Swedish Tech Weekly #301


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 2838 subscribers today.

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Mergers & acquisitions


• CheckWatt (Stockholm; provider of smart, sustainable energy services) is being acquired by Denmark-based energy solutions provider Emaldo Group (English).

• Bolago, formerly StartupTools (Stockholm, SaaS platform for running a business) has been acquired by Finland-headquartered company Allshares, provider of compensation and benefits solutions (English).

• Tilly (Stockholm, personalized fertility support app) has been acquired by Singapore-based fertility services platform Rhea (English).

• A consortium led by EQT announced a bid to acquire all shares in Fortnox, the publicly traded cloud-based finance management platform for smaller businesses and accounting agencies from Växjö (English).

• The assets of bankrupt Malmö-based startup Påhoj, maker of a child bike seat that turns into a stroller, have been acquired by Axkid (English). ➡️ Bankruptcy first covered in Swedish Tech News PRO on January 3.

Funding news

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

Note to first time founders: Raising VC funding is not a goal in itself, and not every company is a fit for it. If you aim to choose that path, make sure to understand the implications.

• Exeger (Stockholm, manufacturer of flexible solar cells made to power gadgets): SEK150M (€14, $15.5M) in a bridge round from existing investors (Swedish / Di Digital paywall).

• GOALS (Stockholm, upcoming online multiplayer football game): $9M in a Series A extension from Sebastian Knutsson, Daniel Antell, Mikael Falgard, and John Wattin (English). ➡️ Funding first covered in Swedish Tech News PRO on April 2.

• Emulate Energy (Lund & Boston, virtual battery platform for electricity retailers): €5M ($5.4M) in a Series A funding round led by Helen Ventures (English, Swedish / Rapidus paywall). ➡️ Partial closing of this round first covered in Swedish Tech News PRO on February 14.

• Polar Light Technologies (Linköping, developer of new light efficiency standards): SEK34M (€3.2M, $3.4M) led by existing investor STOAF (English).

• Swedish Algae Factory (Gothenburg, producer of functional materials from algae): €3M ($3.3M) from new and existing investors, such as Chalmers Ventures (English).

• Vantel (Stockholm & San Francisco, AI for commercial insurance brokers): $2M in a seed funding round from Y Combinator, Rebel Fund, Inception Fund, and angel investors (English). ➡️ Startup first covered in Swedish Tech News PRO on January 28.

• Fuzed (Stockholm, platform that blends gaming and exercise to help young gamers build healthier habits around what they love): SEK15M (€1.4M, $1.5M) from professional Swedish football players Ken Sema and Dejan Kulusevski, among others (Swedish / Di Digital paywall). ➡️ Partial closing of this funding first covered in Swedish Tech News PRO on March 12.

• Scopes (Visby; AI-powered platform that automates double materiality analysis, the first CSRD step): SEK3M (€280K, $300K) in first funding from Almi Invest and Science Park Gotland Invest (Swedish). ➡️ Startup first covered in Swedish Tech News PRO on July 1, 2024. Funding first covered on April 1.

• SAKURA (Västerås; marketplace for resources in emotional health, for individuals and businesses): SEK3M (€280K, $300K) in a first funding round led by 8MV, with participation from angel investors, founder and CEO Elin Breitholtz tells me.

• Polar Mist Technologies (Lund, building defense tech solutions for European maritime supremacy): undisclosed amount in first funding led by 201 Ventures and Air Street Capital. The startup emerged from stealth last week (English). ➡️ Funding first covered in Swedish Tech News PRO on April 4.

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

• Klarna is reportedly pausing its planned IPO in the US due to the market turmoil in the wake of Trump's tariffs (English).

• Viska AI, a Stockholm-based startup that offers "the first clinical decision support system built exclusively for transplantation", as emerged from stealth mode. ➡️ Startup first covered in Swedish Tech News PRO on November 5.

• Kristian Rönn, founder of Normative, has moved to San Francisco and founded the startup Lucid Computing, to build a platform for AI infrastructure compliance and location verification (Swedish / Breakit paywall).

• Nest, a marketplace for SME M&A deals, has launched. The startup was founded by Eniro Group, together with Future Ventures (Swedish, machine translation).

• Stockholm Water Technology, Swedish developer and designer of smart sustainable water purification solutions, signed a strategic offtake agreement with a company in Saudi Arabia, worth at least €9M (English).

• Soultech, Stockholm-based which offered a customer conversation platform for brands, is being liquidated (English). ➡️ Last week in Swedish Tech News PRO, I covered more startups that reached the end of their life cycle.

• Gilion, Stockholm-based alternative lending provider and growth platform for startup, aims to reduce costs by 30%, and cuts on fifth of the currently around 70 jobs (Swedish / Breakit paywall).

• Truecaller, publicly traded Swedish caller ID company, has crossed the mark of 450 million monthly active users (English).

• Carnegie launched Montrose, a platform for retail public market investors which aims to challenge Sweden's market leaders Avanza and Nordnet (Swedish, machine translation).

• Around half of Northvolt's employees in Sweden will lose their jobs. Northvolt will continue operating on a smaller scale while awaiting a potential new buyer (English).

• The Swedish Competition Authority slaps the three Swedish digital healthcare providers Doktor.se, Min Doktor, and Doktor 24 with a SEK26M fine, for having synced their advertising in Google search (Swedish, machine translation).

• The Austrian startup Reduxi is launching its AI-driven Energy Management System for households and businesses in Sweden (English).

• Vinnova, Sweden's innovation agency, will launch a new version of its program "Innovative Startups" this year. Eligible companies will be able to apply for a grant of up to SEK500K (Swedish / Impact Loop paywall).

• Founders House is a new "meeting-place for Stockholm’s most promising AI startups", launched by the two young VCs Elis Hodzic and Bror Nordström. The goal is to establish "a mini–San Francisco in the heart of Stockholm" (English, Swedish / Di Digital paywall).

• The applications for the next batch of KTH Innovation Launch (formerly known as pre-incubator program) are open (English).

• SSE Business Lab is co-hosting an upcoming AI hackathon, where the goal is not only to build cool stuff, but to basically create a startup (English).

• "Defense tech is impact tech", writes Karl Rosander, co-founder and CEO of Nordic Air Defence (NAD) (Swedish, machine translation).

• Almi Invest, the state-owned Swedish VC firm, is opening up to investments in defense tech (Swedish / Impact Loop paywall).

• Cristina Stenbeck is returning as Chair of the Board at Kinnevik (English).

PRO subscribers last week learned about many more news – lots of them exclusives that have not been covered or curated anywhere else yet – and about 19 new Swedish tech startups.

Selected Swedish tech startup jobs

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

• AI developers (stealth startup, funded and already with customers)
• Lead Product Developer (Epicz lab)
• Business Development & Sales Manager (Remos Space Systems)
• Customer Support (Elbilsvaruhuset)
• Product Manager (Growth) (Natural Cycles)
• Senior Backend Software Engineer – Data Solutions (Brite)
• Business Development Manager (Quizrr)
• Electrical Project Manager (Truxco Energy)
• Senior Mechanical Engineer (Enerpoly)

To the listings

Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond

• "While Trump's tariffs primarily threaten startup revenue through market uncertainty rather than direct costs, the drive for efficiency in response may accelerate AI adoption" (English).

• The right amount of fraud in seed stage startups is greater than 0% (English).

• AI will fragment the role of software engineering (English).

• The brewing transatlantic tech war (English).


• Sweden’s prime minister says that Europe needs to focus more on its capital markets in order to retain tech companies leaving to list on US stock exchanges (English).

• The Swedish tax authority is being taken to court for selling people’s personal data to third party companies (English).

• Affärsvärlden's annual list of Sweden's wealthiest individuals (Swedish, no machine translation available).

• Uber is launching its ride-hailing service nation-wide in Sweden (Swedish / Di Digital paywall).

• AI-based models outperform traditional models in forecasting Swedish GDP and inflation, according to a survey among economists conducted by Sweden's central bank (English).

• Swedish company Pophouse Entertainment has raised more than €1B for its debut fund, to acquire catalogues and rights of musicians (English).

• Sweden sees lowest level of homicide in a decade (English).