Swedish Tech Weekly #298


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 2762 subscribers today.

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Mergers & acquisitions

• Safestate (Jönköping; smart and automated security solutions for small businesses) is being acquired by publicly traded Stockholm-based Eyeon Group, provider of solutions against digital ID-theft, for SEK101.2M (English, Swedish).

• Swedish investment fund Alder is acquiring a majority stake in 3Button Group, a Jönköping-based provider of industrial automation solutions (English).

• Esgaia (Stockholm, platform for investment stewardship data management) is being acquired by the US corporate governance advisor Glass Lewis (English).

• The assets and team of Truid, Stockholm-based identity verification platform, have been acquired by Swedish digital mailbox service Kivra (English).

I covered a few more deals in last week's PRO newsletters.

Funding news

Are you a founder in fundraising mode? Get free access to the FOUNDER version of my funding database.

• Mimo (Stockholm & London; unified payments platform with working capital access built for SMEs, accountants and bookkeepers): $8.5M in a funding round led by Project A (English). ➡️ Startup first covered in Swedish Tech News PRO in July 2023.

• Gårdsfisk (Åhus, vertically integrated recirculating aquaculture system that enables land-based fish farming with minimal environmental impact): SEK50M (€4.6M, $5M) in a Series A funding round co-led by Industrifonden and Hatch Blue (English).

• Asgard Therapeutics (Lund, exploring direct cell reprogramming technologies to develop ground-breaking cancer immunotherapies): €2.5M ($2.7M) grant from the EIC Transition program, for a project including partners (English).

• Hybridity (Stockholm, AI workspace for compliance): SEK23M (€2.1M, $2.3M) in a seed funding round led by Stefan Lennhammer (English). ➡️ Startup first covered in Swedish Tech News PRO in November 2023.

• Avidicare (Lund, developer of healthcare ventilation systems): SEK20M (€1.8M, $2M) from new and existing investors such as Industrifonden, Almi Invest, and I Love Lund, in an ongoing round (Swedish).

• Re:meat (Malmö, develops technology for cultivated meat production): €1M ($1.1M) from 8+ Ventures, Skåne Ventures, and angel investors (English).

• Glenntex (Gothenburg; reducing virgin plastic consumption through smarter material design with graphene-based nanotechnology): €700K ($760K) in a pre-seed funding round led by Almi Invest, with participation from PINC and Chalmers Ventures (English).

• Loyative, formerly Reach (Stockholm, solution for seamlessly integrating an e-commerce solution into a platform or website): SEK3.1M (€280K, $310K) in a previously not announced angel round raised last year, led by Tipser founder Axel Wolrath. Loyative was founded in 2023, and last year quadrupled revenue to SEK28M (English). ➡️ Startup first covered in Swedish Tech News PRO in February 2024. News first covered in PRO in February 2025.

• LingoLooper (Gothenburg, fully immersive AI-powered language learning app): undisclosed amount from new and existing investors including RadCap and Yuncture Invest (English). ➡️ Startup first covered in Swedish Tech News PRO in March 2023.

• NitroCapt (Uppsala, fossil-free nitrogen fertilizers): undisclosed amount from FoodBridge (Novax) (English).

PRO subscribers learned about many more rounds (including unannounced ones) last week, and more details for each round.

News from the Swedish startup & tech sector

• Northvolt's Swedish entities have been declared bankrupt. Close to 5000 employees are affected (English).

• Klarna has filed for its long anticipated IPO at the New York Stock Exchange (English).

• leap is an upcoming service to be launched by Stockholm-based startup Encore, which will be offering an AI chat based tool for developers to design distributed systems and write production code, ready to run securely on AWS or GCP infrastructure. ➡️ First covered in Swedish Tech News PRO on February 11.

• Wilma Emanuelsson, the young hacker and founder of Gothenburg-based startup iTrack Reading, is pausing her work with the eye-to-speech technology company, to focus on "offensive security, adversary simulation, and helping our society stay ahead of real world threats" (English).

• Longbow Motors, the UK-headquartered startup co-founded by former X Shore CEO Jenny Keisu, has launched. The company is building an electric sports car (English).

• Johannes Schildt, founder of Swedish digital healthcare provider Kry, has together with Kry alumna Julia Elf founded Elfcare, a provider of preventive healthcare through advanced diagnostics and early detection (Swedish / Di Digital paywall).

• Mimbly launches the second generation of its Mimbox – a plug and play device that connects to existing laundry machines and lowers water consumption, filters microplastics, and saves energy (English).

• Hailey HR, Stockholm-based SaaS HR platform founded in 2020, has crossed the mark of SEK100M in ARR (English).

• Luvly, Stockholm-based developer of ultra-sustainable light urban vehicles, signed a year-long commercial agreement with the automotive giant Stellantis (English).

• Swish is for the first time opening up to payment service providers, eliminating the need for businesses to partner with a bank to get access. Zimpler is the first Swedish fintech to integrate directly with Swish (English).

• GoCimo (formerly GoCiklo), Stockholm-based provider of battery swap services aimed at delivery drivers, launches in Malmö – the company's third city after Gothenburg and Stockholm (Swedish, machine translation).

• Q-commerce company foodora is launching Sweden' first grocery deliveries with electric delivery robots (English).

• Nordic Angels, the Stockholm-headquartered high trust social network for angel investors which also runs various related initiatives and side projects, will open an "Angel House" in central Stockholm (Swedish, machine translation).

VC news

• Several Swedish VC firms have open roles: node.vc is looking for an Investment Analyst (English). Luminar Ventures is hiring an Operations & Business Analyst (English). And Pale blue dot is seeking a Brand & Content Lead (English).

• New Nordics VC firm byFounders will again host its annual trip on a full-rigged ship from Oslo to Copenhagen and back, at the end of May (English).

• Nordic YC Nights is a new event series aiming "to build stronger bridges between the Y Combinator community and technical founders in the New Nordics" (English).

• Project Europe, a new fund supported by 150+ founders (including several from Sweden), aims to encourage the next generation to take greater risks and make entrepreneurship a worthwhile endeavor in Europe (English).

In this section, due to space constraints, prioritization may be given to VC firms where at least one individual is a subscriber of Swedish Tech News PRO.

Selected Swedish tech startup jobs

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

• Co-Founding CTO (Glimmer)
• DevOps Engineer (Nordic Forestry Automation)
• Head of Growth (Mynt)
• Project Manager (LexEnergy)
• Product Manager (Podspace)
• Full Stack Engineer (Accumeo)
• Backend Developer, Android Developer (StockRepublic)
• Brand & Marketing Lead, Content Production Lead, others (Lovable)
• Embedded Engineer (Airolit)

To the listings

Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond

• Trump is a gift to European AI (English).

• The end state of the AI-fueled “End of Software” may be a world where software becomes as malleable and expressive as any other creative medium (English).

• The startup CTO's handbook – essential skills and best practices for high performing engineering teams (English).


• Many Northvolt employees are non-EU citizen on work permits. If being laid off, they'd have only three months to find a new job with a minimum monthly salary of SEK28,480 (English).

• A man from Bangladesh with a masters degree in AI and robotics who was recently laid off from Northvolt, is now working with IT support at Skellefteå Municipality (Swedish).

• A government inquiry into the use of smartphones in schools has proposed a national ban on phones during the school day (English).

• Sweden sees strongest support for joining the Euro in 15 years (English).

• After Signal, WhatsApp also says it would pull out of Sweden if the planned "back door" surveillance law passes (Swedish, machine translation).

• Sweden ranks #1 in this year's glass-ceiling index by The Economist. The ranking compares working conditions for women across the 29 OECD countries (English).

• Sweden's central bank is working to improve the possibility of making offline payments by card to strengthen resilience (English).