News February 2, 2024: Find My Factory, Beep Insights, Lovable, RGNT, PhysAct, 84codes, Arkimera Robotics, 12 new Swedish tech startups, and more

Here are today's news from Sweden's startup and tech sector, exclusively for you as subscriber of Swedish Tech News PRO.

Funding news

⬜️ publicly traded

• Find My Factory (Stockholm, B2B supplier database, founded 2022): SEK7M (€620K, $670K) in pre-seed funding from the Clas Ohlson family and undisclosed angel investors (Swedish, no machine translation available). Find My Factory co-founder Dimitri Haid happens to be the great grandchild of Clas Ohlson and Chairman of the board at the Clas Ohlson Foundation, according to the Foundation's website. Based on data from Bolagsverket (sourced via Eivora), the pre-money valuation was around SEK40M 🆕 More information about this new company on the early-stage startup tracker page, or in the Google Sheet.

Unannounced funding

• Beep Insights (Kiruna, all-in-one app for athletes for fueling and optimizing their performance, founded 2021): SEK2.6M (€230K, $250K) mostly from existing investors including Partnerinvest Norr. The pre-money valuation was SEK13.3M – slightly up from summer 2022, after the startup registered its first equity funding of SEK2.7M with Bolagsverket.

The information in this section is based on public data registered with Bolagsverket (Swedish Companies Registration Office), and represents a curated, non-exhaustive selection.

Data from Bolagsverket is sourced via Eivora.

News from Swedish startups, the tech sector and VCs

• GPT Engineer, the open source project launched by former Depict CTO and co-founder Anton Osika (and previous to that, founding engineer at Sana), expressed the plan to eventually launch an actual startup, as I covered in early January. Nothing has officially been announced yet, but it seems as if the company will be named Lovable. It's stated mission is to build "the last piece of software", and to "be the first to make autonomous code generation work", according to the minimalist, stealthy website. As a first step, the company aims to develop a tool that "lets anyone create and maintain web apps using plain English".
• RGNT, Kungsbacka-based electric motorcycle startup founded in 2018, went bankrupt, as I covered on December 6. Now the company's founder Jonathan Åström, who had left RGNT in November 2022 and sold its entire stake, bought the bankruptcy estate, together with two former RGNT execs. Their goal is to run the startup as a very lean operation, with no outside capital for now (Swedish / Breakit paywall).
• Brief profile of PhysAct, Karlstad-based startup founded in 2021 that since summer 2023 offers a SaaS solution dedicated to fighting stress-related ill-health among employees "through the power of physical activity" (Swedish, machine translation). In September, I covered an unannounced SEK2.8M funding round. In total, PhysAct registered around SEK5M in equity funding with Bolagsverket.
• 📺 "Patric blir Angel" is a video podcast in Swedish launched by the Stockholm-based invite-only social network for angel investors Nordic Angels. In every episode, the host Patric – a "perfectly average Swede" – sits down with the most successful angel investors "to learn the tricks of the trade and demystify the world of venture capital".

New Swedish tech startups

‌‌This week, I've added information about the following 12 new Swedish tech startups to the subscriber-exclusive early-stage startup tracker page (also available in the Google Sheet):

• Powermate (Stockholm, upcoming platform for sharing access to private charging stations)
• Find My Factory (Stockholm, B2B supplier database)
• Lovable (Stockholm & London, stealth startup developing a tool that lets anyone create and maintain web apps using plain English)
• PluvioFlow (Lund, developer of simulation tools for hydrological modelling)
• Lemonado (Stockholm, no-code platform for business software)
• Shore (Stockholm, subscription-based membership for creative services)
• Qurator.com (Stockholm, B2B platform for decarbonization solution scouting and customer reviews)
• Tandem Health (Stockholm, SaaS solution for generating automated medical records immediately after a patient encounter)
• Engrate (Stockholm, energy data integration platform)
• Skriptjobs (Stockholm, next-generation recruiting platform for global talents)
• umi (Stockholm; platform for live online classes in breathwork, mobility and meditation)
• Arcago (Stockholm, solution that ensures full regulatory compliance when transporting dangerous goods)

Swedish tech earnings

⬜️ publicly traded

• 84codes (Stockholm, DevOps as a Service, founded 2012) generated net revenue of SEK257.5M (€23M, $25M) during the financial year ending in June 2023, up 30% YoY. Profit was SEK110.4M, up 56% YoY (Swedish, machine translation). According to data registered with Bolagsverket, the company has never raised outside funding and is, remarkably, 100% owned by its founder Carl Hörberg.
• Arkimera Robotics (Kalmar; developer of Azora One, self-learning automation API for ERP/Accounting software, founded 2014) reported net revenue of SEK4.4M (up 47% YoY) for the financial year ending August 2023, and turned profitable (SEK1.1M). The company has only registered SEK2.5M in total equity funding with Bolagsverket, raised from Northern CapSek Ventures, among others.
• Samtrygg ⬜️ (Stockholm, platform to facilitate safe subletting, founded 2013): year-end report 2023 (Swedish, machine translation).
• Kontigo Care ⬜️ (Uppsala, digital tools for addiction care and psychiatry, founded 2013): year-end report 2023 (Swedish, machine translation).

Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond

• VCs need exits — but how are they going to get them? (English).
• In 2023, U.S. workers have been producing more for each hour worked. America appears to be in the midst of a productivity boom, the likes of which hasn't been seen in years (English). Could that be the first sign of an AI economy?
• Apple tells Vision Pro developers to abstain from referring to their app experience as "augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), extended reality (XR) or mixed reality (MR).” Instead, developers are expected to use "spatial computing" (English).

Other interesting things related to Sweden

• Nacka, a municipality east of Stockholm, is the first in Sweden to automate decisions in the building permit process, to achieve "shortened queue times for both simple cases and more complex cases" (Swedish, machine translation).
• 50 years after Sweden introduced state-funded parental leave, there's now "a little bit of stigma on men who don't take leave" (English).
• 🎧 Swedish public service radio talks to food delivery workers (which tend to be from very warm countries) on how they cope with the Swedish winter (English / 4 minutes).

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That's it for today.