Swedish Tech Weekly #313: Visslan, Nordark, Dentme, Echandia, Motorica, Zymego, Tether, Ankor, Perspektivo, Allbry, Neurawave, Airon, Nimt, Holyvolt, Arfve, Hiber, IONLACE, Xenergic, and more
Welcome the latest from Sweden's startup & tech sector.
I'm Martin Weigert. Every Monday morning, Swedish Tech Weekly brings you a selection of some of the news I previously covered in my daily PRO newsletters. Today's newsletter was sent to 2933 subscribers.
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Mergers & acquisitions
• Visslan (Malmö, SaaS solution for whistleblowing) has been acquired by Swedish industry peer Whistlelink (English).
• Nordark (Stockholm, all-in-one banking solution for crypto businesses) is in the process of potentially being acquired by Hilbert, publicly traded Stockholm-based investment firm specializing in crypto asset management and Web3 technologies (English). ➡️ Nordark first covered in PRO in January 2024.
• IFS (Linköping, global enterprise technology company) acquired the US startup TheLoops, provider of an AI agentic platform for business operations (English).
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Funding news
Are you a founder in fundraising mode? Get free access to my funding and investor database. Closed a funding round? Submit it here.
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 plan to choose that path, make sure to understand the implications.
• Dentme (Stockholm, subscription-based dental care provider): SEK150M (€13.5M, $16M) from founder Noel Abdayem via NCPA Capital, and around ten angel investors (Swedish / Di Digital paywall). ℹ️ Startup first covered in PRO in August 2024.
• Echandia (Stockholm; energy storage solutions for the maritime industry and heavy-duty industrial applications): SEK105M (€9.5M, $11M) from S2G Investments, in an extension of the recently announced SEK220M funding round (English).
• Motorica (Stockholm, generative AI for motion synthesis): $5M seed round led by Angular Ventures, with participation from Luminar Ventures (English). ➡️ Funding first covered in PRO on June 5.
• Zymego (Stockholm, healthcare appointment platform): around SEK30M led by Industrifonden, with participation from existing investors such as Spintop Ventures and Icebreaker.vc (English, Swedish / Di Digital paywall).
• Tether (Barcelona & Stockholm, prediction & optimization engine that turns parked EVs into a grid-scale clean energy network): $1.5M in a pre-seed funding round led by Draper B1 and K Fund. Sweden is currently Tether's main market (English). ℹ️ Startup first covered in PRO in May 2023.
• Ankor (Malmö, actionable data platform for financial operations): $1.3M in pre-seed funding from Upfin, Bust, Torq Partners, and industry angels (English). ➡️ Startup first covered in PRO in January 2024 under its initial name.
• Perspetivo (Stockholm, research platform that offers representative statistics): SEK10M (€900K, $1.05M) in a seed funding round led by Lotus One Investment, with participation from angel investor Laura Sprechmann (English).
• Allbry (Stockholm, digital platform for a better student health): SEK6.5M (€600K, $700K) from Utfallsfonden (Swedish, machine translation).
• Neurawave (Kalmar, developer of hardware/software solutions for migraine relief): SEK2.5M (€230K, $260K) from angel investors and Saminvest via Annexstruktur AB (Swedish, machine translation). ➡️ Startup first covered in PRO in June 2024.
PRO subscribers learned about many more rounds last week, including unannounced ones. PRO subscribers also get full access to the unique Startup Database.
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News from the Swedish startup & tech sector
• Airon, Swedish provider of non-shared AI infrastructure, plans to invest €450M in the expansion of its AI factory in Lidköping. This includes the construction of a new 20 MW AI factory, described as "the largest of its kind in the country" (English). ➡️ Startup first covered in PRO on October 16.
• Nimt.ai, a new startup based in Helsingborg, has launched its tool helping brands measure, track, and improve their performance in AI-driven search (English). ➡️ Startup first covered in PRO on January 20.
• Holyvolt, Stockholm-based developer of technology for producing inorganic nano paste enabling high-performance solar cells, batteries & heaters, reports net revenue of SEK57.8M for 2024 – the company's first revenue-generating year. ➡️ Startup first covered in PRO in February 2023.
• Arfve, Stockholm-based audiotech hardware startup, is about to launch its first product: A pair of earbuds named "Legacy One", which enable a "modular system of personalized sound", feature swappable batteries, and come with an AI-powered app (English).
• Hiber, Gothenburg-based game creation engine startup that raised close to SEK180M in funding, is bankrupt. ➡️ More details, and recent bankruptcies of other Swedish tech startups, covered in PRO last week.
• IONLACE, a fairly secretive Stockholm-based techbio startup combining AI and rational protein engineering "to build modular biologics that actually work", is expanding into the UK (English). ➡️ Startup first covered in PRO in February 2024.
• Xenergic, Lund-based provider of ultra low-power on-chip memory, announced that its energy-saving memory technology now is in mass production with a first component manufacturer (English).
• Neko Health, Daniel Ek's and Hjalmar Nilsonne's preventive healthcare startup, released a post with scan data on the company's second year of operations in Stockholm (English).
• Syre, the Stockholm-based provider of textile-to-textile recycling at hyperscale, announced Gap, Houdini Sportswear, and Target as partners for the commercial launch (English).
• Northvolt's bankruptcy estate is now finally receiving interest from prospective buyers (English).
• Climatiq, Germany-based carbon intelligence platform co-founded and led by Swedish entrepreneur Hessam Lavi, has closed a €10M Series A round (English).
• Techarena's 2026 flagship event is set to take place in Stockholm on February 11 and 12. The pre-registration is now open (English). ➡️ Added to the Swedish tech event calendar
• Meanwhile, Techarena has raised SEK12M in funding from Swedish VC firm Backing Minds, for the international expansion (English).
• Stockholm-based Founders House, the buzzy "hub for Stockholm's most promising AI startups", received an undisclosed amount in funding from EQT Ventures (Swedish / Breakit paywall).
• The investment climate among angel investors in Sweden is the most restrained since 2023, when Connect Sverige started measuring the sentiment (Swedish, machine translation).
• Norrsken VC, Norrsken Launcher and Norrsken Accelerator are committing €300M from its existing funds "to European startups using AI for good" (English).
• Almi Invest GreenTech is said to be the first Swedish investor to launch a method for assessing startups' contribution to ecological sustainability (Swedish, machine translation).
PRO subscribers learned about many more news last week, including many exclusives on early-stage startups that have not been covered or reported anywhere else. Join PRO now.
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Selected Swedish tech startup jobs
A non-exhaustive selection of open positions at Swedish tech startups.
• Co-founder (Tribl)
• Computational Protein Engineer (IONLACE)
• Customer Service Specialist (Sendify)
• Full Stack Developer (Leonh)
• Backend Developer (DBT Capital)
• Various roles, including Partner Account Manager (Velory)
• .NET backend Developer (Fintower)
• Senior Frontend Developer (Wimt)
• Campaign Manager (Podspace)
Special shout-out to my partner Eivora for providing me with access to their awesome AI-powered ownership database of Swedish companies.
Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond
• German VC firm Project A has raised its fifth fund – and largest to date – of €325M to back European startups at pre-seed and seed (English).
• American e-signature giant DocuSign has threatened legal action against Spryngtime, a similar product created using Swedish AI-powered app builder Lovable (English).
• "Lovable is a 'Shopify for SaaS'" – how to monetize something so monumental in the best way (English)?
• Norwegian software firm Visma has provisionally picked London for its IPO next year (English).
• Thinking Machines Lab, launched and led by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, raises $2B in the biggest seed round ever (English).
• 🎧 Podcast conversation about "the fall of TechCrunch Europe & the future of European tech media" – mostly from a tech PR perspective (English / 41 minutes).
Other interesting things related to Sweden
• Swedish PM calls for a pause of the EU’s "confusing" AI rules (English).
• Clark Olofsson, a Swedish serial criminal most known for the 1973 bank robbery that gave rise to the “Stockholm syndrome” expression, has died at the age of 78 (English, Swedish).
• Swedish songwriters "have cracked the code for K-Pop", according to a report from the collecting society STIM (English).
• Two Swedish eateries made it into the 2025 ranking of "The World's 50 Best Restaurants": Frantzén in Stockholm (#38), and Vyn near Simrishamn (#47) (English).
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That's it for this week. Thank you for being a subscriber!
Martin
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