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Ralf Wahlsten

Chairman

,

Helsinki

Ralf is a co-founder and chairman of the board of OpenOcean, Ralf holds board memberships at RapidMiner, Nordic Telecom and HeavenHR. Before fate brought him together with the rest of the Swedish-speaking Finns in Helsinki to build OpenOcean, he had been an active angel investor, as well as a key advisor to the MySQL founders from the company’s inception, helping them develop their first business plan, strengthening the Board, and hiring the CEO – up until the exit to Sun Microsystems. With a Management Consulting background, Ralf has broad experience in areas like Corporate and Business Strategy Development, Business process reengineering and Marketing Strategy from top consulting firms like AT Kearney, Booz-Allen and Indevo. Ralf is also a co-founder of MariaDB. He holds a Master of Science degree in Engineering from Helsinki University of Technology (Aalto University).

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7
min read

Enterprise automation market industry update: automation after GenAI

At OpenOcean, we’ve long believed in automation software’s potential. It’s been a core theme in our investment focus for years, giving us early and continued exposure to exciting developments in the field.
7
min read

How to manage high-performance individuals in 2025

Back in 2007, we held a short presentation while working at MySQL about a type of person we called a "Super Gold-Collar Worker." These were highly skilled individuals in growth companies who had become essential to business operations.
4
min read

Europe can win the AI race - announcing first close of €100 million

Data will be the ultimate moat in AI development for years to come — and that is where we are focusing as early-stage investors.