Swedish Tech Weekly #333: Molnett, eDeklarera, Stegra, Exeger, Roro,dd Nørdsnipe, Nordic SeaFarm, Kovant, Garba, Nordan AI, PopBy, Veat, Byhmgard, Mimo, ATTEX, Corvid Cleaning, and more

Welcome to 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 3139 subscribers.

• Molnett (Stockholm, European serverless cloud) has been acquired by Lovable (English). ➡️ Molnett first covered in PRO in February 2024.

• eDeklarera (Stockholm, tax reporting tool) is being acquired by publicly listed Växjö-based SaaS company Briox, for SEK33.5M (Swedish, machine translation).

Startup Recruitment is a leading recruitment partner for startups, scaleups, and industry leaders — combining AI-driven precision with human expertise.

We connect companies with AI-empowered talent that leverages their business and accelerates growth.

Whether you need headhunting or interim recruiters, we help you hire your business-critical team members — fast, and without compromising on quality.

👉 startuprecruitment.se

Send press releases about funding rounds, and other potentially relevant news, to news@swedishtechnews.com.

• Stegra (Stockholm, developer of a fossil-free steel plant being built in northern Sweden): €37M ($43M) grant from the Swedish Energy Agency's Industrial Leap program (English).

• Exeger (Stockholm, manufacturer of flexible solar cells made to power gadgets): SEK130M (€12M, $14M) grant from the Swedish Energy Agency's Industrial Leap program (Swedish, machine translation).

• Roro (Stockholm, game studio developing the 3D digital dollhouse game Hello Home): €2.7M ($3.1M) in a seed funding round led by Behold Ventures, with participation from 1Up Ventures and existing investors node.vc and FOV Ventures (details page).

• Nørdsnipe (Stockholm, human-in-the-loop AI tool for penetration testing): SEK20M (€1.8M, $2.1M) in first funding mostly from Sven Hagströmer via Biovestor. The company has now emerged from stealth mode (Swedish / Di Digital paywall). ➡️ Startup first covered in PRO in May; partial closing of this funding first covered in PRO on September 23.

• Nordic SeaFarm (Gothenburg, cultivating seaweed in nutritious Swedish waters): SEK19.6M (€1.8M, $2.1M) from undisclosed existing and new investors (Swedish / Impact Loop paywall).

• Kovant (Stockholm, autonomous enterprise platform): €1.5M ($1.7M) pre-seed funding round led by J12, with participation from Ampli Ventures, Greens Ventures, and angel investors (details page). ➡️ Funding first covered in PRO on September 5.

• Garba (Malmö, AI-powered sales intelligence platform, founded 2024): SEK4.5M (€410K, $470K) in an angel round from founders of GetAccept, Voyado, Inriver, and Refined, among others (details page). ➡️ Startup first covered in PRO on January 23; partial closing of this funding first covered in PRO on November 18.

I covered many more funding rounds, and more details for each, in Swedish Tech News PRO last week.

Startup founders: Request free access to my funding and investor database. Useful during your fundraising process.

A unique package with high quality curated data and information on Swedish tech startups, that you won't find anywhere.

• Nordan AI is a new Swedish AI lab founded by investor, serial founder, and operator Evelina Anttila (Swedish / Breakit paywall).

• Ten Swedish startups were selected for the second edition of the Sting Climate Race program (English).

• PopBy has now launched its new social network "built on top of the real world" in the App Store – and got it covered right away by Swedish public service TV (Swedish, machine translation). ➡️ Startup first covered in PRO on July 29.

• Veat, VC-backed startup from Stockholm selling plant-based foods via vending machines in public spaces, is bankrupt. ➡️ More details covered in PRO on Nov 26.

• Byhmgard, Halmstad-based BESS project developer whose planned acquisition was called off earlier this year, is going public at the Nordic Growth Market, through a reverse-merger (English, Swedish).

• Business Insider published a profile of Nordic Air Defence, and interview with Jens Holzapfel, the Swedish defense tech startup's director of business development (English).

• Mimo, Stockholm & London-based platform simplifying global payments, cash flow, and financial management for accountants and SME, announced a "first-of-its-kind AI accounting associate" named Mimo Associate (English).

• Leyr, Stockholm-based integration platform for healthcare provider, is launching in Denmark, the third country after Norway and Sweden (English).

• Candela and Stockholm's public transport provider SL are continuing their joint operation of the Swedish startup's electric hydrofoiling ferry on a commuter route in Stockholm – but this time on one east of the city (English).

• Tobii, Swedish eye-tracking technology pioneer, has spun-off its "attention data exchange" product ATTEX into its own adtech startup, co-founded together with repeat founder Maria Westergaard, who will lead the new company (English).

• Corvid Cleaning, a Stockholm-based startup (and international media darling) that envisioned to solve a city's waste problem by teaching wild crows to pick up cigarette butts by rewarding them with food, is bankrupt (English).

• Three startup founders were awarded Sweden’s most prestigious recognition of a talented, foreign-born entrepreneur: Saba Atefyekta (Amferia), Sara Nozkova (Flox), and Malika Haidari (Truxco) (Swedish, machine translation).

• Klarna will launch a U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin (English).

• Angel investors in Sweden expect to increase their invested amounts by 11%, even though sentiment remains at neutral levels, according to the latest "Investerarbarometern" survey by Connect Sverige. ➡️ PRO subscribers got access to the report

• Almi Invest GreenTech launched the Green Impact Framework – a new method intended to help investors and entrepreneurs assess the environmental benefits of early stage companies, even when data is limited (Swedish, machine translation)

• 🎧 At the turn of the year, Breakit will become fully owned by Swedish media group Bonnier, if the goals set during the initial 30% acquisition in 2023 are achieved – says Breakit co-founder Stefan Lundell in this podcast interview (Swedish / 40 minutes).

• An under-the-radar industrial AI robotics startup raised a first seven-digit-euro funding round – yet to be formally announced – from European VC firms.

• Two well connected investors and operators based in Stockholm are working on an AI-native product focused on builder events, currently in stealth.

• A repeat founder, who sold his previous company, is now developing AI for reducing fuel use and emissions at power plants.

• A new startup wants to help rejected job seekers get insights on the qualifications of the person who got a role instead.

• The founder of a long-running startup in the electronics space is building a new company that develops software for autonomous and robotic manufacturing systems.

• Repeat founders have launched "probably the best merch shopping experience on the internet".

• A stealth startup from Stockholm has quietly launched its AI fashion stylist.

• A stealth startup co-founded by a former professional ice hocker player from Sweden, raised first angel funding

And much more. PRO is read by many of Sweden's best and most active startup investors. Service providers targeting startups also find it useful.

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

• Software Engineer (KanEl)
• CTO / Founding Engineer (Dechora)
• Software Engineer – Mobile + Frontend Focus (Uniplay)
• Legal Counsel (Quartr)
• Junior Software Engineer (Hedvig)
• Finnish speaking Customer Success (Verified)
• Customer Success Manager (Position Green)
• Founding Software/AI Engineer (Quantera AI)
• Integration Project Manager (Junipeer)
• Chief Commercial Officer (Blykalla)
• Business Analyst / AI Engineer (Zimply)
• Manufacturing Engineer (Teenage Engineering)

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.

• "The funding round article is dead" (English).

• Norway's capital city Oslo now has a hub for young ambitious AI founders. "Founders Hub" is inspired by Stockholm's Founders House (English).

• "I reverse-engineered 200 AI startups. 146 are selling repackaged ChatGPT and Claude with new UI" (English).

• Tech analyst Benedict Evans published his second presentation for the year – even this one titled "AI eats the world" (English / 90 slides).

• "A randomly selected VC fund is 3.7x more likely to lose money than return 5x" (English).

• Swedish publishers group Utgivarna filed a police complaint against Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg over scam Facebook ads (English).

• English should become an official language in Sweden, alongside Swedish, argues VC Magnus Hambleton, in an op-ed in Dagens industri (Swedish, machine translation).

• The Swedish economy performed better than expected during Q3, growing 2.6% YoY (English, Swedish).

• Swedish public broadcast TV SVT accidentally presented an AI generated video as authentic (Swedish, machine translation).

• In many Swedish cities, food-delivery gig workers use two-stroke mopeds that emit harmful pollutants into the air. But the delivery apps deny responsibility (Swedish / DN paywall, Swedish #2, machine translation).

• Den sista milen ("The Last Mile") is a new book written by the journalist Julia Lindblom, highlighting "the invisible workers of e-commerce and the hidden price of fast packages" (Swedish, machine translation).

+++

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

Martin