Swedish Tech Weekly #287


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 2679 subscribers today.

I'm now taking a holiday break. Swedish Tech Weekly will be back in your inbox on January 6 (Swedish Tech News PRO will be back on December 30). Until then, Merry Xmas and/or happy holidays!

Mergers & acquisitions


• Sigmastocks (Gothenburg, digital investment tool) is being acquired by publicly traded Swedish finance and broker app Avanza for SEK21.1M (English).

• Yazen (Lund, digital healthcare provider helping people lose weight) acquires the Denmark-headquartered industry peer Medstart (English).

• Spiideo (Malmö; AI-powered solution for sports video recording, analysis, and broadcasting) acquires Signality, a Linköping-based SaaS platform to extract sports data from videos (English).

• Most of the bankruptcy estate of Duearity, Malmö-based developer of a medical device for the treatment and alleviation of tinnitus, has been acquired by Gothenburg-based pharma and medtech company Circius Pharma (Swedish / Rapidus paywall).

• Blocket sold job platform Jobbsafari to Finland-headquartered industry peer Duunitori Group (Swedish, machine translation).

Funding news

Do you have unreported funding news you want to see here? Respond to this email.

• Aonic (Stockholm, video gaming and technology group): €152M ($160M) in growth funding from new investor Metric Capital Partners, and existing major shareholder Active Ownership (English).

• Chromafora (Stockholm, technology for selective removal of PFAS and heavy metals from water streams): €22.5M ($23M) in debt funding from the European Investment Bank (EIB) (English).

• Dirac (Uppsala, developer of software to enhance audio performance): SEK99.3M (€8.7M, $9M) in a funding round from existing investors led by CNI Nordics. The company says it accomplished a turn-around (Swedish / Di Digital paywall).

• Voyado (Stockholm, customer experience platform for e-commerce and retail): SEK75M (€6.5M, $6.9M) in a strategic investment from H&M Group (English).

• Hedvig (Stockholm, digital insurance provider): SEK50.1M (€4.4M, $4.6M) from existing investors, led by Adelis (Swedish / Di Digital paywall).

• Lightbringer (Lund, AI-powered all-in-one solution for patent protection): €4.2M ($4.4M) in a seed funding round led by Luminar Ventures and Alliance VC (English).

• Corsmed (Stockholm, MRI simulation platform): $3.5M in a seed funding round co-led by Luminar Ventures and Big Pi Ventures (English).

• Drifter World (Gothenburg, automatic AI-driven parking system): SEK36M (€3.1M, $3.3M) led by Imperia Fastigheter (English).

• Copabet (Stockholm, social platform where friends compete by predicting games of major sports events): €512K ($540) through equity crowdfunding from 206 investors (English).

• Rebaba (Stockholm, developer of circular battery systems): SEK5.5M (€480K, $500K) in a pre-seed funding round led by Rockstart, with participation from The Blue Minds Company, RadCap, YEoS Ventures, and angel investors (English, Swedish).

• Proteinish (Stockholm, developer of textured plant proteins): SEK3.5M (€300K, $320K) in a pre-seed funding round from FoodBridge (Novax) and others (Swedish, machine translation).

• Evity (Umeå, HR tool for SME): SEK3M (€260K, $270K) from existing investors Partnerinvest Norr, Monen Invest, and Meditron. The startup also secured a SEK2M growth loan from Almi. ➡️ Funding first covered in Swedish Tech News PRO on July 2.

• ATO ENERGY (Stockholm, AI-Driven energy optimization for enhanced reliability and efficiency): SEK500K (€44K, $46K) grant from the Swedish Energy Agency (Swedish). ➡️ Startup first covered in Swedish Tech News PRO on August 289.

• Repli5 (Gothenburg, generative AI for creating augmented camera data to train perception systems): undisclosed amount from existing investors Navigare Ventures and Chalmers Ventures (Swedish, machine translation).

• Creandum participated in a $12M funding round raised by US-based event-native data platform Kurrent (English).

• In a follow-on investment, Norrsken VC participated in a €150M pre-IPO round raised by German home electrification startup 1KOMMA5° (English).

• For PRO subscribers: 11 additional rounds as well as more details and numbers (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

• Lovable, the Swedish chat-based web app builder, touts having reached a remarkable ARR of $4M, four weeks after its launch (English).

• Used Icons, Stockholm-based curated marketplace for buying and selling pre-loved designer furniture and objects, has emerged from stealth mode (English). ➡️ Company first covered in Swedish Tech News PRO on December 9.

• Elonroad, Lund-based developer of electric road technology that allows for automatic charging of EV, signed one of the world's largest ports located near Los Angeles as customer. The initial deal is worth SEK20M (Swedish / Di Digital paywall).

• PlasticFri is rebranding as Grale, and also bought the corresponding domain grale.com. The Stockholm-based company offers plant-based and eco-friendly alternatives to plastics (English).

• Einride announced the launch of Europe's first commercial autonomous daily operations, which take place between pharmacy e-retailer Apotea’s warehouses in Sweden (English).

• Eways, Stockholm-based provider of B2C and B2B EV charging solutions, has filed for bankruptcy. This means that approximately 650 housing associations in Sweden lose the money they let Eways access intended for paying electricity bills (Swedish / Di Digital paywall).

• Hidden Dreams, Stockholm-based B2B SaaS venture builder, is pausing the creation of new companies and associated expansion plans (Swedish, machine translation).

• Pinecone Ventures, a Norway-based venture studio, meanwhile plans to launch operations in Sweden in early 2025 (Swedish / Breakit paywall).

• anotherblock, VC-backed Stockholm-based music rights marketplace, is rebranding as Chapter Two, and will now focus on building a "platform for music catalog transactions – powered by analytics and extensive data".

• Klarna will start drug testing employees, to "strengthen security" ahead of the company's anticipated IPO (English).

• Meanwhile, the company says that recent comments by CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski about an AI-enabled hiring stop are "directionally true" but "simplified for brevity in a broadcast interview" (English).

• Long investigative story revealing an elaborate internal program at Spotify intended to increase the share of streams from generic "ghost artists", to cut royalty costs (English).

• Isabel Keulen takes over the Stockholm School of Economics' incubator and VC fund, SSE Business Lab and SSE Ventures, as new CEO (English).

• Northern CapSek Ventures, publicly traded Gothenburg-based tech startup investment firm, has raised SEK9.1M before issue through a rights issue (Swedish, machine translation).

• Luca Banderet, Managing Partner and one of the founders of Stockholm-based early-stage VC firm J12, will step down from his role "to embark on new adventures" (English).

• Stockholm-based VC firm Luminar Ventures is looking for a human AI automation intern (English).


PRO subscribers also read last week

• 14 new Swedish tech startups tracked (658 so far this year)

• Two serial founders, whose company was acquired by an internional giant a few years ago, launched a new startup in stealth mode, described as "a tool to scale human collaboration and creativity to new levels".

• The founder of an up-and-coming Swedish startup launched a notable side project, which aims to make it possible for anyone to access enterprise-level AI.

• A bootstrapped under-the-radar startup from Stockholm is gearing up for launching the second version of its fashion-conscious healthtech wearable.

• A bootstrapped Swedish niche streaming service was "de-platformed" by Stripe, and now switched to direct bank transfers.

• A new startup from Gothenburg whose product may ease back pain for new parents, opened its first round.

And much more! Swedish Tech News PRO gives startup investors, analysts, and VC teams an easy information advantage. Join today.

Selected Swedish tech startup jobs

A non-exhaustive selection of open positions at Swedish tech startups.

• Software Engineer (Hypertype)
• Business Developer (LEIA Health)
• Customer Service Specialist (Sendify)
• Automation Engineer (Helios Innovation)
• Product Analyst (Fishbrain)
• Various roles including Lead Talent Partner & Robotics ML Engineer (Rerun)
• CFO (MYoroface)
• Various Software Engineering roles (Konvoj)
• Various including Trade Marketing Manager (Twiceme)
• Various including Marketing Manager and Operation Associate (Buddywise)
• Marketing Manager (Awaio)

To the full listings

Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond


• Databricks, the US-based enterprise software giant co-founded and led by Swedish-Iranian entrepreneur Ali Ghodsi, has raised a record $10B Series J funding round, at a $62B valuation. Silicon Valley Nordic Beat talked with Ghodsi about the round, and his views on entrepreneurship in Europe and Sweden, compared to the US (English).

• CRM giant Salesforce plans to hire 2,000 people to sell AI products (English).

• TymeBank, a South Africa-based digital bank and portfolio company of Norrsken22 – Norrsken's Africa-focused fund – is now a unicorn (English).

• How founders over 40 are different (English).

• The 10 most downloaded iPhone apps in Sweden in 2024: Temu (#1), Max (HBO), Aimo, ChatGPT, Threads, Vinted, Google Chrome, PostNord, Microsoft Authenticator, Google (Swedish).

• The sales of new course literature in Sweden have decreased by as much as 40% during the past two years (Swedish, machine translation).

• Primary school students with problematic absences who meet a social service dog at school have better school results, better mental well-being and reduced absences, according to the preliminary results of a Swedish study (Swedish, machine translation).