Former byFounders platform builder brings deep community ties to strengthen sourcing and support for early-stage founders across Northern Europe.

Hong Kong, HK – 16 September 2025 – SANDS today announced that they have started a collaboration with Ida Åsle. Based in Copenhagen, she will spearhead Nordic expansion, complementing Managing Partner Sébastien Gianelli in Helsinki, and bolster the firm’s capacity to source and support early-stage founders across Europe and Asia.

Ida brings over a decade of early-stage experience across venture and entrepreneurship. As part of the early team at byFounders, the community-powered fund of the New Nordics, she led brand and community initiatives, built the platform connecting founders and LPs, and authored resources on term sheets, board building and CEO coaching that helped shape best practices across the ecosystem.

“Ida is uniquely positioned to turn her deep Nordic network into high-quality deal flow for SANDS,” said Frederik Gollob, Co-Founder of SANDS and former senior executive leadership at Mercedes-Benz. “At byFounders she built a platform that attracted top founders and investors; now she will help us extend that reach across Northern Europe while keeping the speed, clarity and conviction that define SANDS.”

Ida will work alongside Sébastien Gianelli, the Managing Partner who leads SANDS’ Helsinki hub. Gianelli is a veteran operator, having built, scaled, and exited ventures as a leader at Fjord (acquired by Accenture), KoruLab (acquired by Google) and Vertical, the Nordic health-tech accelerator. Active as an angel and advisor, he has invested in startups from Paebbl to Yarnhub Animation Studios and mentors founders with a focus on resilience, team dynamics and long‑term growth. Together they will expand the firm’s global reach, complementing SANDS’ hubs in Hong Kong, Singapore, Hamburg and Geneva.

A New Model for Early-Stage Capital

The ZIRP era created a glut of funds, many of which are now under pressure to prove returns. As timelines to liquidity stretch and funds balloon in size, many traditional VCs are narrowing their scope and gravitating toward consensus bets. At the same time, most wealth creation is now happening in private markets. Until recently, access to that upside has been off-limits to most investors. This is why early-stage syndicates are playing an ever more critical role. By lowering barriers to entry, they are opening high-risk, high-return opportunities in private markets to a broader pool of investors.

“I’m excited to build on this approach and connect more exceptional founders to SANDS’ capital and networks across Europe and Asia.”

Backing Founders with Clarity, Speed and Conviction

SANDS backs pre-seed and seed companies with tickets of €100k–350k. Its focus spans smart manufacturing & frontier tech, mobility & energy solutions, and enterprise infrastructure for the agent era. Members include experienced operators and executives who bring lived expertise and trusted networks to the companies they support.

Portfolio founders attest to the model’s impact: "SANDS has been the top supporter on our early-stage cap table. The involvement of these people is not proportional to their ticket size," said Tom Vroemen, CEO & Founder of TETMET. “They've hands-on driven customers to us and have been a great source of warm follow-on investor connections. You can really see the diversity and expanse of their network working to the advantage of their portfolio companies.”

About SANDS

SANDS is an invitation-only investment platform backing early-stage founders at pre-seed and seed. The group bridges Europe and Asia and with ticket sizes of €100–350k, SANDS focuses on smart manufacturing & frontier tech, mobility & energy solutions, and enterprise infrastructure for the agent era. Hubs in Hubs in Hong Kong, Singapore, Helsinki, Hamburg, Copenhagen and Geneva connect local expertise with a global network.

For more information, visit sands.vc.