Swedish Tech Weekly #338: Trialbee, Medlo, Reason, Sigrid, Librar, Stilta, Altris, Vips, WODMotions, Elfcare, BLING Incubator, hackathons, 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.

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• The US-based healthcare PE firm Varsity Healthcare Partners is acquiring a majority stake in Trialbee, Malmö-based startup digitalizing patient recruitment and retention for clinical trials (English).

• Medlo (Stockholm, SaaS platform for healthcare staffing) is being acquired by Stockholm-based recruiting and staffing SaaS provider Intelliplan (Swedish, machine translation).

• Etraveli Group, Swedish online flight booking technology provider, is acquiring Israel-based AI travel pricing platform Wenrix (English).

• Reason Studios, Swedish music software pioneer founded in its original form in 1994, is being sold from its majority owner Verdane to Canada-based industry peer LANDR (English).

PRO subscribers last week learned more details about these deals.

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

• Sigrid Therapeutics (Stockholm, pioneering a non-pharmaceutical approach to blood sugar control and weight management): SEK45M (€4.2M, $5M) from existing and new investors (funding details page).

• Librar (Stockholm, AI-native library system for schools, museums, and archives): $500K from Y Combinator, as the startup was selected for the YC winter 2026 batch. ➡️ YC participation first covered in PRO on December 16. Startup first covered in PRO on October 21.

• Stilta (Stockholm, agentic workspace for IP teams): $500K from Y Combinator, as the startup was selected for the YC Winter 2026 batch. ➡️ YC participation and startup first covered in PRO on December 16.

• Altris (Uppsala, developer of sustainable sodium-ion batteries): undisclosed amount from existing investor Clarios, as part of an "extended strategic partnership and commitment to serial production" (funding details page).

• Vips (Uppsala, platform connecting qualified students to service industry businesses with staffing needs): undisclosed amount in first funding from the investment firm KAG (funding details page). ➡️ Startup first covered in PRO on August 28.

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

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• Ashley Lundström, until recently Stockholm-based partner at Swedish VC firm EQT Ventures, announced that she co-founded a startup, currently in stealth mode (English).

• WODMotions, based in Stockholm, launched its sensor and AI-powered feedback system for functional fitness, in beta (English). ➡️ Startup first covered in PRO in October 2023

• Elfcare, provider of preventive healthcare through advanced diagnostics and early detection founded last year, has reached profitability, and cites an annual run rate of SEK33M (Swedish / Di Digital paywall).

• Martin Willers, co-founder of Transparent, is stepping down as CEO of the Stockholm-based modular electronics maker. But he'll continue his "mission to fix broken systems" (English). ➡️ PRO subscribes recently learned what he'll do next (hint: a new startup).

• Magnus Liungman, co-founder of PeakPath (formerly Nudge Labs), is stepping down as CEO of the performance coaching platform for Big-3 and Big-4 partners and professionals, and handing over at the helm to co-founder Max van Eijk (English).

• Henrik Hjelte, founder of Swedish blockchain infrastructure company ChromaWay, has stepped down as CEO, eleven years after the inception – reportedly, due to pressure from shareholders (Swedish / Breakit paywall).

• Oscar Täckström, Chief Scientist at Sana, published an op-ed in Forbes praising the Swedish unicorn factory (English).

• BLING Incubator has opened the applications for its second cohort, and is increasing the maximum investment amount per company to SEK500K (English).

• Sting, Stockholm-based startup incubator and accelerator, is hiring a Head of Marketing & Communication (English).

• This year's Techarena conference in Stockholm, which takes place February 11-12, will be accompanied for the first time by a major hackathon called “BUILDARENA” (English).

• Gothenburg's upcoming GoWest conference will also get its own hackathon this year, on January 28 (English).

• This year's Nordic EdTech Summit will take place in Oslo (NO) on September 9 (English). ➡️ Added to the Swedish tech event calendar

• Many Swedish VC firms are planning to raise or close new funds in 2026 (Swedish / Di Digital paywall).

• Hanna Andreen, who recently stepped down as CEO of Flat Capital, will soon join the investment team at another publicly listed Swedish investment firm, namely Creades (Swedish / Di paywall).

• Sandwater, Norway-based VC firm, is looking for an Investment Professional for the firm's Stockholm office (English).

• 🎧📺 Video podcast interview with Creandum founder Staffan Helgesson, on topics such as a fund turning out great despite not looking successful initially, the firm's Lovable investment, the long-term strategy behind the San Francisco office, and more (English / 43 minutes).

• A startup helping stock traders use AI to find strategies that work, raised first unannounced funding

• More details on a yet-to-be-announced major funding round, led by one of the earliest Lovable backers

• A startup in the AI agent payments space founded by a serial founder and former Spotify engineer, as well as experienced technical leaders, is closing its pre-seed round

• A serial founder, who was just forced to give up on her previous startup, is already founding her next company – in the AI-driven fashion shopping space

• More details on the next startup founded by a member of the "Depict mafia"

• A new startup launched an open source, Discord-like chat and VoIP platform

• Sweden's probably most relentless iterator/pivoter

• A medtech startup which developed an affordable device to continuously and wirelessly measure clinically relevant vitals, is bankrupt

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

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

• Chief Technology Officer (Treebula)
• Marketing & Growth Lead (Mammaträning)
• Various, incl Frontend Developer, Backend Developer, Customer Support Manager (Pigello)
• Senior Full Stack Engineer (Uniplay)
• Product Marketing Manager (Ingrid)
• Marketing Manager (Leyr)
• Product Insights Analyst (Natural Cycles)
• Business Developer – Founder's associate (Insurely)
• Head of Data and AI (DanAds)

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 global venture capital market hit its second-highest annual total on record in 2025, according to PitchBook data (English).

• Crunchbase on the other hand describes 2025 as the "third-highest venture financing year on record" (English).

• Review My Investor is a new platform founded by a US VC that's encouraging founders to anonymously review startup investors.

• Equity-refresh grants: A primer for Series A founders (English).

• How to find a technical co-founder – and what to stop doing, to increase the chances of finding one (English).

• Predictors of startup failure (English).

• “College dropout" has become the most coveted startup founder credential (English).

• A market researcher invented a fake luxury paperweight company, spread three made-up stories about it online, and watched AI tools confidently repeat the lies (English).

• Since early 2023, there have been 770 cases of student suspensions at 33 Swedish universities and colleges, due to AI cheating. Almost 500 cases occurred in 2025 (Swedish, machine translation).

• IKEA is now selling an USB-C charger for only a few bucks (English).

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

Martin