious teams connected to the Nordic and Baltic countries.
Case published 11.9.2025
We advised Springvest Oyj in organising a EUR 45 million Series A funding round for ReOrbit, a space technology company and a leading provider of software-first satellites. It’s the largest all-equity Series A round in Finland and one of the most significant deals overall in the European space and defence sector. The purpose of the funding round is to support ReOrbit’s growth. The round consisted of a private placement reserved for professional and institutional investors, which included, e.g. Icebreaker.vc, Expansion VC, 10xFounders, Inventure VC, Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company, and Elo Mutual Pension Insurance Company, and an EUR 8 million public share offering, which was oversubscribed within 4.5 hours. Springvest is a Finland-based investment firm that connects unlisted growth companies with investors. ReOrbit builds sovereign satellites and connected systems for national security.
Case published 9.9.2025
Castrén & Snellman advised the lead investors Ten Eleven Ventures and Tesi in the EUR 275 million Series B financing round of IQM Quantum Computers, the global leader in building quantum computers. The round is largest Series B round ever in Finland and the second largest in the Nordics. In addition to the lead investors represented by C&S, the round was participated by several new and existing investors, including pension funds Elo Mutual Pension Insurance and Varma Mutual Pension Insurance, strategic investors Companies of Schwarz Group and Winbond Electronics Corporation, and sovereign wealth funds EIC and Bayern Kapital. Ten Eleven Ventures is the original cybersecurity-focused, global, and stage-agnostic investment firm. The firm identifies, invests in, and helps grow top cybersecurity companies addressing critical digital security needs, leveraging its team, network, and experience to build successful businesses. Since its founding, Ten Eleven Ventures has raised over USD 1 billion and made over 60 cybersecurity investments across various stages worldwide. Tesi (Suomen Teollisuussijoitus Oy / Finnish Industry Investment Ltd) is a state-owned investment company with an industrial policy mission focused on driving economic growth, renewal, and investments. Tesi invests on market terms both in venture capital and private equity funds, and directly in startups, scale-ups, and large industrial projects. IQM Quantum Computers, founded as a deep tech spin-off from Aalto University in 2019, specialises in developing quantum computers utilizing superconducting circuits. The company designs and produces quantum processors at its facility in Espoo, providing computing solutions and optimizations tailored to both research and industrial applications. In addition to its Finnish operations, IQM has expanded its presence to Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Poland, Spain, Singapore, South Korea, and the United States.
Case published 4.9.2025