Swedish Tech Weekly #344: Agaton, Westra, Argus Eye, Altris, CubaseBio, Hybridity, Vålt, NSS Water, Aurora Arts, Forecasterly, AAX Biotech, DAJE Prevent, Spec-Imaging, SSE Business Lab, HETCH, Strawberry, GoRead, Rankad, Tandem Health, Aira, 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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Send press releases about funding rounds, and other potentially relevant news, to news@swedishtechnews.com.

• Agaton (Stockholm, domain-specific AI agents for sales teams): $10M in a seed funding round led by Alstin Capital and Inception Fund (funding details page). ➡️ Funding first covered in PRO February 11; startup first covered in PRO in February 2025.

• Westra, formerly n-Ink (Norrköping, develops and supplies advanced conductive polymers for modern electronics): €4M ($4.7M) in equity funding and €2.5M ($3M) grant from EIC Accelerator (English).

• Argus Eye (Linköping, sensor solutions for real-time monitoring of biological systems and processes): €2.5M ($3M) grant from EIC Accelerator. The company also has the option of up to €3.75M in equity funding (English).

• Altris (Uppsala, developer of sustainable sodium-ion batteries, founded 2017): €2.5M ($3M) grant from EIC Accelerator. Altris also has the option of an equity investment of up to €10M (English).

• CubaseBio (Stockholm; solution that enables true 3D spatial analysis at scale, unlocking biological insights and accelerating drug discovery): €3.9M ($4.6M) led by Voima Ventures and Nordic Science Investments (funding details page).

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• Hybridity (Stockholm, AI-native compliance platform for the finance sector): SEK22M (€2.1M, $2.45M) from new angel and private investors (funding details page).

• Vålt (Stockholm, provider of EV charging box installations and optimization): SEK10M (€940K, €1.1M) credit facility from Almi and SEB (Swedish, machine translation).

• NSS Water (Bengtsfors; develops and delivers advanced solutions for the production of nano-pure water, with a strong focus on the semiconductor industry): SEK7.2M (€670K, $790K) from Grow Venture Partners and SkyDeck Europe, as well as existing investors (funding details page).

• Aurora Arts (Skövde, developer of the upcoming open world pet collecting role-playing game Fae & Fauna): SEK7M (€660K, $780K) in follow-on funding from game entrepreneur Ellen Mellåker (funding details page).

• Forecasterly (Stockholm, AI-powered financial planning for modern organizations): SEK6M (€560K, $660K) in an angel round led by DHS Venture Partners ((Swedish / Breakit paywall). ➡️ Funding amount first covered in PRO on February 6. Startup first covered in PRO in August 2024.

• AAX Biotech (Stockholm, proprietary technologies that solve unmet needs in the development of next-generation antibody therapeutics): SEK5M (€470K, $550K) from Trio Impact Invest (English, Swedish / Impact Loop paywall).

• DAJE Prevent (Falun; develops head protection for football players, especially adapted for children and young people): SEK3.5M (€330K, $390K) from Almi Invest and Engermatt Consulting AB (funding details page)

• Spec-Imaging (Lund, optical tools for direct analysis of turbid liquids): undisclosed amount from Sandberg Development (Swedish, machine translation). ➡️ More details about this funding first covered in PRO on January 28.

• [PRO] The founder and CEO of a globally popular, US-based consumer app company, has made their first known investment in a Swedish startup.

• [PRO] A Swedish fintech in the consumer financing space, which does not get a lot of media attention, crossed the valuation of SEK1B in a recent, unannounced funding round.

• [PRO] A startup from southern Sweden that's building a generative AI engine for video games, raised yet-to-be-announced funding at a 220% valuation increase.

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

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• Strawberry has officially launched its AI browser to the broader public. The Stockholm-based startup is targeting information workers, promising them to "bring intuitive AI automation to existing workflows" (English).

• SSE Business Lab unveiled its first 2026 batch, comprising eight startups (of which one is still in stealth, and one US-based) (English).

• SSE Business Lab is again the highest ranking Swedish startup hub in Europe, at #7, according to the annual list from The Financial Times and Statista (English).

• HETCH, the Helsingborg-based tech hub, announced batch VII of its accelerator program, also comprising eight startups (English).

• Storytel founder Jonas Tellander is one of the four founders of GoRead, a startup providing an AI-powered platform for seamlessly publishing a book (Swedish, machine translation). ➡️ GoRead emerged from the startup pearch, which I first covered in PRO in February 2023.

• Klarna reported a 38% year-over-year revenue increase to $1.08B, and a $26M net loss, down from a $40M profit in Q4 2024 (English).

• Di Digital ranked the 91 highest valued unlisted Swedish tech companies. Lovable tops the ranking (English, Swedish / Di Digital paywall).

• Apropos Lovable: The company launched a partner program for VCs and accelerators/incubators, through which their portfolio companies can get free credits (English).

• Rankad, a Gothenburg-founded startup building tools to help brands get recommended by LLMs, moved to San Francisco and joined the college-inspired accelerator program The Residency (English). ➡️ Startup first covered in PRO on October 30.

• Tandem Health, Stockholm-based provider of a solution for AI-powered medical notes, is expanding into the veterinary space (English).

• Aira, Stockholm-based D2C clean energy tech installer, launched a feature letting customers synchronise their Aira Heat Pump or Aira Home Energy System "with any energy tariff", promising "significant energy bill savings" (English).

• The public transport pilot test of a hydrofoiling electric ferry made by Swedish startup Candela operating on a commuter line in Stockholm, was "a large success" (Swedish, machine translation).

• Turbotic, based in Stockholm, released an open source version of its AI-powered automation platform for business transformation (English).

• TRUE, Stockholm-based platform for digital diplomas, certificates, awards and credentials, is being integrated with publicly listed Swedish e-identification provider Freja (Swedish, machine translation).

• TechCrunch writes about the numerous recent Sweden trips of New York-based Andreessen Horowitz Partner Gabriel Vasquez, to spot hot Swedish startups to invest in (English).

• Framtidsmat, a Malmö-based foodtech startup which until now focused on meal replacement powders for busy people, launched the new brand "Krismat" (crisis food), to offer nutrient-dense powdered products with long shelf life.

• A 33-year old male Swedish entrepreneur has been convicted of several crimes – among other things for physical abuse – against a woman, with whom he ran an unidentified VC-backed startup (Swedish / Breakit paywall).

• The Swedish tech industry has been hit by a disease of "Linkedinism" – a culture of constant praise with no critical commentary, writes Björn Jeffery (Swedish / SvD paywall).

• Companies that once received public support and then succeeded, could pay back a small share into a dedicated innovation pool, argue several Swedish deeptech founders and decision makers in an op-ed (English, Swedish).

• Sweden's success in creating unicorn tech companies has a lot to do with a virtuous cycle built on angel investors, write the professors Luis Garicano and Per Strömberg (English).

• Industrifonden, Sweden's third most active VC firm (according to my Leaderboard), has published the report "Swedish Deep Tech Landscape 2025" (English).

• Industrifonden also announced having hired Nayanika Bhalla as Associate on the Deep Tech team (English).

• Luminar Ventures, Sweden's fourth most active VC firm (according to my Leaderboard), announced Rikard Steiber as San Francisco-based Operating Partner (English).

• [PRO] A stealth mode startup from Stockholm is developing a solution for running agents locally, integrated into the OS.

• [PRO] A serial entrepreneur with various past startups under their belt – of which one got a lot of international attention, but was ahead of its time – is gearing up for the launch of a new AI agent startup, aimed at "people with missions that matter".

• [PRO] A Swedish startup entrepreneur who sold their due diligence & KYC platform, is now building a proptech startup from Mallorca.

• [PRO] A new founder-run workspace for "people who ship" first opened its doors in Stockholm, but already plans to expand to Malmö.

I covered many more news – many of which have not been reported elsewhere – and more details for each, in Swedish Tech News PRO last week.

These companies were covered in PRO three months ago, and added to the New Startups Database (submit your new startup here).

• Zafely (Malmö; app for online shoppers that analyzes e-commerce sites in real time to detect dropshipping, phishing, and fraud)

• mobelo (Stockholm, AI-powered platform for building and launching production-ready mobile shopping apps in seconds, without any coding)

• Aourly (Stockholm; all-in-one app for freelancers to take on projects, track their time, and invoice through their own company)

• Revolvec (greater Gothenburg area, developing a new type of engine for airplanes)

• Wattly (Stockholm; building a standard for bankable green infrastructure, connecting high-quality projects and institutional capital through an AI-enabled platform)

Last week, I added 29 new Sweden-based tech startups to the database for PRO subscribers.

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

• PropTech Awards – February 26 – Copenhagen (DK)
• Sting Demo Day – March 10 – Stockholm
• Swedish Big Science Forum – March 11-12 – Lund
• Assembly Conference – March 11 – Stockholm

For more major and flagship events, check the Swedish tech event calendar (PLUS/PRO subscription required).

Special shout-out to my partner Eivora for providing me with access to their awesome AI-powered ownership database of Swedish companies.

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

• Marketing & Community Manager (Aurora Arts)
• Customer Success Manager (Learnster)
• Manager of Customer Success (Gigapay)
• Various incl. AI Workflow Engineer, Security Engineer, Acquisition Marketing Manager (Kognity)
• Marketing Manager (Krea)
• Customer Success Manager (Mevisio)
• Various incl. Engineering Manager, Platform Engineer, others (Nextory)

To the listings

• PitchBook estimates that 25%+ of VC-backed unicorns have become “undercorns,” startups once valued at $1B or more by VCs but now valued below that threshold (English).

• Software is definitely not dead. Nor is SaaS. But pure software will be a much different (worse) business than it is today (English).

• Building and iterating an early-stage startup is like sculpturing, rather than painting (English).

• The government has unveiled Sweden's AI strategy (English, Swedish).

• Two government agencies and the Swedish Armed Forces are developing an app that will warn of air attacks against Sweden (English).

• A live tracking map of Stockholm’s public transport vehicles (English).

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

Martin