As a idea factory, incubator and investor, Askeladden & Co identifies opportunities, develop concepts and scale up companies. Our sweet-spot is in traditional industries that - until now - have seen limited consolidation, limited innovation, too high prices and a customer journey that has been standing still since the 90s.   Our investments and startup journeys so far:  Cutters | Adams Matkasse | Freska | Lotel | Lorry Restaurant | Wellbee

FoodFarm is an integrated platform that allows companies to arrange food for their employees, and have it brought to their offices daily. It is an alternative to the traditional canteen. It offers users a selection of kitchens and food types to choose from ordered via the app. Companies can choose from a range of kitchens , change them when desired and individual employees can also unsubscribe. All these actions are automated, which translates to: high speed and efficiency. Food Farm is so much more than just ordering your lunch. What we offer is the world's first co-created food platform.In essence, this means that we strive to deliver food in the most efficient way possible by engaging with each user in our value chain. When we started, we wanted to make ordering food cheaper but in our efforts to do so, we realized we had started building a new system for food services. Our vision is to connect every aspect of the value chain from the person producing the food to the person growing it to the final consumer. In doing so and with better communication between these different actors, we hope to reduce food waste not just within Norway, but also on a global level. Our business model is very lean and we don't need a lot of resources to enter other markets and we know that that is where we would like to be to contribute towards addressing the larger issue of food waste.

Tenol is developing a structured recruitment platform to help young candidates and local businesses solve the gap between first-job seekers and relevant entry-level job opportunities through practical matching, candidate screening and a clearer recruitment process. Many young people struggle to get their first job, not necessarily because they lack motivation, but because the path into work is unclear. They often do not know where to start, how to present themselves, or how to become visible to employers. At the same time, many businesses need motivated people for full- or part-time roles, extra help, weekend shifts and practical tasks, but do not always have the time or structure to find and assess young candidates properly. This creates a gap between young people who want to work and businesses that need help. Tenol is focused on making that connection easier, safer and more structured. Tenol helps candidates register their interest, availability and profile in a structured way. Businesses can describe their needs, such as role, working hours, requirements and preferred candidate profile. Tenol then works to match candidates with relevant opportunities based on practical fit, including availability, motivation, role requirements and communication. Instead of only forwarding names, Tenol aims to provide businesses with clearer candidate shortlists and structured candidate presentations. The goal is to reduce friction for businesses while giving young candidates a more professional and understandable path into working life. The motivation behind Tenol comes from seeing how difficult the first step into working life can be for many young people. A lot of candidates are motivated, but they are not always given a clear or fair way to show it. At the same time, businesses often need reliable help, but the process of finding young candidates can be time-consuming and unstructured. Tenol was started because this connection can be better. First jobs matter. They build confidence, experience, responsibility and future opportunities. Tenol exists to make that first connection between candidate and employer more practical, structured and human.

Cobrief is developing an AI-powered public procurement platform to help businesses across all industries find, evaluate, and win government tenders — replacing manual, time-consuming bid processes with intelligent automation that acts like having an extra colleague on the team. Public procurement represents over 800 billion NOK annually in Norway alone, yet the average government tender receives only around 3–5 bids. In nearly 20% of tenders, only one or zero suppliers submit a bid. The reason: tender data is scattered across closed platforms, the process is complex, and small businesses lack the resources to keep up. Suppliers can't find the opportunities, or give up because the process is too complicated. The result is less competition, worse deals for taxpayers, and lost revenue for businesses that could have won. Cobrief aggregates public tenders from procurement databases across Scandinavia, Finland, and Germany — including Doffin, TED, Udbud, and Hilma — into a single searchable platform. AI-powered matching scores every opportunity against each company's profile, sending relevant alerts via email, Slack, or Teams. When a team decides to bid, an AI writing module drafts proposal responses from a knowledge base of past submissions. Automated price sheet filling pulls from product catalogs, and CV matching identifies the right personnel. A Bid Manager Agent provides autonomous support throughout the entire process — functioning as an AI colleague from evaluation to submission. Teams collaborate in shared workspaces with task boards, deadline calendars, and role-based access. Used by 1,500+ companies, with a free plan to get started. The founders experienced firsthand how broken the public procurement process is for suppliers. Tender data that should be freely and directly accessible by law is in practice locked behind commercial platforms, creating unnecessary barriers to competition. They saw that businesses — especially SMBs — were missing out on opportunities worth billions simply because the system was too opaque and complex. Cobrief was built to fix that: make public tenders accessible, understandable, and winnable for every business. Beyond the product, the team is actively advocating for open procurement data in Norway through anbudsdata.no, pushing for systemic change so that public tender data is truly open — not just in theory, but in practice.

Marketer.com is a leading marketing and sales intelligence solution that empowers e-commerce brands - primarily within the Shopify ecosystem - to optimize marketing spend through AI-driven insights and automation. With over 1 million ads automated, 5x ROAS, and up to 13.5x marketing ROI, Marketer.com removes the need for internal marketing teams or external agencies by delivering one-click simplicity powered by AI. Our commercial focus is on the US market, with rapid growth across Canada, the UK, Australia, and the Nordics. As part of the Vergence Group, we benefit from over a decade of expertise across MarTech, real estate, health tech, recruitment, and advanced visualization.

Staffer.ai — Fully Automated Hiring for Modern Teams Staffer.ai is a fully automated hiring platform built to serve lean, fast-moving companies that want to attract, assess, and hire top talent without the usual bottlenecks of traditional recruiting. Designed for startups and SMBs, Staffer eliminates the manual busywork of sourcing, screening, and coordination—so teams can focus on selecting the best candidates, not chasing them. What Staffer Does Staffer.ai combines deep recruiting expertise with advanced AI to automate 80% of the hiring process: • Sourcing: AI scouts and engages high-quality passive candidates who aren’t actively applying. • Outreach: Automated outreach and job distribution to maximize visibility—no manual posting. • Screening: Built-in assessments for both hard and soft skills, tailored to the role. • Scheduling: Integrated calendar and video tools handle all interview logistics. • Candidate Experience: A self-service portal keeps applicants informed and engaged. • Workflows: A centralized dashboard offers full transparency into the hiring funnel. • Branding: Instantly create branded, high-converting career pages. • Reference Checks: Automated reference collection—structured and time-saving. Why It Matters Hiring is often the most important—and most painful—part of scaling a company. Most small teams don’t have time to run structured, high-quality processes. Staffer fixes that: • No recruiter? No problem—Staffer handles the heavy lifting. • Slow hiring cycles? Reduce time-to-hire with fewer manual steps. • Poor candidate quality? Tap into passive talent you’d never reach with job ads. • Disorganized process? Streamlined workflows and full pipeline visibility. • Candidates ghosting? Keep them informed via automated updates and a dedicated portal. Built for Teams Without Time Staffer.ai is designed for founders, department leads, and talent teams who are hiring on top of everything else: 1. Startup Founders (10–100 people) • Pain: Hiring falls on the founders, but time is scarce. • Solution: Staffer runs a full process behind the scenes—sourcing, screening, and scheduling—so founders can move fast without drowning in admin. 2. Department Heads (Eng, Design, Sales) • Pain: No hiring expertise, unclear where to start, and overwhelmed by conflicting responsibilities. • Solution: Staffer gives them a plug-and-play hiring system—templates, assessments, workflows—that’s easy to manage and easy to trust. 3. People & Talent Leaders (50–300 people) • Pain: Coordinating hiring across departments with no unified tools. • Solution: Staffer standardizes hiring across teams, provides full visibility, and empowers managers with self-serve tools. Core Features • AI-Powered Passive Talent Search Go beyond job boards—Staffer identifies and engages top-tier passive candidates competitors miss . • Automated Sourcing & Outreach Roles are posted, distributed, and followed up on automatically—no chasing . • Integrated Assessments Screen objectively for skills that matter with structured, AI-generated evaluations . • Candidate Self-Service Portal Improves candidate experience with no added work for your team . • Calendar & Interview Automation Syncs interviews with internal calendars and handles reminders, links, and conflicts . • Instant Career Page Builder Publish an on-brand, high-converting careers page in minutes . • Reference Check Automation Structured reference requests sent and collected automatically—no phone calls needed . • Customizable Hiring Pipelines Stay on top of every candidate with a transparent, centralized workflow . Powered by Real Expertise Staffer was created by operators with deep backgrounds in recruiting, product, and AI—using state-of-the-art models (like Claude 4.0) and proprietary automation to deliver enterprise-grade results, in a self-serve, plug-and-play format .

ABchar is developing a new type of pyrolysis reactor, affordable heating and the possibility of small-scale biochar production, adapted to agriculture.. This will help achieve the goal of a 40% reduction in emissions from the agricultural sector. What is pyrolysis? Simply put, this is the heating of an organic material without access to oxygen. This leads to a series of reactions that ultimately result in 3 main products; biochar, oil and gas. We want to utilize the biochar in this process. The oil and gas will be burned and the heat from this will be used to dry grain, heat barns, greenhouses, residential buildings and other things that need heat on a farm. Why pyrolysis and biochar? Plants absorb CO2 from the air around us through photosynthesis. They are actually extremely good at this too. The residual product is mainly oxygen and the plant material. The great thing about pyrolysis is that we are able to separate water, oxygen and hydrogen from the plant material and we are left with more or less pure carbon 80% +. This is carbon from the air! If we take this coal and spread it on our agricultural land, it will be stored there for up to 1000 years and perhaps longer. In some cases, the soil will become more fertile and less vulnerable to periods of too much or too little water.

Zendeq revolutionizes logistics by connecting shippers directly with a rigorously vetted network of carriers and freight forwarders. Our advanced matching technology ensures you find the perfect partner every time, saving time and money. We eliminate unnecessary intermediaries, streamlining the shipping process while maintaining a safe and secure environment.

Our mission is to help food manufacturers reduce food waste and cost through our digital platform. To date, we've successfully transacted over 4.000 tons of food, and we're continuing to scale our business to have an even greater impact. We have ambitious growth plans and are expanding. We recently carried out a rebranding and are in the process of building our product & technology team to scale further.

We predict the risk of forest fires in Mediterranean, sub-tropical and temperate forests using Geospatial data and AI. We aim to drive financial resources and data-driven decision-making into the forestland communities to mitigate the risk of wildfires and regenerate forests into resilient biodiverse carbon sinks.

Quine develops workflow and automation solutions for the film and broadcast community. We work with different partners such as ARRI, LADIO, Microsoft, NRK, Telia to find the best solutions and distribute them to our customers worldwide. Quine was founded December 2016. Simula Research Laboratory joined in when activity started in January 2017. Competence, industry- and tech knowledge in addition to a close connection to our customer base and main markets, are currently our main strengths.

Leasi enables a comprehensive overview across the machine fleet, giving the opportunity to optimize the composition and use of the fleet. Machines can be distributed across projects and customers with good insight into economic factors and usage data. With a strong focus on the user journey, we create a simple, more transparent and more efficient workday for the contractors and rental companies in the construction industry! Leasi gir bygg- og anleggsbransjen fullstendig kontroll på maskinparken - enten du er utleier eller entreprenør. Maskiner kan fordeles på tvers av prosjekter og kunder med god innsikt i økonomiske faktorer og bruksdata. Dette muliggjør bedre utnyttelse av eksisterende og tilgjengelige ressurser som både er økonomisk og miljømessig bærekraftig. Med fokus på brukerreise skal vi skape en enklere, mer oversiktlig og mer effektiv arbeidshverdag for aktørene i bransjen!

Vulkazas vision is to revolutionize *how things are made* by connecting a global cooperative manufacturing community of 3D print makers with amazing product developers and ecommerce sellers. The world needs a more sustainable way of production, and we want to be the force that sets things in motion.Our software platform has so far been used by several pilot customers, including 3D artists, influencers and ecommerce experts who want to sell new and unique products. We are also steadily growing our network of makers who support our vision and want to be part of the change.We are in the pre-seed stage, with a secured initial investment from Antler, a global VC investor.

indyRIOT offers a turnkey Community and Networking Solution that provides complete functionality out of the box. It is white-labeled software as a service (SaaS) that enables our clients to fast launch their own fully branded, independent community. It doesn’t mean you can’t bootstrap off another network, but ultimately, It's your community - Own it!

The story of Lingu started in the non-profit organization KIA which works with integration and Norwegian language teaching. The founders Edward Milsom and Odd Bjerga worked in this organization and came into contact with skilled and resourceful people from many different countries. The idea of ​​Lingu arose in this context of migration and communication, and human talents. The website lingu.no was launched on 16 December 2008, and our first language course started on KIA's premises in January 2009, with course providers from KIA's network. Since its inception, the company has grown and become a leading player in the language market in Norway. Lingu is today an ed-tech company and course provider with course centers in several cities. The company's management consists of an innovative and curious crew with a long career in adult education and a heart for language, technology, and pedagogy. As a company, we want to offer engaging and digital solutions for our users, as well as facilitate personal development for the people we work with. By linking talent, technology, and pedagogy, we create products and services that enable communication and interaction across language barriers. Our products and services will expand the horizons for people, and create both new career opportunities and greater tolerance in a diverse world. Our vision is to help millions of learners master new languages ​​through local classrooms and online learning. Our mission is to merge technology and pedagogy, and give the teacher digital superpowers: Create language heroes who expand human horizons