Swedish Tech Weekly #357: Qudak, Brickanta, Co_Made, Stilta, Inretrn, Curevo Health, PainDrainer, Emission Twin, Ozoreon, Crepitans, MediScale, Mai, eHud, Vera Policy, Klang, Salt & Fiber, Blykalla, 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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• Qudak (Stockholm, digital all-in-one production system for manufacturing companies) has been acquired by Swedish ERP systems provider Monitor ERP (English). ➡️ Added to the Exits Database for PRO subscribers

• Brickanta (Stockholm, agentic AI platform built for the work that moves construction projects forward) is "acquihiring" Praxiom AI, a tool for construction law built independently by construction lawyer Anne Wijkman, who now joins Brickanta (English).

• Co_Made, Stockholm-based holding and investment company, acquired the Danish startup Linkfire, which offers a smart link platform for the music industry (English).

• Dance, Germany-based ebike & moped subscription startup founded by the Swedes Eric Quidenus-Wahlforss and Alexander Ljung (previously founders of SoundCloud), alongside German repeat founder Christian Springub, has been acquired by Dutch industry peer Swapfiets (English).

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

• Stilta (Stockholm, AI for high-stakes patent work): $10.5M in a seed funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (funding details page). 📺 Startup first covered in PRO on December 16.

• Inretrn, formerly Easycom (Borås, return management platform): around SEK30M (€2.7M, $3.2M) from Viking Growth, which also acquires existing shares for close to SEK70M (English, Swedish / Di Digital paywall, funding details page).

• Curevo Health (Stockholm, digital platform for specialist care): SEK7M (€640K, $750K) in first funding from Dan Sten Olsson, Claes Dinkelspiel, Johan Färnstrand, and SSE Ventures (Swedish / Breakit paywall, funding details page).

• PainDrainer (Lund, app that lets patients self-manage chronic pain): SEK6M (€550K, $640K) from existing investors Almi Invest and Tramontane Invest (English, Swedish / Rapidus paywall, funding details page).

• Emission Twin, formerly The Ontology Way (Malmö, climate and sustainability platform): SEK4.3M (€400K, $460K) from existing investors, and new investor Kalle Nilvér (funding details page).

• Ozoreon, formerly Pure Bio Synergy Sweden (Västervik, ozone generator with a patented corona discharge cell for disinfection and water purification): SEK3M (€280K, $320K) from Pär Svärdson, among others (Swedish / Breakit paywall, funding details page).

• Crepitans (Stockholm; delivering safe, innovative, and reliable solutions for defense and security applications): undisclosed amount from Defensor, the Swedish defense group founded last year, which through the funding becomes majority shareholder (English).

• Modal, New York-based provider of AI infrastructure for developers co-founded and led by Swedish Spotify veteran Erik Bernhardsson, has raised a $355M Series C funding round, at a $4.65B valuation (English).

• [PRO last week] A successful Swedish founder led a funding round in a startup from northern Sweden.

• [PRO last week] A new startup founded by repeat founders and experienced leaders tackling one aspect of the EV ecosystem, raised first minor funding in an internal round.

• [PRO last week] A startup developing technology for runners and race organizers raised yet-to-be-announced funding at its highest valuation yet.

I covered many more funding rounds, and more details for each, in Swedish Tech News PRO last week. Learn how to get access to PRO.

• MediScale, based in Stockholm, has emerged from stealth mode. The company is developing an integrated hardware + software solution for digital narcotics journaling with built-in precision liquid measurement, built for healthcare providers (English). ➡️ Startup first covered in PRO in September 2025.

• Also out from stealth: Tonar, founded by ex-Kavall founders. The startup offers AI-native media monitoring for spoken media (English). ➡️ Startup first covered in PRO in April 2025.

• Mai, based in Gothenburg, has launched the "first self-serve platform where any private landowner can sign up and start monitoring their forest from space" (English). ➡️ Startup first covered in PRO on April 2025.

• eHud, a Stockholm-based startup founded last year by two dermatologists, has launched a digital dermatology clinic. ➡️ Startup first covered in PRO in June 2025.

• Vera Policy, formerly Kvantab, is launched its specialized AI for policy professionals across the EU (Swedish, machine translation). ➡️ Startup first covered in PRO in June 2024.

• AirForestry announced a milestone: The company's drone system harvested a tree in a real forest, as part of an autonomous harvest sequence (English).

• Gynius Plus, a Gothenburg-based startup which developed a portable colposcope for gynecologists in developing countries, is bankrupt, and being liquidated. ➡️ Bankruptcy covered in PRO on May 20.

• Klang, Helsingborg-based startup specialized in AI notetaking for high-stakes work, is collecting samples of Swedish dialects, and plans to release a full open dataset. Users can submit their contribution (Swedish).

• Salt & Fiber is a new Malmö-based startup aiming to transform beach-cast seagrass into high-performance textile fibers. The company is currently in the process of raising a €300K pre-seed round, as well as €45K through non-equity crowdfunding.

• Blykalla submitted the first-ever application to the Swedish government to build the nation’s first commercial advanced nuclear reactor park, two hours north of Stockholm (English).

• Voi has begun rolling out up to 4,500 shared e-bikes across Copenhagen, marking its return to the Danish capital after exiting the market in late 2023 (English).

• Spotify is releasing the ability for users to explore a topic by creating a private podcast about it (English).

• Truecaller, the publicly traded Swedish caller ID company, is starting to sell international eSIM to travelers who use its app (English).

• AllUnity, a German stablecoin startup, plans to offer a Swedish krona-backed stablecoin (English).

• Several Swedish players in the semiconductor sector have have released the strategic report "Sweden’s National Semiconductor Strategy 2035" (English).

• The first half of September is shaping up to be a busy season for (deep) tech events in Malmö (English). ➡️ Events added to the Swedish tech event calendar

• The applications for the next Sting Core program are open (English).

• Isabel Keulen will step down as CEO of SSE Business Lab and SSE Ventures after the summer (Swedish, machine translation).

• Ultra-wealthy Swedish tech entrepreneurs should contribute more to help solve societal challenges, argues celebrity photographer and media personality Bingo Rimér in a Breakit op-ed (Swedish, machine translation).

• EQT was selected as preferred investment advisor and fund manager for an upcoming €5B scaleup Europe fund, to be launched by the European Commission and fellow founding investors (English).

• Arctic Business, the Luleå-based incubator, accelerator and innovation hub, is looking for a new CEO (Swedish).

• Sting is hiring a Community and Events Manager in Stockholm (English).

• [PRO last week] A startup from western Sweden, which develops technology to accelerate the development of AI-powered robotics, manufacturing, and defense, has quietly emerged from stealth mode.

• [PRO last week] Another Swedish open-weight LLM provider has launched.

• [PRO last week] Bankrupt: A VC-backed platform for sustainable collaboration in logistics, and a sales tech startup which relied on an unconventional bootstrapping approach.

• [PRO last week] Fundraising for their pre-seed rounds: A B2B marketplace for reusable EV batteries, and an AI solution that offers competitive insights from analyzing all Swedish companies. PRO subscribers have access to the decks.

• [PRO last week] A Norway-founded HR tech / marketplace startup is moving to Stockholm, as the Swedish capital "has more high conviction early capital, and the talent has a totally different mindset; they know what «cracked» means", according to the 17-year old founder.

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. Learn how to get access to PRO.

You can upgrade to a PLUS or PRO plan, to get access to the following features:

Scale with Sweden – Learn how Swedish startups actually scale internationally, with Business Sweden. Join on May 26 in Gothenburg or May 28 in Malmö.

• Nordic Blockchain Conference – May 26-27 – Stockholm
• Breakit Resilience Summit – May 27 – Stockholm
• MobilityXlab Reconnect Day – May 27 – Gothenburg
• Nordic Scaleup Awards – May 28 – Stockholm

For subsequent major/flagship events, check the Swedish tech event calendar.

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

• CEO Shadow (Nørdsnipe)
• Various incl. Senior Developer, Marketer & Content Creator (Vendion)
• Lead Engineer (Nooga)
• Various incl. Founder's Associate, Founding Designer, Founding Engineer (Stilta)
• CTO (Standab)
• Various incl. Full Stack Developer, Community Lead, Senior Data Analyst (RankOne)
• Various incl. Legal Counsel, Financial Controller, Content Producer (Zinova)
• Full Stack Engineer (Agteria Biotech)
• CMO (Carla)
• Corporate Development Associate (Voi)
• Associate (Milkywire)
• Account Executive (North House)
• Founders Associate (Grale)
• Group Business Controller (Mindler)
• Senior Software Engineer (Greenely)

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.

• OpenAI/Sam Altman is offering to invest $2M in API credits in every startup of the current Y Combinator batch (English).
• Traditional SaaS had distribution moats. Top AI products benefit from a compounding loop (English).
• "Frontier AI providers are selling enterprises filet mignon at gas station hot dog prices" (English).
• Anthropic released a founder's playbook on building an AI-native startup (English).
• Nvidia is now holding equity stakes in startups worth $43B (English).
• That prolific (thought) leader whose LinkedIn posts are ubiquitous? They may have hired a virtual assistant in the Philippines for posting (English).

• In 2025, 35 percent of enterprises in Sweden used AI, an increase of 10 percentage points compared to 2024, according to a report from Statistics Sweden. It also finds that Sweden ranked #3 in Europe (together with Belgium) in terms of enterprise AI use (English).

• In the aftermath of the Northvolt collapse, it looks as though access to green electricity — rather than battery manufacturing — is one of the primary assets on offer, according to a new book (English).

• Sweden and the US have signed a memorandum of understanding on increased technology cooperation (Swedish, machine translation).

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

Martin