Yessica Klein
8 min read
09 November 2025
Karin Nemec is driven by a passion for making the world a better place. Originally from Estonia, she had an early career in banking, eventually becoming head of corporate banking at Swedbank before the age of 35. But after reaching the top ranks in her home country, she stepped away from the corporate world and moved to Shanghai. It was there, while raising her children, that she began to reflect on the role of finance in shaping society and how disconnected traditional investment decisions were from environmental and social impact. It was this discomfort about how the world allocates capital that led her to her next venture.
After returning to Europe and settling in Frankfurt, Karin teamed up with longtime friend and former Skype and Wise executive Triin Hertmann, and together they designed a platform that would make impact-aligned investing accessible to everyday people. Their grand ambition to build a high-growth business and become the largest sustainable-investing platform in Europe.
Grünfin, founded during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, grew quickly, but it faced the headwinds of a volatile macroeconomic environment. In 2025, after two successful funding rounds totaling €4.2 million, regulatory approvals across Europe, and operations in two countries, the company closed its doors; but in that time it had managed to build a great investment product that customers loved, and it had proved that a sustainable way of investing provides good returns (98% of its portfolios show positive returns).
How did Grünfin come to life?
After living in Shanghai and seeing firsthand the impact of pollution on my children’s health, I started thinking about the role money plays in shaping the world. In banking, we made lending decisions based purely on financials, profit, loss, repayment. No one was talking about the wide impact on society and climate. I realized that capital has power, but only if it's used intentionally.
Why did you choose to base Grünfin between Estonia and Frankfurt?
We did a full due diligence process and realized that both ecosystems had unique advantages. Estonia is incredibly advanced in digital services. Frankfurt, on the other hand, offers deep financial infrastructure. Combining both gave us the best of each world.
What made you decide to launch during COVID?
Crises shake people’s assumptions. We said, let’s be brave and do this now. Many people lose their heads in crises, brave ones start and see new opportunities. In October 2020, after six months of preparation, we had our MVP ready. But because it was a financial platform, we needed licenses, not just a working product, so we raised our pre-seed round to build the team and secure regulatory approval to launch the sustainable portfolio-management product.
What were the biggest challenges?
Getting the license was one of the hardest parts. It took a year. At the time, I was homeschooling my two young kids due to COVID while also fundraising and finalizing the product. It was overwhelming but exciting. There’s a special kind of energy in the early days of a startup. You’re creating something from nothing, especially when the startup is driven by positive impact.
We launched in Estonia and Germany and saw good month-on-month growth, but our problem was the scale of customer acquisition required to get into the VC’s funding trajectory. We tried everything: scaling marketing, exploring B2B versions. Customer referrals worked great, but we couldn’t crack scalable acquisition via paid channels. Ultimately, we had 11 months of runway left and knew we wouldn’t make it to Series A. So we made the rational decision to close. It was tough, but the right choice.
“At Grünfin, we built something rare: a team where people could truly shine. We recruited the best talent and gave them the freedom to show what they could do.”
What did you learn from the experience?
The type of capital matters. Our growth was steady and sustainable, like compound interest, but we were funded with high-growth expectations. If we’d had access to a different kind of capital – more patient, more impact-oriented – our model would have thrived. We didn’t fail because the product didn’t work; we just couldn’t match the VC growth monthly expectations
Still, I don’t regret it. We built something valuable and ahead of its time. And we built something rare: a team where people could truly shine. We recruited the best talent and gave them the freedom to show what they could do. There was something magical about the way people clicked, it was free, open, passionate and full of talent and trust.
What are you doing now?
I know the founder and CEO life and how hard it is to build something innovative at scale from nothing, so I help other founders to get their product, team, operations, traction ready for fundraising their first capital. I call it go-founder service where they can save lots of time and money to get their direction right, and to reflect on their challenges before making their important decisions. Currently, I’m working closely with three startups in areas I care deeply about: female founders, sustainability and impact, and AI. Only 2% of VC funding goes to female founders. That’s a huge gap, and one of the reasons I now focus on supporting other women building companies. I love creating and solving real world problems. I won’t found a startup for money, but I’ll do it for impact – to see change in society.
“Once a founder, always a founder.”