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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Mergers & acquisitions
- Mindler (Stockholm, digital service for talking with psychologists) acquired Finnish startup Medified, developer of a data-driven solution for mental health treatment. Financial terms were not disclosed (English).
Financing rounds
- xNomad (Stockholm, marketplace for short term retail spaces): SEK32M (€3M, $3.4M) in a funding round led by Luminar Ventures, with participation from Proptech Farm, Wework Alumni Fund and Joachim Hedenius (English, Swedish).
- Nordic SeaFarm (Koster, cultivating seaweed in nutritious Swedish waters): €2M ($2.1M) from Almi Invest, JCE Group, Sätila Impact Invest and Kale United as well as Swedish star chef Thomas Sjögren and board professional Magdalena Gerger (English, Swedish).
- Swedish family company group Axel Johnson led a €30M ($34M) funding round raised by Norwegian solar startup Otovo (English).
News from Swedish startups, the tech sector and VCs
- Trustly, Stockholm-based facilitator of seamless bank payments, is being slapped with a SEK130M (€12M, $14M) fine by Sweden's Financial Supervisory Authority for not meeting anti-money laundering requirements (Swedish, machine translation).
- Albert, Gothenburg-based edtech startup, is launching its offering aimed at adolescents between the ages of 10-16 years, under the brand Albert Teen in the UK (English).
- Avanza, Stockholm-based finance and broker app, is Sweden's highest trusted brand, according to the most recent Reputation&Trust ranking, followed by IKEA (the previous edition's #1) and Spotify (Swedish, machine translation).
- Spotify’s Car Thing, the dashboard accessory that controls Spotify on the smartphone, is now widely available to buy in the US for $89.99 (English).
- Revenue generated with audiobooks in Sweden grew by 13.3% last year to approx. SEK1B (€93M, $106M), compared to a growth of 32.3% in 2020. An estimated 900'000 households have access to a digital audiobook subscription (Swedish / DI Digital paywall).
- Stockholm-based VC firm and company builder blq Invest announced the first close of its second fund at SEK280M (€27M, $30M), eventually aiming for SEK800M. Karin Bjerde, Gabriel Lundberg and John Engholm are joining as new parters (Swedish, machine translation).
Swedish tech earnings reports
- Paydrive, Stockholm-based digital car insurance company: Swedish, machine translation.
- Adverty, Stockholm-based in-game advertising solution: Swedish, machine translation.
- Urb-it, Stockholm-based provider of sustainable last mile deliveries: English, Swedish.
- Dynamic Code, Linköping-based creator of health and diagnostic tests for end consumers: Swedish (PDF).
Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond
- London-based VC firm Backed raises $169.7M to invest in tech entrepreneurs in Europe (English).
- German early-stage impact VC firm Revent closes €60M($68M) climate, health & impact-focused fund (English).
Other interesting things from Sweden
- Sweden had its most successful Olympic Winter Games ever in Beijing (English).
- Government wants to cut the use of single-use plastic cups and food containers by half in four years (English).
- Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) plans to restructure, aims to raise more cash (English / Reuters paywall, alternative URL, Swedish).
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That's it for today.
