News September 15, 2022: Troopr, Foodrunners, Big Akwa, Heart Aerospace, Acast, Ampli Ventures, Soho House and more

Martin Weigert -

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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Funding news

  • Troopr (Stockholm, social platform to arrange and discover sports and fitness): SEK4M (€370K, $370K) in a seed round from Curitas Ventures, Wave Ventures and angel investors Mattias Weinhandl and Jessica Almenäs (Swedish, machine translation).
  • Foodrunners (Stockholm, mobile app for comparing grocery prices): SEK3M (€280K, $280K) from Polish VC firm Invento Capital. In the wake of this funding, Foodrunners announced the launch on the Polish market. It's the startup's first expansion outside of Sweden (exclusive).
  • Big Akwa (Härnosand, land-based fish farming system, which will function in industrial symbioses with other enterprises): SEK3M (€280K, $280K) from Almi Invest, Sparbanksstiftelsen Norrlands Riskkapitalstiftelse and undisclosed private investors (English, Swedish).

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News from Swedish startups, the tech sector and VCs

  • Electric plane maker Heart Aerospace is dropping previous plans for a pure electric 19-seater. It will now build a 30-seat hybrid-electric regional aircraft called the ES-30 (English), for which it signed a "letter of support" from among others SAS (English). The startup plans to expand heavily in Gothenburg (English).
  • Stockholm-based podcasting company Acast will cut its currently 400 people strong workforce by around 15 percent, to "improve the path to future profitable growth" (English, Swedish).
  • Ampli Ventures is a new investment company focused on backing SaaS companies in seed stage or Series A, founded by Hannah Meiton and Adrian Iredahl together with VC firm Alfvén & Didrikson. The latter provided the majority of the initial SEK300M (€28M, $28M) in capital to be invested (English, Swedish).
  • Instabox is gearing up for letting consumers place packages in its smart lockers, to give a boost to second hand platforms. The first partner to trial this is Uppsala-based second-hand clothing and accessory app Plick (Swedish, machine translation).
  • Einride is expanding into the German market and opening an office in Berlin (English, Swedish).
  • Pepins, Swedish fundraising platform for scaleups, will allow trading of shares in companies listed on the platform, starting in October (Swedish, machine translation).
  • Wayflyer, an Irish revenue-based financing platform for e-commerce businesses, has launched on the Swedish market (English).
  • Volvo On Demand (formerly known as "M") is introducing a monthly car subscription in Stockholm, for SEK7,990/month (English).
  • The global members club Soho House will open the doors of its new Stockholm venue at the end of November, in a former church building in the district of Östermalm, near Östermalmstorg (Swedish, machine translation).

Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond

  • Adobe is buying design tool Figma for $20B (English).
  • Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency, has switched to proof-of-stake, cutting its energy demands (English).
  • A framework for finding design partners. Design partners are the first few users a startup enlists to help it define the company’s problem space and shape the solutions offered (English).
  • Swedish PM Magdalena Andersson resigns as right-wing parties win vote (English).

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That's it for today.