News January 10, 2023: Coloreel, Drupps, Raqt, LYCKLI, nofine, Zwapgrid, Myllra, Qlocx and more
Here are today's news from Sweden's startup and tech sector, exclusively for subscribers of Swedish Tech News.
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Or, if you prefer a free weekly newsletter, subscribe to Swedish Tech Weekly!
Funding news
- Coloreel (Jönköping, technology that enables high-quality coloring of textile thread on demand): SEK30M (€2.7M, $2.9M) in a bridge round, from existing investors including Swedbank Robur. The funding was raised at a 20% lower valuation than when Coloreel raised a round in December 2021. The company plans to raise a bigger round from new investors during spring 2023. In order to get to profitability faster, it recently laid off 7 of the around 40 employees (Swedish / Breakit paywall).
- Drupps (Uppsala, technology for evaporative water recovery): SEK17.8M (€1.6M, $1.7M) from Sandberg Development and existing investors (English). The company just made me aware of this round today. It was already announced in October but not widely reported.
- Raqt (Stockholm, social app for pickleball players): SEK7M (€630K, $670K) in a seed round from Fredrik Sidfalt. During the coming months the startup, which was founded in 2017, plans to raise around SEK30M for the European and US expansion (Swedish / Di Digital paywall).
>> Daily updated, subscriber-exclusive Google sheet with all funding rounds raised by private Swedish startups and scaleups.
News from Swedish startups, the tech sector and VCs
- Stockholm-based startup LYCKLI, founded last year by Koyar Afrasyab, Noah Afrasyab, Oscar Ceder and Filip Ceder and bootstrapped since then, launched its mental wellbeing-focused social networking app yesterday on iOS and Android. The app allows users to express positive feelings about their friends through polls. The (initial) target group are young users who attend school (English).
- nofine, another Stockholm-based startup founded last year, announced the launch of its iOS app for AI-scanning of parking signs (Swedish, machine translation).
- Zwapgrid, Stockholm-based integration platform for SaaS companies, launched an API for fintech companies. It's described as "a new way to access 1.7 billion invoices and other SMB financial data in the Nordics" (English). In September 2022, the company announced a SEK13M seed round.
- Myllra, Stockholm-based ghost kitchen provider formerly named KitchenGrowth, announced that it will launch the virtual restaurant chain Mr Beast Burger – created by the world's biggest YouTuber "Mr Beast" – in Sweden and the other Scandinavian markets (Swedish, machine translation).
- The applications for the 17th batch of the KTH Innovation pre-incubator program are now open (English).
- VC firm Oxx has promoted Stockholm-based investor Bob Thomas (who was Oxx' first hire in Stockholm) to Partner, and Ingrid Bonde Åkerlind to Principal (English).
Swedish tech earnings
- Qlocx (Stockholm, provider of last yard logistic solutions) generated revenue in the range of SEK13M-15M (€1.3M, $1.4M) in 2022, and a small profit. Revenue is up slightly from 2021 (Swedish / Di Digital paywall).
Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond
- Private equity giant Vista Equity Partners announced plans to take US-based SaaS insurtech company Duck Creek Technologies private in a $2.6B deal – at a 46% premium on Duck Creek’s most recent market closing price (English).
- After years of hype, the Creator Economy is slamming into reality (English).
Other interesting things related to Sweden
- Sweden's 100 best hamburger restaurants in 2023, according to burger review site Burgerdudes (Swedish, machine translation).
- H&M launched a metaverse experience named Loooptopia on Roblox (English, Swedish).
- The dialect in southern Sweden might be changing: New research shows that the traditional way of pronouncing the letter 'r' in the south may be giving way to a more trilled sound, more like the way 'r' is pronounced in central parts (English).
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That's it for today.