Swedish Tech Weekly #289


Welcome 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 previously covered in my daily PRO newsletters, and is sent to 2676 subscribers today.

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Mergers & acquisitions


• Hexagon (Stockholm, publicly listed provider of digital reality solutions) acquires Belgium-based OEM provider of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) technologies Septentrio (English).

Funding news

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

• Qvantum (Malmö, modular heat pump platform designed for cost efficient mass production): €108M ($112M) in a Series C funding round from existing investors led by IMAS Foundation (English).

• Babyshop (Stockholm, online retailer for kids clothing): SEK82.2M (€7.2M, $7.4M) from existing investors including Thuban and Verdane. In conjunction with this funding, Babyshop is exiting a corporate restructuring process – the second within a few years (Swedish / Breakit paywall).

• PeptiSystems (Uppsala, next gen synthesizers for production of peptide and oligonucleotide therapeutics): SEK45M (€3.9M, $4.1M) in a funding round led by Sciety and Sciety Venture Partners (English).

• Jord (Stockholm, rebalancing the carbon cycle by producing solid biofuel and biochar from C4-grass): SEK10M (€870K, $910K) from existing and new investors (Swedish / Impact Loop paywall). ➡️ Funding first covered in Swedish Tech News PRO on January 7.

• Mobill (Malmö, parking app): SEK5M (€430K, $450K) from unspecified existing investors (Swedish / Rapidus paywall).

• Talendary (Stockholm; AI-powered tool for recruiters to screen, source and deliver the best talent): undisclosed amount from angel investors (English). ➡️ Funding first covered in Swedish Tech News PRO on December 16. Startup first covered in PRO in September 2023.
 
• Digmi (Jönköping, provider of customized tablet subscriptions and digital tools for hair salons): undisclosed amount from an undisclosed investment company from southern Sweden, and angel investor Krister Azelius (Swedish, machine translation).

• Mölnlycke, Gothenburg-based medtech company specialising in wound care solutions, invested $8M in US-based startup Siren, which offers a solution for the management of diabetic foot and other foot complications (English).

• For PRO subscribers: 8 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).

• NEW: A simple database with recent Swedish tech startup funding data. Free for founders during Beta. Request access.

News from the Swedish startup & tech sector

• Cheque, founded by Julia Delin and Andreas Johansson, has emerged from stealth mode, following the first announcement in July last year. Cheque offers an invoicing solution tailored to SMEs and freelancers, "allowing suppliers to set flexible payment terms and offer early payment discounts". Cheque is initially targeting the US market (English).

• The founders of Malmö-based tinnitus device developer Duearity, Fredrik Westman and Peter Arndt, are founding a new startup named FORSCENT, developing a scent-based solution for cutting wild life damage to forests. ➡️ First covered in Swedish Tech News PRO on January 7.

• Epulze, Örebro-based platform and service provider for the esports segment, is bankrupt. The company had raised over SEK100M in total equity funding (English).

• Also bankrupt: Allabrf, Stockholm-based digital platform for Swedish tenant-owner associations (English).

• Fibbl, Stockholm-based startup that offers an end-to-end solution for 3D and AR focused visual marketing, increased ARR during 2024 10x, from SEK1M to SEK10M (English).

• Wimt, Stockholm-based startup founded in 2022, has officially launched its iPhone app for sports community building and financing, described as "a brand-new way to follow athletes, sports clubs, and creators".

• A modular multisensory health room pod developed by Karlstad-based startup Nature Station will be installed as a pilot at Stockholm's World Trade Center, available to all tenants (English). ➡️ Startup first covered in Swedish Tech News PRO in April 2024.

• Sweden's Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch attended the CES in Las Vegas last week, promoting Swedish tech innovation (Swedish / Di Digital paywall). She also visited the San Francisco Bay Area, focusing on space tech. "We need to stop seeing space as just a research project—it is also something we can capitalize on", she said (English).

• Einar Bodström, co-founder of ClimateView, is stepping down as CEO, to transition into the role of "Global Director". VP Revenue Maxime Leroux will take over at the helm (English).

• Northvolt's shareholders approved the continuation of operations at last week's extraordinary general meeting (English).

• Northvolt’s collapse leaves Stegra, formerly H2 Green Steel, as Europe’s largest and best funded climate tech company, with €6.5B of debt and equity in its coffers. The company emphasizes that it is "fully funded" (English).

• The number of private Swedish tech companies valued at over SEK1B has risen to 86, from 82 in summer 2023. Due to Northvolt's collapse, Klarna is #1 again, followed by Stegra (Swedish / Di Digital paywall)

• The Swede Arvid Lunnemark, originally from Malmö, is one of the four founders of San Francisco-based startup Anysphere, the developer of AI-powered coding assistant Cursor, which reportedly is valued at $2.6B (Swedish / Breakit paywall).

• Daniel Ek has banked an estimated total of $568M from Spotify stock sales (English).

• The applications for the SSE Business Lab's Spring 2025 batch are open. As always, to be eligible, at least one co-founder needs to have a connection to the Stockholm School of Economics (English).

• Profile of Minc – the Malmö-based "Startup House" and incubator founded in 2002 – and interview with its soon-to-be-leaving CEO Daniel Persson (Swedish, machine translation).

• AI Sweden is looking for a Head of AI Transformation (English).

• Three science parks in northern Sweden have launched the initiative "Access North Sweden", aiming to attract international SMEs to the region, particularly those from Silicon Valley (English).

• Impact Hack 2025, a Hackathon aiming to "build AI solutions for positive change in civil society", will take place on March 13 in Stockholm (English). ➡️ Added to the Swedish tech event calendar for PRO subscribers.

• Feminvest's annual FEARLESS event promoting female entrepreneurship will take place on April 8 in Stockholm (English). ➡️ Added to the Swedish tech event calendar for PRO subscribers.


PRO subscribers also read last week

• 12 new Swedish tech startups tracked, close to 700 during the past 12 months

• An under-the-radar healthcare SaaS platform that reported a profit for 2023, has raised first funding

• A former Stockholm-based late-stage VC founded a startup in stealth mode

• A VC-backed startup which combined crypto with another vertical, is rebranding and pivoting to launch a blockchain-powered decision market "to revolutionize governance models"

• A stealth mode startup that wanted to build "in-space compute" is pausing its work due to the unfavorable environment for spacetech companies in Sweden. The founder is already working on something new, in a different segment

• A new tech event week inspired by the spirit of Almedalsveckan will be announced soon

• A Swedish regtech scaleup grew annual net revenue by 77% to over SEK50M, and turned profitable

• A bootstrapped Swedish provider of digital tools for teachers and professors reached almost SEK50M in annual revenue, and grows profit to over SEK10M

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.

• Product Designer (Dema.ai)
• Head of Delivery (Eliq)
• QA/Tester; Photographer/Videographer (Natural Cycles)
• Technical Project Manager (Volta Greentech)
• Software Engineer (Find My Factory)
• Head of Finance (Evify)
• Product Developer (Argus Eye)
• Talent Acquisition Partner (Qred)
• Digital Marketing Specialist (Enode)
• Founding Account Executive (QA.tech)
• Various; including Environmental Researcher and Data Researcher (Wardlin)
• Various roles withing Platform Engineering (Brite)

To the listings

Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond


• Portfolio stats from the eight-year-old first fund of Nordic pre-seed VC firm Icebreaker.vc (English).

• The state of Norwegian startup funding in 2024 (English).

• European startups can thrive by developing applications that are built on top of AI platforms run by US-based companies, says Skype founder Niklas Zennström (English / FT paywall).

• There were 858 exits of VC-backed companies in Europe last year, down about 11% from 2023 and 37% from the frenzied days of 2021 (English).

• European fintech investment tumbled 26% to $8.3B last year (English).

• GP Bullhound published its 18th annual Technology Predictions report (English).

• Key takeaways from the just published 2024 Climate Tech Investment Trends report (English).

• European startups: Be so good they can’t ignore you (English).

• "Without the right team, even the best pivot will falter" (English).

• Sweden’s core inflation rate slowed more than expected at the end of the year (English).

• Mobile network analytics company Open Signal published a report comparing the four Swedish mobile operators from a consumer experience perspective (English).

• In 2024, asylum-related immigration to Sweden was the lowest in 40 years (English).

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That's it for this week. Thank you for being a subscriber!

Martin