Swedish Tech Weekly #262

đź’ˇ
This newsletter was sent on June 17, 2024, to subscribers of Swedish Tech Weekly. To receive future editions, you can sign up for free on swedishtechweekly.com.


Welcome to the latest from Sweden's startup & tech sector.

I'm Martin Weigert. Swedish Tech Weekly brings you a selection of some of the news I covered in my PRO newsletters last week, and is sent to 2415 subscribers today.

Mergers & acquisitions

• DPOrganizer (Stockholm, privacy management SaaS solution) is being acquired by DataGuard, a German SaaS company specializing in security and compliance (English).

• Baemingo (Stockholm, digital payments and order solutions for restaurants and retailers) acquires the industry peer Smart Cash, based in Norrköping. Baemingo doubled its revenue in 2023 to SEK20M (Swedish, machine translation).

• The United States Tennis Association (USTA) acquires a stake in PlayReplay, a Stockholm-based startup offering a real-time line calling and match statistics solution for tennis (English, Swedish / Di Digital paywall).

• Ekobot (VästerĂĄs, developer of an AI-powered autonomous system for precision agriculture, publicly traded) was acquired by the Dutch agricultural company Homburg (English).

• IFS (Linköping, global enterprise technology company) is acquiring Copperleaf, a publicly listed Canadian provider of enterprise decision analytics software solutions to companies managing critical infrastructure, for CAD1B ($730M) (English).

• EQT is acquiring the majority of Belgian scaleup CluePoints, a provider of RBQM and data quality oversight software (English).

Funding news

Do you have unreported funding news you want to see here? Fill out this form or respond to this email.

• Moleculent (Stockholm, technology designed to uncover radical new insights into the cellular level of human biology): $26M in a Series A financing round led by ARCH Venture Partners and co-led by Eir Ventures (English).

• Solkompaniet (Stockholm, B2B solar energy equipment supplier): SEK124M (€11M, $12M) led by existing investor AxSol (Swedish, machine translation).

• Hailey HR (Stockholm, SaaS HR platform): SEK37M (€3.3M, $3.5M) in equity funding mostly from existing investors. In addition, the startup also secured a SEK15M growth loan from Gilion (English). ➡️ Funding first covered in my PRO subscription on June 3.

• Velove (Stockholm, provider of efficient last-mile solutions): SEK32M (€2.8M, $3M) mostly from existing investors. Additionally, Velove raised SEK15M in debt funding (Swedish, machine translation). ➡️ Funding first covered in my PRO subscription on June 11.

• Quizrr (Stockholm, platform for human rights due diligence trainings): $1.4M in a mix of equity funding and growth loans, from unspecified new and existing investors. The company also announced former H&M CEO Helena Helmersson as new board member (English).

• RemotiveLabs (Malmö, software platform for automotive developers): €900K ($970K) from new investors Sandberg Development and S-E-Bankens Utvecklingsstiftelse, and existing investors Volvo Cars Tech Fund, Almi Invest and Truckdoktorn AB (English).

• HiloProbe (UmeĂĄ, software-supported biomarker test for personalized colorectal cancer diagnostics and prognosis): SEK3M (€260K, €280K) from existing investors including Partnerinvest Norr (English).

• Bolago, formerly StartupTools (Stockholm, SaaS platform for running a business): SEK2.3M (€210K, $220K) from strategic angel investors including Rolf Dahlberg (Swedish / Breakit paywall). ➡️ Rebranding first covered in my PRO subscription on May 29.

• AI Bob (Stockholm; solution that automates the compliance review of blueprints for efficient, smarter, and more sustainable construction processes): $125K from Norrsken Accelerator (English). ➡️ Startup first covered in my PRO subscription on March 13.

• PryvX (Stockholm; privacy preserving collaboration platform addressing cybercrime): $125K from Norrsken Accelerator (English). ➡️ Startup first covered in my PRO subscription on January 17.

• Sinom (Gothenburg; climate-smart planning tool for renovation and maintenance of properties): undisclosed amount from new investors Zero2Heaven and Co: Nordic, and existing investor Chalmers Ventures (Swedish, machine translation). ➡️ Startup first covered in my PRO subscription in October 2022.

• Jobbs (Lidköping, platform for unmanned stores and access control): undisclosed amount from Tibia Konsult, the founders of Meetio, and the founders of Lime (Swedish, machine translation).

• Force HT (Skövde, 3D hair transplant consultation platform): undisclosed amount from existing investor Skaraborg Invest, new investors Zero2Heaven and Nordals Härads Sparbank Näringslivsstiftelse, and angel investors (English).

• GreenMerc (Stockholm, developer of fintech solutions and operator of the crypto exchange Trijo): SEK22.4M (€2M, $2.2M) ahead of a public listing at NGM Nordic SME, which took place last week (Swedish, machine translation).

• Scania Growth Capital participated in a €254.4M funding round raised by German startup Black Semiconductor, a pioneer in next-generation chip technology (English).

• Creandum led a €7M funding round raised by UK-based startup Visibly, which offers a compliance platform helping businesses to tackle the skills gap in the infrastructure sector (English).

• For PRO subscribers: 12 additional rounds, as well as more details, valuations, and numbers for many of the covered rounds (English).

• For PRO subscribers: Google Sheet with funding data, 1000+ rounds added during the past 12 months, updated daily (English).



News from Swedish startups & the tech sector

• Venga, an app to host and share real life gatherings co-founded by former Budbee deputy CEO & COO Lucas von Hertzen, has launched its debut version on the App Store (English). ➡️ Startup and initial funding first covered in my PRO subscription in December 2023.

• xNomad, Stockholm-based marketplace for short term retail spaces, has launched in China, to bring Chinese brands into Europe and North America "by offering smooth solutions to open pop-up stores across their target markets" (English).

• Mycorena, Gothenburg-based developer of fungi-based vegan protein, is giving up on its plan to establish a large-scale factory in Sweden, due to the unfavorable market climate for capital-intensive food tech projects (English). 💭 Thumbs up and respect for such a candid press release!

• Epulze, an Örebro-based platform and service provider for the esports segment, laid off an undetermined number of employees, following a delay in raising additional funds. The company's website is currently offline (English).

• Coloreel, struggling Jönköping-based startup developing technology that enables high-quality coloring of textile thread on demand, applied for a corporate reconstruction process (Swedish / Breakit paywall).

• Polarium, the Stockholm-based developer and seller of smart modular energy storage solutions, is parting ways with its co-founder and CEO Stefan Jansson. Polarium's board has appointed Clas Gunneberg as the new CEO (English, Swedish / Impact Loop paywall).

• Elevated Launch, a Gothenburg-based startup co-founded by the Swedish politician and former Minister Ibrahim Baylan, is working on a solution to integrate defence infrastructure in wind power plants (Swedish, machine translation).

• Meanwhile, a young Gothenburg-based startup founded by Annika von Hofsten and Niclas Gustafsson, is working on "the world's most versatile pet camera", and will soon launch a Kickstarter campaign (English).

• Encore, Stockholm-based development platform for startups building event-driven and distributed systems, released the open source tool "Chatty Bots" – an AI powered chat room where users can create their own AI characters to talk to (and see them talk with each other), or chat with characters that someone else has contributed (English).

• Bits Technology, Stockholm-based platform for streamlined KYC/KYB customer identification, is expanding into the UK (English).

• Light, a Denmark-based startup offering the "first AI-powered general ledger for global company finances", announced a $13M financing round led by Atomico. The product has been designed by founding designer Marcus Johansson, a Swede who previously worked in senior design roles at Klarna and Spotify.

• Daya Ventures, Gothenburg-based women’s health focused venture builder, has raised unspecified pre-seed funding led by Nextblue. Daya emerged from the Women in Tech movement in Sweden, initially starting as an accelerator (English).

• 🎧 Norrsken and Spotify launched a podcast series "How We Fix This", hosted and narrated by Succession star Alexander Skarsgård. It spotlights eight pioneering startups and their innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges (English).

• 🎧 Podcast interview with Pär Hedberg, on founding Stockholm-based accelerator and incubator Sting in 2002, and scaling it over 20 years (Swedish, 47 minutes).

Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond


• Profile of the the eu/acc (European accelerationism) community movement, which aims to accelerate progress in Europe “through innovation, technology, and a Europe-positive mindset” (English).

• Alliance Venture shares thoughts on the state of the Nordic seed investing market in Q2 2024 (English).

• The result of the EU election may endanger or at least weaken the European climate leadership (English).

• Bad news for social media app startups: With iOS 18, they won't be able anymore to force users to grant them access to their entire contact list (English).

• In 2024, many Y Combinator startups only want tiny seed rounds (English).

• Web Summit is seeing a surge of bootstrapped startups, "with a product, customers, and revenue" (English).

• Many startup employees seem to not be aware that founders can get liquidity in many venture rounds, which "may undermine the narrative of the founder who is all-in" (English). This blog post received an exceptionally high amount of upvotes on Hacker News,.

• "A useful way to think about generative AI models is that they are extremely good at telling you what a good answer to a question like that would probably look like (English).

• The Swedish supercomputer Berzelius, hosted at Linköping University, will be upgraded to double capacity, thanks to a donation of SEK125M from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (English, Swedish).

• Geological data from Sweden is now made available as open data at no costs (Swedish, machine translation).

• Sweden ranks #5 in the Global Gender Gap Report 2024, the same as last year.

đź’ˇ
This newsletter was sent on June 17, 2024, to subscribers of Swedish Tech Weekly. To receive future editions, you can sign up for free on swedishtechweekly.com.