News February 17, 2022: Spotify, Rocker, Vividye, Wolt, Sinch, Wellstreet 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.
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Subscribe to Swedish Tech News to get access to a daily newsletter that brings you a brief overview of news from the Swedish startup & tech sector, curated by Martin Weigert.
Or, if you prefer a free weekly newsletter, subscribe to Swedish Tech Weekly!
Mergers & acquisitions
- Spotify acquired 2 US startups for undisclosed sums: the podcast measurement service Podsights and the analytics platform Chartable (English).
Financing rounds
- Rocker (Stockholm, neobank): SEK70M (€6.6M, $7.5M) from existing investors (Swedish, machine translation).
- Vividye (Gothenburg, resource-efficient dyeing technology for textiles): SEK4.1M (€390K, $440K) from Almi Invest, Yuncture Invest, Daremont Invest, Louise Lundin and existing investor Chalmers Venturea (English, Swedish).
- Swedish investment firm Kinnevik led a €20M Series A round raised by Danish regenerative farming carbon market Agreena (English).
- Swedish VC firm Alfvén & Didrikson led a €6M Series A round raised by Finnish product video platform Videoly (English).
- Swedish impact fund Norrsken participated in a €3M seed round raised by German zero-emission delivery service Liefergrün (English).
News from Swedish startups, the tech sector and VCs
- €7.8B ($8.9B) were invested in Swedish startups in 2021. More than half of that amount represented investments in impact startups, according to a new report based on data from Sweden Tech Ecosystem (Swedish, machine translation).
- Wolt, Helsinki-based delivery app which is in the process to be acquired by US rival DoorDash, launches a subscription offering in Stockholm. For SEK99/month (around €10, $11), customers can order from 600 restaurants and stores without having to pay any delivery fees. Rivaling apps are reportedly considering similar offerings (Swedish / DI Digital paywall, Swedish #2, machine translation).
- Hanna Neidenmark, CEO of Stockholm-based neobank Rocker, is stepping down following a canceled public listing last year. Frida Bexelius takes over as new CEO (Swedish, machine translation).
- VC firm and venture builder Wellstreet launches a new fintech fund with an anticipated total of approximately $40M (English, Swedish).
- Sinch, Stockholm-based communications platform for mobile engagement, released its financial numbers for Q4 and the full year 2021 (English).
Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond
- Finland-based retail optimization software startup RELEX Solutions raised a €500M funding round led by Blackstone Growth - it's Finland's biggest funding round ever (English).
- German VC firm Cherry Ventures launches Cherry Crypto, a €30M crypto/web3 investment fund (English).
- Accel and Index Ventures are by far the most active investors in European unicorns over time (English).
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That's it for today.
