News February 10, 2022: Beleco, Kliently, Klarna, First Close Partners, Creandum and more

Here is today's curation of news from Sweden's startup and tech sector, as well as some interesting reads, exclusively for subscribers of Swedish Tech News.

Financing rounds

• Beleco (Stockholm, subscription service for furniture): SEK20M (€1.9M, $2.2M) in a funding round led by Alfvén & Didrikson and VEQ (English, Swedish).
• Kliently (Stockholm, online lawyer service): SEK5M (€470K, $550K) from angel investors (English, Swedish).
• Swedish VC firm Bonnier Ventures led a £1.8M (€2.1M, $2.4M) funding round raised by Estonian startup FoodDocs, creator of a AI-powered food safety system (English).

News from Swedish startups, the tech sector and VCs

• Klarna is rumored to consider another fundraising round, potentially targeting a valuation of $50-60B (English / Bloomberg paywall, alternative URL).
• Swedish VC Pär-Jörgen Pärson, General Partner at European VC firm Northzone, launched First Close Partners - a firm that backs venture funds owned by managers from underrepresented backgrounds (Swedish, machine translation).
• Swedish VC firm Creandum made its "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Policy" public (English).
• A visit to the Norrsken Foundation’s new hub in Rwanda's capital Kigali (English).

Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond

• At least 86 European companies achieved the unicorn status in 2021. This is more than 5x the count of new unicorns in 2020 (English).
• A bullet-point style list for managers of small teams/startups on how to manage people without burning them out (English).
• A jargon-free go-to-market strategy template for "founders who strongly despise marketing" (English).

Other interesting things from Sweden

• Sweden's Central Bank stays dovish, currently doesn't expect to raise interest rates before the second half of 2024 (English / Bloomberg paywall, alternative URL).
• Dramatic increase in number of dogs smuggled into Sweden (English).

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That's it for today.