News February 18, 2022: Opti, Juni, Digiexam, Simpel Transport, Storytel, Northvolt, Wörd 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.
💡
This post has been unlocked and made available for free a month after publication.
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!
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!
Financing rounds
News from Swedish startups, the tech sector and VCs
- Juni, Gothenburg-based banking platform for e-commerce and online marketing companies, has launched a credit card in the UK aimed at e-commerce businesses that have big media buying spends (English).
- Digiexam, Stockholm-based digital exam platform founded in 2011, announced it has achieved profitability (Swedish, machine translation).
- Stockholm-based Simpel Transport wants to become an "Airbnb for the transportation sector", utilizing the typically 30% of unused load capacity through a matching solution (Swedish, machine translation).
- How Northvolt lures talent from Musk and Bezos to Sweden’s frozen north (English).
- Jonas Tellander, founder of Stockholm-based audiobook and ebook subscription service Storytel, is stepping down as CEO, but will remain on the Board of Directors. Deputy CEO Ingrid Bojner will step in as Interim CEO (English, Swedish). According to DI Digital, Tellander's decision might have been influenced by pressure from major shareholder EQT (Swedish / DI Digital paywall).
- Wörd is a Swedish adaptation of Wordle, the web-based word game that rose to fame in the past months and got acquired by the New York Times. In this article Wörd creator Jonatan Heyman describes his unsuccessful attempts to get Apple to approve the game for iOS (English).
- 2 smart analyses of Spotify's latests acquisitions of Chartable & Podsights: "In many ways, Chartable and Podinsights acquisitions remind me of Facebook’s under-the-radar purchase of Onavo, the VPN/data tracker" (English). "Spotify wants to beat YouTube at audio" (English).
- In other Spotify news: The Joe Rogan deal is said to be worth not $100M but $200M according to the New York Times (English / NYT paywall, alternative URL).
Earnings reports from Swedish tech companies
Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond
- German early-stage and growth investor HV Capital has unveiled a continuation fund with over €430M ($490M) (English).
- Meta’s social VR platform Horizon hits 300,000 users (English).
Other interesting things from Sweden
- Swedish inflation excluding energy rose to 2.5% in January, more than expected (English / Bloomberg paywall, alternative URL, Swedish).
+++
That's it for today.
