News October 31, 2022: Mai, FinFollow, Kry, Instabee, Fejron, Logcast, Spotify, Northvolt and more

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

Funding news

• Mai (Stockholm, service that automates the selling of people's clothes): SEK8.5M (€780K, $780K) from Icebreaker.vc and angel investors Mia Hemmingson and Michal Hjortholt (Swedish, machine translation).
• FinFollow (Stockholm, social networking app for investors in public stocks): SEK8.25M (€750K, $750K) in a pre-seed round from angel investors such as Christoffer Rutgersson, Hanna Arthur, Linus Englund, Johan Roslund and Björn Ivroth. The round was raised in spring 2022, but only announced now, in conjunction with the app's launch (English, Swedish).
• J12 Ventures participated in a €1.5M ($1.5M) funding round raised by German fintech Februar, which is working on an API first solution to offer seamless payments for Web3 projects (German, machine translation).

>> 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

• In a second round of layoffs, Stockholm-based digital healthcare provider Kry plans to reduce the workforce by 10%. That represents around 300 employees (English, Swedish / Di paywall).
• Instabee.com is now live. Here are some words on the successful merger between Instabox and Budbee from new group CEO Fredrik Hamilton (English).
• Stockholm-based startup Fejron is launching a revenue-based finance platform that connects SaaS companies seeking financing, with investors who are looking for a new asset class. The company is founded by Christian Elfving Hauan, Jonas Lennermo and Johan Hunter Oja (Swedish / Breakit paywall).
• Logcast, Stockholm-based social network for audio creators and their fans, will be 1 of 4 startups chosen to present on the main stage of the Web Summit conference next week in front of 15,000 people (English).
• This week, Spotify is carrying out its 2nd "Wellness Week", which means all offices are closed and all employees everywhere get an additional paid week off (English).
• How Northvolt recycles old EV batteries in its Gigafactory (English / The Economist paywall, alternative URL).
• Erik Slottner from the Christian Democrats (KD) is Sweden's new Minister in charge of everything digital (Swedish, machine translation).

Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond

• Norway’s Visma is Europe’s biggest startup buyer in 2022, with 5 acquisitions (English).
• Norway #2: How Oslo’s startups want to move the country away from oil (English).
• Interesting chart from the Baltic Startup Scene report dug out by Josefiina Kotilainen:

Other interesting things related to Sweden

• The top 10 most attractive employers among young professionals in Sweden this year, according to Academic Work (previous year's position in brackets): Ikea (1), Microsoft (4), Tesla (7), Volvo Cars (9), Google (3), Spotify (2), EY (23), Apple (5), Volvo Group (19), Alfa Laval (new in the top 100) (Swedish, machine translation).

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That's it for today.