I've decided to only take 1 week off instead of 2 at this point, and will likely take 1 more off in July, when there are often "slow news days" anyway.
So Swedish Tech News will be back on the usual schedule starting tomorrow, Monday. Below is a summary of what happened during the past week in Sweden's startup & tech sector.
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Subscribe to Swedish Tech News to get access to a daily newsletter that brings you a brief overview of news from the Swedish startup & tech sector, curated by Martin Weigert.
Or, if you prefer a free weekly newsletter, subscribe to Swedish Tech Weekly!
Funding news
- Embracer (Karlstad, video game holding company): $1B from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) via Savvy Gaming Group, through a directed share issue (English, Swedish).
- Juni (Gothenburg, banking platform for e-commerce): $100M in a Series B led by Mubadala Capital, with participation from previous backers, as well as $106M in debt funding from TriplePoint Capital (English).
- Svea Solar (Stockholm, solar solutions provider): €100M ($107M) from CarVal (English).
- Datia (Stockholm, solutions for sustainable finance): $3.4M in a seed funding round led by Nauta Capital, with participation from Accel Starter, Söderberg & Partners, Sting, and angel investors Ramzi Rizk and Paul Schwarzenholz (English).
- Lurkit (Linköping, gaming influencer marketing platform): $2.7M in a seed round from VOID Interactive and Behold Ventures (English).
- anotherblock (Stockholm, blockchain-based music rights marketplace): $2.5M in a funding round co-led by Inventure, Fredrik Haga, Maex Ament and StableNode. Other participants backing the round include producers and artists, most notably Grammy-winning producer DannyBoyStyles (English).
- Airolit (Gothenburg, maker of smart & secure industrial drones): SEK13M (€1.2M, $1.3M) from Almi Invest and undisclosed angel investors (Swedish, machine translation).
- StoreSprint (Uppsala, digital productivity platform for the deskless workforce): SEK6.3M (€600K, $630K) from Almi Invest and undisclosed angel investors (Swedish, machine translation).
- FeedbackFrog (Stockholm, B2B SaaS customer feedback collection solution for product development): SEK5M (€470K, $500K) from Red Pill and Petter Edfeldt (Swedish, machine translation).
>> 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
- memmo, Stockholm-based provider of personalised greeting messages from celebrities, will lay off around 40 % of its workforce due to the "changing market sentiment" which now values efforts to achieve profitability faster (Swedish, machine translation). Even Swedish e-commerce companies Boozt and Daniel Wellington announced layoffs last week.
- Dynamic Code, Linköping-based provider of end consumer health and diagnostic tests, is putting its IPO plans on hold as it expects shrinking revenue due to an ending Covid-19 testing agreement with the Swedish Health Agency. The plan is now to focus on expansion into European markets such as Germany and the UK (Swedish / DI Digital paywall, Swedish #2, machine translation).
- ChromaWay, Stockholm-based startup creating blockchain infrastructure, made a €2M ($2.1M) strategic investment in the Spanish Sports Tech company VRM (English).
- Steven, Stockholm-based mobile app for settling debts between friends, is planning a crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube (Swedish, machine translation). Greenely, Stockholm-based next-generation household energy platform, plans to do the same (via mail).
- Matsmart, the Stockholm-based online seller of surplus production and overstocks, is expanding into the UK under its brand Motatos (English, Swedish).
- A list of the 20 international startups that Norrsken has accepted to its 2022 Impact Accelerator (English, Swedish).
- Spotify hypes the revenue potential of podcasts and audiobooks at its second Investor Day event (English).
- Apple announced a buy now pay later feature to be initially launched in the US, which means competition for Klarna and other players in this space (English). Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski comments that the launch of Apple Pay Later marks a "great win for consumers worldwide" and that "plagiarism is also the highest form of flattery" (English).
Swedish tech earnings reports
Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond
- UK-based Felix Capital closes its 4th fund at $600M, to invest mostly in European startups (English).
- Embrace the down round (English).
Other interesting things related to Sweden
- Ikea announces a record player that might actually make it to stores this time (English).
- SAS faces pilot strike on top of restructuring plan (English / Bloomberg paywall, alternative URL).
- Polestar’s first electric SUV will officially debut in October 2022 (English).
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That's it for today.
