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News July 26, 2022: Refurbly, PublicInsight, Bower, Bzzt, Mullvad, Cristina Stenbeck and more

Here is today's curation of news from Sweden's startup and tech sector.

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Funding news

  • Refurbly (Ă–rebro, marketplace for refurbished phones): SEK5.9M (€560K, $570K) from angel investors Johan Dennelind, Jimmy Palmqvist and David Stenmarck (English, Swedish).
  • PublicInsight (Stockholm, SaaS platform for securing public tenders): SEK2M (€190K, $190K) in bridge financing from Mikke Selander and other undisclosed angel investors, at a valuation of SEK50M (Swedish / Breakit paywall).
  • Cristina Stenbeck participated in a €7.3M ($7.3M) seed round raised by German “OS for private market investors” bunch - a "one-stop shop for setting up & managing SPVs to pool co-investors, LPs or business angels" (English).

>> Daily updated, subscriber-exclusive Google sheet with all funding rounds raised by private Swedish startups and scaleups. Request access.

News from Swedish startups, the tech sector and VCs

  • Bower, Stockholm-based recycling app, is partnering with the world's largest marketer of kiwifruit Zespri. Consumers in the US who buy kiwifruit will be able to use the Bower app to recycle packaging and earn money (English).
  • Gothenburg-based Bzzt is reporting encouraging numbers after its pivot from podtaxi service to provider of environmentally friendly last mile transports in city centers. Revenue increased from SEK6.5M in 2020 to SEK15.9M in 2021, while losses were reduced from -SEK10.9M (2020) to -SEK4.8M (2021) (Swedish, machine translation).
  • Mullvad continues on its path to creatively market itself as pro-privacy: The Gothenburg-based VPN provider now lets users buy physical activation codes on Amazon in Sweden and the US, to "remove the possibility for third parties to link a payment to a Mullvad account" (English).

Swedish tech earnings reports

Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond

  • Amazon is raising Prime prices in Europe by up to 43% a year (English) – but the price stays the same in Sweden, where Prime was launched only last September (Swedish).

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That's it for today.

Martin Weigert

Martin Weigert

Martin is the founder of Swedish Tech News. Every day he spends many hours gathering and curating the latest from Sweden's startup & tech sector. Contact: m@swedishtechnews.com
Stockholm