Swedish Tech Weekly #263

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 2416 subscribers today.

Mergers & acquisitions

• Lifesum (Stockholm, digital nutrition platform) has acquired German biomarker-based personalized nutrition company Lykon (English).

• Minso Solutions (Borås; SaaS solutions for research organisations, such as grant providers, foundations and universities) is being acquired by Nordtech (English).

• An undisclosed former minority shareholder bought the job marketplace platform for truck drivers from Malmö-based startup YouCruit, which was declared bankrupt a few weeks ago (Swedish / Rapidus paywall). ➡️ Bankruptcy first covered in my PRO subscription on May 31.

• The Sweden-headquartered global professional services firm BTS is acquiring the five year old Germany-based AI-powered sales performance platform Wonderway (English).

Funding news

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• Tandem Health (Stockholm, SaaS solution for generating automated medical records immediately after a patient encounter): $9.5M in a seed funding round led by Northzone, with participation from Amino Collective and "angel operators from OpenAI, DeepMind", as well as the founder of Capio (English, Swedish / Di Digital paywall). ➡️ In my PRO subscription, I recently covered several other young Swedish startups in the same space.

• Econans (Gothenburg, platform for transitioning to climate-efficient properties): SEK29M (€2.6M, $2.8M) led by Latour Future Solutions, with participation from existing investors, for the European expansion (English).

• Superagent (Gothenburg, tool for AI-powered web research): $1.6M in a seed funding round from Rebel Fund, Y Combinator, and several high-profile founders (English). ➡️ Startup first covered in my PRO subscription in November 2023.

• Multiply (Stockholm, AI-powered personalized assistant for creative work in teams): undisclosed amount, likely somewhere around SEK9M (€860K, $880K) from Bust (English).

• Atium (Gothenburg, technology for effective and cost-efficient removal of mercury from water): SEK6.7M (€600, $640K) from new investors Butterfly Ventures, NextSTEP, GOKAP Invest, and 5J Holding, and existing investors (English).

• Big Akwa (Härnosand; land-based fish farming system, which will function in industrial symbioses with other enterprises): SEK6M (€530K, $570K) in a mix of equity, debt, and grant funding, from unspecified new and existing investors (English).

• GLORB (Gothenburg; smart lamp and living sculpture for homes, businesses, events and productions): €400K ($430K) through non-equity crowdfunding (English).

• Gynius Plus (Gothenburg, portable colposcope for gynecologists in developing countries): SEK2M (€180K, $190K) grant from Vinnova, for the development of an AI tool for cervical cancer diagnosis (English, Swedish / Impact Loop paywall).

• Sparly (Stockholm, mobile app for creating positive financial habits through microcourses and rewards): SEK1.5M (€130K, $140K) from fintech angel investors (English). ➡️ Partial closing of this round, and the pitchdeck, covered in my PRO subscription on April 17.

• Engrate (Stockholm, energy data integration platform): $125K from Norrsken Accelerator (English). ➡️ Startup first covered in my PRO subscription on January 30.

• FLOX Robotics (Stockholm, provider of autonomous wildlife management as a service): $125K from Norrsken Accelerator (English).

• LexEnergy (Gothenburg, electricity storage and charging solutions for urban environment): $125K from Norrsken Accelerator (English).

• BrainZell (Stockholm, screening platform for pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals using stem cell based 3D models of human brain): $125K from Norrsken Accelerator (English).

• The Intelligence Company (Hudiksvall, credit score provider focusing initially on businesses in Sweden and the Nordics): around SEK500K (€45K, $48K) in initial capital, from 24 angel and private investors. The startup was founded and is led by Swedish serial entrepreneur Jens Nylander (Swedish / Breakit paywall).

• Livsaptit (greater Ludvika area, upcoming meal subscription service adapted for an elderly person): SEK500K (€44K, $48K) from Dala Capital, in first outside equity funding (Swedish, machine translation).

• Scania Invest and Ingka Investments participated in a $200M USD Series B round raised by Canada-based autonomous trucking startup Waabi (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

• SSE Business Lab has admitted eleven new startups to its accelerator/incubator programs (English).

• Qura, an SSE Business Lab alumni building "AI to make legal text searchable using natural language", launched its beta in April, and shares that it already "onboarded and granted early access to 30 Swedish legal teams, including the region's top law firms, banks, and corporations". (English). Qura was part of the same SSE Business Lab batch as its industry peer/competitor Leya.

• Apropos Leya: The startup is reportedly already in the process of raising a new major round, this time led by Redpoint Ventures, according to a report from Business Insider (English). ➡️ Curated in my PRO subscription on June 12.

• CAPINWEST, a new startup based in Borås, launched its secondaries platform for co-investments in pre-IPO companies, with a SEK14M+ investment in Klarna. ➡️ First covered in my PRO subscription on June 20.

• Fedelta, Borås-based SME loan provider, grew revenue in 2023 by 59% to SEK60.7M, and profit to SEK5.4M  (Swedish, machine translation). 

• Polar, a Stockholm-based creator platform for developers that is still operating fairly under the radar, announced new features which allow developers to create their own SaaS tools through the platform, and monetize them (English). ➡️ Startup first covered in my PRO subscription in 2023, high-profile pre-seed funding in early 2024.

• CAKE, the electric motorcycle maker, is back after bankruptcy and acquisition of the estate by the Norwegian businessman Espen Digernes (English).

• FinetuneDB, Stockholm-based AI fine-tuning platform, launched new features intended to "make it easier than ever to fine-tune and serve open-source models" (English). ➡️ Startup first covered in my PRO subscription on December 5, 2023.

• Stella Futura, Stockholm-based startup offering tailor-made sustainable energy solutions, launched a digital twin platform named Libra (Swedish, machine translation).

• Pirr, Stockholm-based startup for generative AI-powered erotic stories, has reached the milestone of 300,000 users, achieved "with absolutely no paid marketing" (English).

• Research involving Umeå-based scaleup Algoryx concludes that it is feasible to transfer AI control to a physical forest machine after first training it in a simulated environment (Swedish, machine translation).

• Swiftcourt, Malmö-based developer of solutions for safe and smooth peer-to-peer-transactions, announced an escrow payment solution for the users of Blocket, Sweden’s largest classifieds marketplace (English).

• Sifted profiles Trustly, describing it as "understated Swedish fintech unicorn that’s Klarna’s quieter cousin" (English).

• "It's trendy to start a company", says Adrian Andersson, the 25-year old founder and CEO of Stockholm-based education platform for schools Meitner, in this interview (Swedish, machine translation).

• Lunar, the Kinnevik-backed Denmark-headquartered digital bank startup, launched Scandinavia's first debit card that earns points with Scandinavian Airlines' loyalty program EuroBonus (English).

• Schibsted Marketplaces is cutting 250 of around 2000 jobs in Sweden and the other Nordic countries (English, Swedish).

• The national final of Venture Cup's STARTUP 2024 competition will take place on October 10 in Helsingborg (English).

• Sara Resvik is joining European VC firm Endeit Capital as Stockholm-based Partner, to focus on Nordic startups at Series A and B stages. She previously was Managing Partner and CEO at Backing Minds (English).

• For PRO subscribers: 15 new Swedish tech startups, 12 additional funding rounds, various noteworthy annual reports from Swedish tech startups, and other news not curated/covered elsewhere (English).

Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond

• 27% of generative AI startups founded in Europe and Israel were created in London, followed by Tel Aviv (13%), Berlin (12%), and Paris (10%). Sweden's numbers are comparatively small (English).

• Benchmarking growth trends from bootstrapped and VC-backed SaaS businesses (English).

• A critical reason for Europe's lack of homegrown tech giants is the small number of technical founders, according to research conducted by Antler (English).

• According to Gartner, the AI gains more than outweigh the other losses in SaaS (English).

• Thoughts on specialist vs generalist investors (English).

Other interesting things related to Sweden

• Sweden improves two positions to #6 in the 2024 edition of the World Competitiveness Ranking by the IMD Business School (English).

• E-commerce revenue in Sweden in May this year was 29% higher than in May 2023 (Swedish, machine translation).

• Sweden rather hastily gave the green light to the European Union's controversial "chat control" surveillance law. However, a vote by the EU Council was put on hold, following severe pushback (English).

• The Swedish Tax Agency is allowed to increase the degree of automation in certain decision-making processes (Swedish, machine translation).

• The open source platform Klimatkollen published a list showing 150 major companies in Sweden and their CO2 emissions (Swedish).