Swedish Tech Weekly #281



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 2623 subscribers today.

Mergers & acquisitions

• Normative (Stockholm, carbon accounting platform) acquires the four-year-old Denmark-based industry peer Eivee (English).

• The acquisition of Norwegian startup Medthings by publicly traded Swedish e-health company Medimi announced in early October, has been called off (Swedish, machine translation).

Funding news

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•  Yazen (Lund, digital healthcare provider helping people lose weight): €19.5M ($21M) in a Series A funding round co-led by Evli Growth Partners and Helsana HealthInvest, with participation from Almaz Capital, Yabeo, and existing investors Luminar Ventures and Aggregate Media (English).

• Bovra (Stockholm, superapp for the home): SEK58M (€5M, $5.4M) from the same undisclosed angel investors that last year invested SEK42M in the startup (Swedish / Breakit paywall).

• Gedea Biotech (Lund, developer of antibiotic free treatment for vaginal infections): SEK34.8M (€3M, $3.2M) from undisclosed new investors, and existing investors including family offices and high net-worth individuals (English).

• SCRIIN (Stockholm, developer of solutions for schools and families helping them increase physical activity and find a healthy digital balance): SEK2.9M (€250K, $270K) grant from Svenska Postkodlotteriets Stiftelse (Swedish, machine translation).

• Planacy (Stockholm, SaaS solution for data-driven financial planning): undisclosed amount from new and existing investors, raised through Pepins (Swedish).

• Zenith VC led a seed round in CoCoach, Denmark-based all-in-one platform empowering coaches to build and grow their online coaching business (English).

• For PRO subscribers: Many additional unannounced rounds as well as more details and numbers for many of the above mentioned rounds (English).

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

News from the Swedish startup & tech sector

• AI Bob, Stockholm-based startup offering a solution that automates the compliance review of blueprints in construction, signed a first major client: Sweco Architects will use AI Bob's tool, in a deal reportedly worth SEK24M over a period of two years (Swedish / Breakit paywall). ➡️ Startup first covered in my PRO subscription on March 13.

• Bowter, Arvika-based electric boat brand and rental platform, is developing technology for self-driving boats, and plans to test it next summer in Karlstad (English).

• Rapidus published its annual list of Skåne's most talented rising stars aged 34 and younger. Most protagonists listed are tech startups (Swedish, machine translation).

• Profile of Letterlife and interview with its founder Lotta Borg Skoglund. The Stockholm-based startup offers an app tailored to women who experience ADHD and/or autism (English). ➡️ Startup first covered in my PRO subscription in April 2023.

• PaidTabs, Stockholm-based music freelancing platform and online marketplace for all types of music scores, has grown to over 50,000 musician (English).

• STILFOLD, developer of technology that applies curve folding with origami principles to reduce weight and waste, vertiport network operator KookieJar, and Sweden's research institute RISE, receive SEK3M in backing from Vinnova, for investigating the potential of STILFOLD's technology for creating drone vertiport structures (Swedish, machine translation).

• Profile of Aperya, a next gen dermatology startup from Stockholm, whose rolling spiked microspheres technology may make skin creams 100x more effective, and could also be helpful for longevity-focused procedures (Swedish, machine translation). ➡️ Startup first covered in my PRO subscription in November 2023.

• SmakShare, Visby-based recipe app, is teaming upp with Stockholm-based shoppable recipe technology company Northfork, and Swedish grocery chain Coop, to let users turn any recipe into a shopping cart (Swedish, machine translation).

• Mediaflow, Uppsala-based startup offering SaaS solutions for smart workflows with images, video and branding, is expanding into the DACH region (Swedish, machine translation).

• Betalo, Stockholm-based service for paying bills with a credit card, launched in Norway (Swedish).

• The founders of Truecaller, Alan Mamedi and Nami Zarringhalam, are stepping back from day-to-day operations, 15 years after the inception of the publicly traded Stockholm-based caller identification app (English).

• Doktor24, Swedish digital healthcare provider, plans to replace nurses with a digital assessment tool (Swedish, machine translation).

• Deloitte published its annual "Sweden Technology Fast 50" ranking, highlighting 50 Swedish tech companies that experienced the highest average revenue growth during the past 4 years (English).

• Bob W, Finland-headquartered tech-powered hospitality provider, is expanding into Sweden, and has signed a lease for its first property in Stockholm (English).

• Piece by Euronews on "how the Nordic nations could become Europe's answer to Silicon Valley" (English).

• The applications for the spring 2025 accelerator and incubator program at Sting are open (English). There's also a page for nominations (English).

• Sifted is looking for Nordic startups "with a strong track record of revenue generation" for their inaugural leaderboard "celebrating the region's successful startups" (English).

• Creandum launched its annual Founders' Salary Survey.

• Y Combinator (YC) will hold an event in Stockholm on November 21. Gustaf Alströmer, Group Partner at YC, will talk with Max Junestrand, CEO and co-founder of Leya (English).

• The final of the För-orten 2024 startup competition will take place in Stockholm on December 9 (English).

• 📺 Max and Allen Mohammadi, the founders of Stockholm-based startup PlasticFri, talked on BBC television about their technology for plant-based and eco-friendly plastic alternatives (English).

Exclusives for PRO subscribers last week

• 15 new Swedish tech startups tracked (574 so far this year).

• A Swedish startup is building an operating system for leaders and employees to work faster towards their vision, and just raised pre-seed funding.

• A bootstrapped startup in the AI-improved healthcare documentation space released an innovative feature, and will raise first funding.

• The founder of a Swedish AI agent platform moved into a camper van, to be able to bootstrap for a while. Now he gears up for a first funding round.

• A Stockholm-based foodtech startup pivots and changes its name.

• A platform/marketplace startup in the mobility space is bankrupt, and another one focused on circular toys, backed by an early-stage VC, is being liquidated.

• Fresh revenue numbers from various Swedish tech startups.

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Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond


• European AI enjoys a surge of VC mega-rounds (English).

• Global VC firm Accel published a report on the fintech landscape in EMEA, and lists 50 up-and-coming companies (including a few Swedish protagonists) (English).

• The US app CoffeeSpace is like a dating app but for finding a co-founder (English).

• Founders need to be good at choosing the right ladder to climb (English).

• The crisis at Swedish battery maker Northvolt contributed to an historically high rate of bankruptcies last month (English).

• The Swedish government blocks the construction of 13 offshore wind farms in the Baltic Sea, after the military said they could negatively impact defence capabilities (English).

• Sweden’s central bank cut borrowing costs by a half point for the first time in a decade, with the promise of more to come (English).

• A two-armed industrial robot, which had been modified with some 3D-printed parts, played a live concert on a cello in front of an audience together with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra (English).

• 📺 The first two episodes of a TV series about Sweden-founded, legendary and infamous torrent website The Pirate Bay, can now be streamed at SVT Play (Swedish IP required) (Swedish).