News May 12, 2022: Sportway, Mindforce Game Lab, LootLocker, Depict.ai, Steven, Insurello and more

Here is today's curation of news from Sweden's startup and tech sector, exclusively for subscribers of Swedish Tech News.

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Mergers & acquisitions

  • Sportway (Stockholm, AI-automated sports video and data production) is merging with its Norwegian competitor MyGame in a bid to dominate Europe’s AI production market. The merged company is also raising SEK110M in funding, see below (English, Swedish).

Funding news

  • Sportway (Stockholm, AI-automated sports video and data production): SEK110M (€10.4M, $10.8M) from Amedia and existing investors Geltis and Jonas Eriksson (English, Swedish).
  • Mindforce Game Lab (SkellefteÃ¥, creator of meaningful games that nudge people into healthy habits): SEK28M (€2.6M, $2.8M) from First Venture, Colibri Ventures and Partnerinvest Norr, among others (Swedish / Breakit paywall, Swedish #2, machine translation).
  • LootLocker (Stockholm, game backend-as-a-service company): $2.1M in a seed funding round led by IA Ventures, with participation from Acequia Capital, James Gwertzman, Benjamin Boxer and Charles Songhurst (English).
  • Spintop Ventures led a €4M ($4.2M) late-seed round raised by Finnish startup Gubbe, which aims to be a complement to traditional elderly home care by connecting young people and students with elderly people needing help with chores or just someone to talk to (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

  • Oliver Edholm, the 19-year old founder of Stockholm-based product recommendation software startup Depict.ai, in a brief interview about being a very young founder, and about how the company's AI solution works (Swedish, machine translation).
  • Steven, Stockholm-based mobile app for settling debts between friends, launched a Mastercard payment card for shared expenses, powered by Finnish fintech Enfuce (Swedish, machine translation).
  • Marcus Janback, founder of Stockholm-based provider of a digital solution to maximize insurance claims Insurello, is stepping down as CEO. Julie Moore Lundell is taking over (Swedish, machine translation).

Swedish tech earnings reports

Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond

  • SoftBank reported a loss of about $29B on investments at its Vision Fund 1 and Vision Fund 2 for the year ending March 31. The firm says it may cut its startup investments this year by more than half (English).
  • US Online grocery delivery platform Instacart confidentially files for IPO (English).

Other interesting things from Sweden

  • Swedish inflation rate rose to 6.4% in April, highest since 1991 and more than expected (English / Bloomberg paywall, alternative URL).
  • Researchers at Karolinska Institutet use AI to diagnose breast cancer earlier (Swedish, machine translation).

Correction

  • The new fintech and crypto fund by UK-based Fasanara mentioned in yesterday's update is targeting $350 million - not billion 😅. Sorry about that.

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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