Christen Eugen Ager-Hanssen (born July 29, 1962) is a Norwegian internet entrepreneur and venture capitalist. Since the late 1990s, he has been based in London and is a highly controversial private equity professional., Rogalands Avis, Den ukjente mangemillionæren Ager-Hanssen was involved in several high-profile M&A deals and has become known for public hostile takeovers. In a Canadian Business cover story, he was described as both Gordon Gekko and a modern-day Viking. In 1999 he claims to have become one of Norway's richest citizens, although investigative journalists have disputed this.
Ager-Hanssen claims to be recognized for his expertise in the Internet. His work to commercialize the Internet in the 1990s included early experiments with search engines, internet infrastructure such as satellite internet access, legal music distribution, banking and financial services, e-mail advertising, banner ads, and pay-per-click advertising. He invests in various companies through his investment vehicle, Custos.
On May 3, 2024, he was sentenced to ten months imprisonment for failing to comply with court orders. On August 19, 2024, he was declared Bankrupt by the UK High Court.
Early life Christen Ager-Hanssen was born in Halden, Norway. He is the son of Norwegian industrialist and nuclear physicist Henrik Ager-Hanssen (1930–2004) and politician Bjørg Ager-Hanssen. He grew up in Halden, Oslo, and Stavanger before he moved to Sweden where he worked for IBM and Kinnevik in Stockholm.
Controversies
Covert recording
In 2011, he was reported for witness tampering and blackmail after secretly recording Ugland's lawyer Tom Knudsen. Knudsen told the court that Ager-Hanssen had threatened him via text message that he would release the recordings if Knudson did not acquiesce to his demands. He is also said to have approached Ugland's financial director Jan Erik Tønnessen outside his home at midnight, threatening him also. Tønnessen told journalists "He scared me and my family. I was told that I had to cooperate with them. Otherwise there would be things on NRK. Brennpunkt...I am now seriously considering going to the police about this."
In 2014, Ager-Hanssen told Dagens Nyheter he had "rigged a hidden recording device" at his home during a meeting with HQ Bank chairman Christer Sandberg.
In 2016, Ager-Hanssen covertly recorded the filmmaker Fredrik von Krusenstjerna who was reportedly making a documentary about HQ Bank. The recording was secretly uploaded to YouTube and the documentary was scrapped.
In 2022, Ager-Hanssen covertly recorded the lawyer Kyle Roche at his office in London, after paying for tickets for Roche and his wife to fly over. The videos surfaced months later on kompromat website Cryptoleaks. Roche claims he was drugged during the encounter and did not have a recollection of everything discussed. Ager-Hanssen initially denied being behind the sting, and made threats towards Kyle Roche over the claim, but confessed in a 2023 Norwegian interview.
In 2023, Ager-Hanssen published covert recordings he had made of nChain chairman Stefan Matthews.
Work with Black Cube Ager-Hanssen claims to have worked with Black Cube, the controversial private intelligence agency as far back as the company's inception, while working for the businessman Vincent Tchenguiz.
True Blue app
In April 2024, the Guardian published an article alleging Ager-Hanssen had worked with the UK's Conservative Party to develop an app to monetise the personal data of their members. The app would have given the party and Ager-Hanssen's company Addreax a cut of sales from the various brand deals Ager-Hanssen claimed to have in place with companies such as Coca-Cola, British Gas and ASOS (retailer). The brands denied any knowledge of a partnership with Ager-Hanssen.
Several politicians criticised Ager-Hanssen for donating £70,000 to the Conservative Party, which they claim unjustly afforded him private meetings with the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and the then Home Secretary Suella Braverman.
Shamalova Divorce On January 2, 2024, Ager-Hanssen was sued by Zhanna Shamalova, the ex-wife of Kirill Shamalov.
Shamalova claims she paid Ager-Hanssen's Custos Group company £600,000 for ‘Conflict Management and Litigation Strategy Advice’ and a further £500,000 to find a pay a legal team to represent her.
According to Shamalova's court filing, the divorce petition was filed the week she paid Ager-Hanssen the money and was told he would work on looking for her husband's assets in the meantime. After waiting almost a year with no updates, Shamalova claims she contacted the legal team herself, who reportedly told her Ager-Hanssen had stopped all work after the initial filing and stopped their retainer. Shamalova claims Ager-Hanssen agreed to return the money to her in February 2023, but did not do so. She filed a claim for £1.1 million on January 2, 2024.
Norion Bank In March 2025, Ager-Hanssen was reported to the Swedish police by Norion Bank who accused him blackmail and extortion.
Business career In the early 1980s, Ager-Hanssen was employed by different blue chip computer technology companies such as Burroughs, Digital Equipment Corporation and IBM. In the early 1990s, Ager-Hanssen became a recognized speaker in the field of business process reengineering and legacy information systems.
Investment AB Kinnevik
Ager-Hanssen is a former Kinnevik AB group executive. Ager-Hanssen was also a senior executive in the Kinnevik group with regards to Tele2 AB and its international expansion. He founded several internet startups together with Investment AB Kinnevik, including Netsys Technology Group, Webware and Polarsearch, one of the first search engines in Scandinavia.
Stock trader Ager-Hanssen has been an active investor on the Swedish stock exchange who invested in many blue chip companies. In 1999, he told Dagens Industri he made huge profits from being a brilliant stock trader rather than making a profit from his investment portfolio. He claims his investment portfolio was at the time valued at SEK 1.7 billion.
Addreax
In 2019, Ager-Hanssen founded Addreax, a 'MarTech' (Marketing technology) company. It acts as the parent company for several marketing apps, including Stuk, Adviral and CheSconto!.
In 2020, Adviral went into administration with 4.4 million Swedish krona in debt. According to Dagens Industri, the money relates to compensation for the groups influencers and bloggers.
In December 2023, Ager-Hanssen announced a partnership between Addreax and Corriere dello Sport.
In March 2024, Ager-Hanssen became embroiled in a controversy involving social media influencers Matilda Djerf and Hanna Schönberg. Ager-Hanssen told journalists he had been reporting them both to the Swedish Consumer Agency via the Addreax owned Metro Mode, as well as leaving comments under their social media posts relating to their declarations to the Swedish Tax Agency. Ager-Hanssen told journalists "We think you should follow the existing EU directives and we get annoyed with influencers who don't follow these rules. Then it is up to the Swedish Consumer Agency to do something about it."
nChain
In November 2022, Ager-Hanssen was appointed as the CEO of nChain group. On September 29, 2023, Ager-Hanssen claimed to have resigned due to disagreements with the company's board. The same day, nChain released a statement acknowledging that it had “parted company” with Ager-Hanssen and appointed Stefan Matthews as its new CEO. On September 30, 2023, nChain issued a further statement that Ager-Hanssen had “conducted himself in a serious and inappropriate manner which prompted the decision to dismiss Mr. Ager-Hanssen with immediate effect.”
On February 28, 2024, nChain filed a bankruptcy petition against Ager-Hanssen.
On May 3, 2024, Ager-Hanssen was sentenced to 10 months imprisonment for failing to comply with court orders. Justice Jacobs outlined the timeline of events leading up to the committal, detailing how Ager-Hanssen was ordered to surrender data he had taken from nChain's to an independent forensic examiner and disclose whom he had shared copies with. Ager-Hanssen withdrew from the hearings and did not comply with further orders. He tweeted on May 25, 2024, that he had filed an appeal against the judgement. As of August 2024, no appeal has been filed with the court.
In October 2025, police and bailiffs raided Ager-Hanssen's Stockholm hotel and seized his assets. They had been sent by the court to place a lien on assets to satisfy a judgement of 59 million kronor. Venture capital
Joint venture with the National Pension Fund of Sweden In early 1998, Ager-Hanssen made a bid for NetSys Technology Group, including Webware and Polarsearch, together with the National Pension Fund of Sweden. The bid was successful and ended up with Ager-Hanssen controlling 60% of the company through a newly established joint venture with the National Pension Fund of Sweden. Kinnevik and other shareholders subsequently made a successful exit., Kinnevik Annual Report 1998. In June 1998, Ager-Hanssen made a successful hostile cash bid on the publicly traded company Verimation AB for SEK 120 million. Ager-Hanssen thereafter delisted the company and integrated the business into the joint venture with the Pension Fund. Verimation had developed one of the first email systems in the world and branded it Memo. Memo had approximately 2.5 million end-user clients at the time and was well established among Fortune 500 companies. Later that year, the NetSys Technology Group was valued at more than USD 388 million.
Just before the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, Ager-Hanssen chose to divest his shares in the joint venture with the Pension Fund. The profit from the divestment was used to fuel his investment activities. The National Pension Fund lost more than SEK 350 million on the investment. Their perceived lack of competence was criticized lengthily in the Swedish press, and they tried to escape the spotlight by blaming Ager-Hanssen. Later that year, NetSys Technology Group was valued to more than US$388 million.
Cognition In 1998, Ager-Hanssen founded a venture capital company called Cognition where he organized most of his Internet-related investment. He employed several high-profile individuals, such as Ulf Sundqvist, former trade minister in Finland, and Gillian Nott, a former financial service authority director. He appointed Ron Sandler as the non-executive chairman who was the former Lloyd's of London chief executive and a former NatWest executive.
Ager-Hanssen claims Cognition was valued by HSBC at the beginning of 2000 at approximately GBP 1 billion and planned for an initial public offering (IPO) on the London Stock Exchange. During this same period, Ager-Hanssen was pursued by accountancy firm Robson Rhodes for allegedly not paying Cognition staff salaries for several months.
Cognition secured an investment from Norwegian investor Hakon Korsgaard, on the condition Ager-Hanssen would float the company. The company did not float and went bankrupt shortly thereafter. Ager-Hanssen was taken to court by Korsgaard over the money. Ager-Hanssen claimed Korsgaard owed him money.
Dot-com bubble In many articles in Scandinavia, the US, and the UK, Ager-Hanssen was portrayed as a visible symbol for the bubble.
Investments
Media industry
Metro Media House