Swedish Tech Weekly #322: Opper, FinetuneDB, Requtech, Geins, EcoDataCenter, Yangi, Standab, Aire, Enjay, StoneLeap, Saltfish, Vidde, SMAQO, Incredible, Brayns, aeoflo, Make Up My Mind, 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 PRO newsletters, which are available as daily and weekly version. Today's newsletter was sent to 3032 subscribers.

Mergers & acquisitions

• Opper (Stockholm, task completion API for AI) acquires Stockholm-based AI fine-tuning platform FinetuneDB (English).

• Evallic, a Stockholm-based defense tech group, has acquired an unspecified but likely significant stake in Requtech, Linköping-based developer of high-performance Satellite communications terminals (English).

• Geins (Stockholm, pre-composed commerce suite) is being acquired by Stockholm-based publicly traded e-commerce platform company Litium for SEK17.7M (English, Swedish).

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Funding news

Sweden-based startup founders, request free access to my funding and investor database. Almost 300 founders have already done so.

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.

• EcoDataCenter (Stockholm, data center company): €600M ($700M) in debt financing from Deutsche Bank Private Credit and Infrastructure (English).

• Yangi (Varberg, manufacturing technology for dry formed cellulose-based packaging): €10M ($12M) Series A funding round led by Industrifonden (English). ➡️ Funding first covered in PRO on August 26.

• Standab (Stockholm, infra-tech company that specializes in micromobility parking and smart city solutions): €3.6M ($4.2M) from Spintop Ventures and Almi Invest GreenTech (English).

• Aire, formerly Energy Director (Jönköping; AI-powered real-time energy optimization solution): SEK9M (€820K, $960K) from existing investors and undisclosed new investors (Swedish, machine translation). ➡️ Startup first covered in PRO in September 2023

• Enjay (Malmö, technology to recover the energy in kitchen fumes to heat the rest of the building): SEK8.4M (€770K, $900K) from existing investors Almi Invest Greentech, Philian and Peter Enberg (Swedish / Impact Loop paywall).

• StoneLeap (Stockholm, building a platform for AI-powered game creation with built-in monetization and global infrastructure): SEK8.2M (€750K, $880K) in a first funding round from angel investors (Swedish / Breakit paywall). ➡️ Startup first covered in PRO on August 25 ℹ️ Company details for PRO subscribers

• Saltfish (Stockholm, video platform for guiding users through the funnel): $730K first funding led by Antler, with participation from Further Than Capital, Operators & Friends, and additional angel investors. With this, Saltfish emerges from stealth mode (English). ➡️ Startup and partial closing first covered in PRO in October 2024 ℹ️ Company details for PRO subscribers

• Vidde (Jörn; world's only circular, electric snowmobile): SEK3.8M (€350K, $410K) grant from Tillväxtverket (The Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth) (English, Swedish / Impact Loop paywall).

• SMAQO (Gothenburg, creates next-generation fungi based foods for end consumers): undisclosed amount in first funding led by Good Startup (English). ➡️ Startup first covered in PRO on April 10 ℹ️ Company details for PRO subscribers

PRO subscribers learned about many more rounds last week. PRO subscribers also get full access to the unique Startup Database.

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News from the Swedish startup & tech sector

• Klarna went public last week, and raised $1.37B at a share price of $40 each, above the previous expected range of $35 to $37, valuing the company at just over $15B (English). The company is reportedly letting employees sell their shares during the IPO window, bypassing the typical lockup period of six months (English).

• Incredible, Jönköping-based AI startup formerly named VISS.AI, released its first Agentic Model, claiming that it can compete with world-leading AI companies "where it matters most: getting real work done". ℹ️ Company details for PRO subscribers

• Profile of Stockholm-based startup Brayns.ai and interview with co-founder and CEO Tara Abdi. Brayns is developing an "intelligent system built to replace the complexity, cost, and fragility of traditional compliance" (Swedish, machine translation). ➡️ Startup first covered in PRO on August 8 ℹ️ Company details for PRO subscribers

• aeoflo, a Stockholm-based startup, has unveiled its native AI SEO platform for e-commerce, promising to optimize websites specifically for AI readability (English). ➡️ Startup first covered in PRO on June 3 ℹ️ Company details for PRO subscribers

• Make Up My Mind, a new Stockholm-based startup, has launched what it describes as "the first service that compares the total price on the entire cart across retailers, not just on individual items" (English). ℹ️ Company details for PRO subscribers

• Songfox, Stockholm-based AI music creation startup, is the first company to operate under "the world’s first collective AI music license", unveiled by Swedish music rights society STIM (English). ➡️ Songfox pitchdeck covered in PRO in April 2024 ℹ️ Company details for PRO subscribers

• Re:meat, Malmö-based developer of technology for cultivated meat production, has signed a partnership to establish Scandinavia’s first cultivated meat facility in Lund (English). ℹ️ Company details

• The company behind Aimabel, an AI-powered platform for sustainable strategy and reporting, is bankrupt, according to public Swedish company data. ℹ️ Company details for PRO subscribers

• Nordic Air Defence (NAD), Stockholm-based startup developing high tech defensive solutions for both civilian and military use, is teaming up with Volvo to develop a new mobile counter-unmanned aircraft system (CUAS), aimed at protecting military vehicles against the growing threat of cheap, weaponized drones (English). ℹ️ Company details for PRO subscribers

• Lightbringer, Lund-based AI-powered all-in-one solution for patent protection, has officially launched – but already touts "70 fully paying clients" (Swedish / Rapidus paywall). ℹ️ Company details for PRO subscribers

• Jetson, Stockholm- & Palo Alto-based eVTOL developer, just completed its first delivery to a customer – Californian tech entrepreneur Palmer Luckey (English).

• Yazen, Malmö-/Lund-based weight loss platform, tops a new ranking from Sifted highlighting the 100 startups in the Nordic and Benelux countries with the strongest revenue growth over the past three financial years (English / image, English / Sifted paywall). ℹ️ Company details

• Sifted also shared a top list of the investors backing those 100 companies. Luminar Ventures is the highest ranked Swedish VC, claiming #3 (English / Sifted paywall).

• gopush is a newly launched digital platform and map intended to boost and showcase Gothenburg's & Västra Götaland's startup and innovation ecosystem.

• Meds, Sweden's second largest online pharmacy, plans to go public at the Nasdaq First North as soon as this month (Swedish, machine translation).

• Spotify is finally launching support for lossless music streaming, initially in 50 countries including Sweden (English).

• Odins.ai, a Norway-based platform promising to "make marketing measurable – and radically more effective", is launching in Sweden (English).

• Breakit published its annual list of the tech companies that pay the highest average salaries to their employees in Sweden. The top 10: Palantir (SEK309K/month), Facebook Sweden (SEK206K/month), Google Sweden (SEK190K/month), Evroc, Yubico, Spotify, Minna Technologies, Tink, Neo4j Sweden, and Sleep Cycle (Swedish / Breakit paywall).

• Angel Prize, the annual angel investor event which will take place in Stockholm on October 15 this year, opened the voting for the awards in several categories (English).

• Evelina Anttila is stepping down as CEO of Stockholm-based VC firm Wellstreet, "to pursue new ventures". Maria Lindholm, currently serving as Vice President, will succeed her (English).

Exclusives in PRO last week

• Two startups from the recent SSE Business Lab batch, that until now operated in stealth mode, came out of hiding

• A bootstrapped startup is launching a platform which aims to enable anyone to "build and ship voice agents for their websites or apps in minutes"

• A pet tech startup that focused on dog owners shut down

• A startup that raised pre-seed funding from a renowned Swedish accelerator, is relocating from Stockholm to Saudi Arabia, and shares the pitch deck for its early seed round

• A startup offering a consumer solution for verifying personal identities, is raising its second funding round

• A two-year-old bootstrapped startup focusing on a particular need of remote and global teams, grew revenue by 84% YoY to SEK7M

• 24 new Swedish tech startups

Selected Swedish tech startup jobs

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

• AI Systems Engineer (evroc)
• Computer Vision Engineer (Synclair Vision)
• Embedded Systems / Firmware Engineer (AUR+A)
• Security Engineer (Legora)
• Senior Product Manager (Mimo)
• Software Engineer - Backend (Scayl)
• Chief Operating Officer (Opti)
• Project Manager - Site Development (T.Loop)
• Head of Marketing (Bokadirekt)
• Customer Support Specialist (Padel Mates)
• Data Architect (Chapter Two)
• Full-stack Developer (Eningo)
• Financial Controller (Hemla)
• Lead Software Engineer (Agteria Biotech)
• Founder Associate, others (Polar)

To the listings

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

• Antler published a report titled "Europe’s Era of Execution" – described as "one of the largest studies of European founders ever conducted" (English)

• The Next Web, since 2019 majority-owned by the Financial Times, will be winding down its events and media operations (English).

• Why retention is so hard for new tech products, and how to apply these lessons to the current gen of AI apps (English).

• Red flags in a founder (English).

• A strategy for landing a job at a startup (English).

Other interesting things related to Sweden

• Stockholm ranks #32 and Gothenburg #97 in WIPO:s Global Innovation Index 2025, which identifies local concentrations of innovation activity (English).

• In 2026 Sweden will introduce a national mobile phone ban in primary and lower secondary schools (English).

• Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg is said to be the first in the world to begin trials with 3D-printed implants on humans (Swedish, machine translation).

• Temu, the Chinese e-commerce platform known for extremely low prices, has 2.4 million monthly active users in Sweden (Swedish, machine translation).

• Swedish consumers can now for the first time buy fish raised on feed containing mycoprotein (English).

• Visit Sweden, the government's marketing company, is launching an API to provide structured data and information relevant to Sweden's tourism sector (Swedish, machine translation).

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

Martin