Innovation needs a lender of last resort

Markets are superb at selecting, allocating and scaling. But they can't discover markets that don't exist yet, protect viable companies from capital fashions, or decide what public value means. A Norwegian exit shows where the state should come in

Congratulations to everyone who owns a piece of Disruptive Technologies on your exit

Special congratulations to Nysnø, that is, to all of us. The state gets its money back, and then some

And to everyone who keeps saying our public investors only lose money this one is for you

But let's not just celebrate. This is 13 years of Norwegian innovation policy in one company. Here is what it teaches us

Markets need counterweights. We learned that in finance: central banks, deposit insurance, lenders of last resort. They exist because markets panic, herd and amplify instability

We never asked the same question about innovation. What balances the system when the market by design can't?

Disruptive shows three moments where the answer matters

Before the market

The market is a selection machine. Great at picking between things that have a use. Poor at discovering what something is for

Disruptive had exceptional tech. The hard part was never building it. It was finding where it created value. So what did we do? We pushed it straight into investors, customers and revenue targets. Years of agony using the logic of the market to find the market

The state's first role should be the bridge: a protected pre-market phase where an invention gets time and capital to find what it is for. Private capital is not built for that uncertainty. No market logic will ever finance that. The state should

The market itself

Everyone repeats there is no scale-up capital in Norway. False. There is plenty, but it is concentrated, thematic and herd-driven. Today it flows to AI and defence. Yesterday Climate. IoT hardware is a desert

Disruptive hit its first positive EBITDA in 2025. It was not sold while dying. It was sold just as it started living

I don't blame investors, they follow money. But a fund lives 10 years and a fashion lives 2. So when a company finally looks ready to scale in Norway it gets 2 options, not 3: close or sell. Capital doesn't disappear, it moves, leaving viable companies outside

The state's second role should be the stabiliser: neutral capital to support viable companies when fashion changes. Private capital is cautious by design. Exactly why public capital exists

The exit

As finance, it's a win: the state roughly doubled its money. As public value, it's a loss. A country with a 20TNOK fund doesn't need 20MNOK to pay for hospitals. In exchange Norway gave away the ownership of a unique tech and 13 years of work by hundreds of people, like me, who supported this company's journey

The state's third role should be the framer: defining what success means because metrics are not objectives. A private investor answers to return. The state answers to what remains

That is the lesson of Disruptive: markets are superb at selecting, allocating and scaling but they cannot discover markets that don't yet exist. They cannot protect viable companies when capital chases fashion. They cannot decide what public value means

And that is where the state should come in

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