Swedish Tech Weekly #299


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 2761 subscribers today.

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Mergers & acquisitions

• Adocka (Stockholm, SaaS platform for staffing companies) is being acquired by the larger Stockholm-based industry peer Intelliplan (English).

• Accessy (Malmö, system to standardize the management of digital keys and access rights for property owners) is being acquired by Swedish proptech group Hydda (English).

Funding news

• evroc (Stockholm, building a hyperscale sustainable cloud to return data sovereignty to Europe): increases the size of the Series A funding round first reported last year, to a total of €50.6M. Giant Ventures is joining as new investor (English).

• Gilion, formerly ArK Kapital (Stockholm, alternative lending provider and growth platform for startups): €43M ($47M) loan guarantee from the European Investment Fund, to be used for loans to SaaS companies in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Germany, and The Netherlands (Swedish / Breakit paywall).

• Rerun (Stockholm, data stack for Physical AI): $17M in a seed funding round led by Point Nine (English).

• Novatron Fusion (Stockholm, developer of fusion power technology): €10M ($11M) in a Series A funding round led by St1, a Nordic fuels, oil refining and energy company (English).

• Paliscope (Gothenburg; investigative software that helps law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and analysts make sense of overwhelming amounts of data): SEK15M (€1.4M, $1.5M) from Starbright Invest (Swedish, machine translation).

• Dolprop (Stockholm, developing the world’s "most sustainable marine propulsion technology): SEK15M (€1.4M, $1.5M) in a strategic investment from Swedish defense group Scandinavian Astor Group, through a subsidiary (Swedish, machine translation).

• Remos Space Systems (Luleå, software-defined solutions for satellite ground operations): €1M in a seed funding round from BLING Capital and Partnerinvest Norr, among others (English).

• Sindri Production (Linköping; additive technology for shaping raw materials to reduce machining, lowering material costs, process time, and waste): SEK4.6M (€420K, $460K) led by First Gate Invest (Swedish, machine translation). ➡️ Startup first covered in Swedish Tech News PRO on October 2.

• Beamonics (Lund, technology for laser-based gas analysis): SEK4M (€360K, $400K) from existing investors (Swedish / Rapidus paywall).

• Gulf Picasso (Stockholm, AI-powered tool for creating images and avatars for users in the Arabic world): undisclosed amount in a funding round led by BLING Capital (Swedish, machine translation).

News from the Swedish startup & tech sector

• SSE Business Lab has admitted 15 startups to its two incubator programs (English). ➡️ I have covered almost all of these 15 startups previously in Swedish Tech News PRO.

• IntuiCell, a Stockholm startup which applies neurophysiological insights to redesign AI, unveiled Luna, a robot dog equipped with a digital "nervous system" that mimics human and animal learning capabilities (English). ➡️ Previous funding details, which had not been announced until last week, covered in 2023 in Swedish Tech News PRO.

• SCAILAB, a Västerås-based AI startup, launched to "build the future of synthetic data for AI in robotics and automation". ➡️ Startup first covered in Swedish Tech News PRO on September 6.

• Saga Playground, a Stockholm-based startup founded last year, launched its AI-powered edutainment platform for kids. ➡️ Startup first covered in Swedish Tech News PRO on October 31.

• Ludvig Bartholdsson, an 18-year-old who already can title himself "serial entrepreneur", launched his new startup TelefonID, offering a mobile app that promises to "instantly reveal a scammer and terminate the call". ➡️ News first covered in Swedish Tech News PRO on March 17.

• Period Pack, bootstrapped Stockholm-based startup offering a tampong dispenser subscription for businesses and organizations, grew net revenue 175% year-over-year to SEK11M in 2024. The company, founded by Amanda Mattson and Lova Svensson, generated a profit of SEK3M (Swedish / Di Digital paywall).

• Telavox, Malmö-based mobile operator for businesses, is launching an "AI receptionist" feature for its customers, able to respond to customer calls around the clock (Swedish, machine translation).

• Ebie, Stockholm-based B2B provider of a deposit insurance, launched a risk analytics tool for property owners (Swedish, machine translation).

• Mavatar, Stockholm-based startup specialized in AI-driven medical avatars for rapid, precise breakthroughs in healthcare and drug discovery, is about to launch its first SaaS product, named Mavatar Discovery.

• In a pilot project and likely a Sweden-first, around 20 social workers in Helsingborg are using an AI-powered interview and meeting transcription tool from Helsingborg-based startup Klang.ai (English).

• Zymiq has developed an enzyme-based solution for military oral health, promising to deliver an effective toothbrushing effect, even in challenging environments where access to water or toothbrushes is limited (English).

• Trustly, Stockholm-based payments platform for digital account-to-account transactions, launches support for RIX INST, the new instant settlement system of the Swedish Central Bank, as first third-party provider (English).

• Fundraising lessons by Stefan Borg, co-founder and CEO of Sib Solutions, after having raised a total of SEK170M: “If you don’t make it fun, it becomes a challenge” (English).

• Havredals, Uppsala-based producer of plant-based alternatives to dairy products and meat, is bankrupt (Swedish).

• Vipps, Norway-headquartered bank-owned Nordic p2p payments app, has reported the company behind Sweden's dominant digital identity solution BankID to the Swedish Competition Authority, for not allowing Vipps to use its own, proprietary security solution (Swedish, machine translation).

• An interview on how the bankruptcy procedure surrounding Northvolt is going so far (English).

• The Norrsken Foundation is opening a new hub in Brussels, promising to help European impact startups gain greater access to EU lawmakers (English).

• Also: The Norrsken Foundation, together with partners, put out a global call for startups aimed at transforming food systems to promote health, sustainability, and social justice at scale.

VC news

• Swedish fintech-focused VC Incore Invest announced a first closing of its second fund at SEK250M (Swedish / Di Digital paywall).

• node.vc led and J12 participated in a €1.5M pre-seed funding round raised by Denmark-based startup Spaak Technologies, which is building an OS for Public Affairs professionals (English).

• Swedish VC Magda Lukaszewicz joins Nordic VC firm Inventure as Partner (English).

• Stockholm-based investor Jesse Tinell has been promoted to Partner at Nordic idea stage VC firm Icebreaker.vc (English).

• 🎧 Podcast interview with Tatiana Shalalvand, Stockholm-based Investment Director at Kinnevik, where she leads the Nordic early-stage strategy (English / 23 minutes).

In this section, due to space constraints, prioritization may at times 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.

• Product Manager, Founder's Associate, Engineering roles (Rerun)
• Founding engineer (Emfas)
• Co-founder (Ecombooster)
• Technical Client Manager (Proxify)
• Technical Customer Success Manger (TRUE)
• Account Manager -Business Development (Lifesum)
• Senior Quality Assurance Manager (Wimt)
• CTO / Tech Lead (DBtune)
• Financial Director (Lexi)

To the listings

Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond

• A broad coalition drawn from across the ranks of Europe’s tech industry is calling for “radical action” from European Union lawmakers to shrink reliance on foreign-owned digital infrastructure — starting with buying local (English).

• Founders should use capital as a weapon, not as oxygen (English).


• A total of 319 IT incidents were reported to the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency last year, with fewer cyberattacks but an increase in the number of technical failures and human errors (English).

• The government presented the new national cybersecurity strategy (Swedish, machine translation).

• The government also proposes a bill that would allow the police to use AI face recognition to locate or identify people in connection with serious crimes (English).

• 41% of young women in Sweden are considering a career in tech, 7% percentage points more than last year (Swedish, machine translation).

• Sweden ranks #4 in the annual World Happiness Report, the same as last year (English).

• Due to a new law, textile recycling has increased dramatically – but Sweden lacks the industry required to handle all the material (Swedish / SvD paywall).

• Sweden is the only country in the world using exhaustion disorder as a diagnosis – but it will be phased out by 2028 (English).

• Several Swedish authorities are working together to create a disaster medicine center for animals, aimed at protecting livestock, working animals, and pets during times of crisis (English).

• Gasoline prices are at record lows in Sweden, and only a few European countries have cheaper fuel (Swedish).