News October 12, 2022: Daniel Ek, Vok Bikes, Mathem, Google Cloud region and more

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

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A slow news day today. No acquisition or funding announcements at all.

News from Swedish startups, the tech sector and VCs

  • Breakit published a list featuring "Sweden's 90 hottest tech scaleups" (in alphabetical order) (Swedish / Breakit paywall).
  • Spotify CEO Daniel Ek gave Dagens Industri "the first major interview in 10 years" (Swedish / Di paywall).
  • 🎧 Meanwhile, Spotify's Chief Research & Development Officer Gustav Söderström talked with Harry Stebbings on the 20 Product podcast about "why product is 100% science and 0% art" (English, 68 minutes).
  • Estonian startup Vok Bikes, provider of electric cargo bikes, is expanding into the Swedish market, with Mathem Express – the fairly new rapid delivery service of Swedish online grocery store Mathem – being one of its first local customers (Swedish, machine translation).
  • Google announced the launch of its first Cloud region in Sweden (English).
  • My list of Swedish tech startups & scaleups founded and led by women has grown to 150+ protagonists now. I got a bunch of nice additions after the list gained huge attention on LinkedIn. I'll continuously update it moving forward (English).

Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond

  • Spherics, a UK-based carbon accounting platform for SMEs and competitor to Sweden's Normative, has been acquired by accounting giant Sage for an undisclosed amount (English).
  • VC firms invested $4.44B in crypto startups in Q3 globally, a 37% decline from the same period in 2021 (English / Bloomberg paywall, alternative URL).
  • Grit or quit? Tactical advice for founders facing tough decisions (English).
  • An entirely AI-created podcast in which a fake Joe Rogan interviews a fake Steve Jobs (English).
  • Some Swedish and Finnish producers of pulp and paper are making record profits right now, as they can produce their own energy and thus have an edge over continental competitors (English).
  • Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland have formally launched an ambitious joint-bid to host the UEFA Women's Euro 2025 (English).

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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