News April 29, 2024: X Shore, Cetasol, AI Medical Technology, Sproud, STILFOLD, BonusBlock, Terra Labs, Asker, Joint Academy, Dagligvaruklipp, Exparang, Neko Health, Sportscom, SweIoT, and more

Here are today's news from Sweden's startup and tech sector, exclusively for you as subscriber of Swedish Tech News PRO.

Funding news

⬜️ publicly traded

• X Shore (Nyköping, maker of all-electric boats, founded 2016): SEK100M (€8.5M) from several existing major shareholders, including company founder Konrad Bergström. The latter has not been operationally involved with X Shore for several years, but has apparently now come back (according to the press release), following a period of struggle and "down rounds" for X Shore. According to Breakit, the pre-money valuation was SEK220M (English, Swedish / Breakit paywall). The company raised its previous round, which amounted to SEK300M at a reported post-money valuation of SEK1B, around a year ago. So the new valuation appears to be massively lower, again. In November, the new CEO René Hansen took over at the helm. Previous CEO Jenny Keisu is now working on a new startup, in the electric vehicle / sports car space.
• Cetasol (Gothenburg, AI-powered energy optimization solutions for small and medium-sized vessels, founded 2021): €2M ($2.1M) in a seed funding round from international investors Sarsia, ShipsFocus, and Impact X Capital. The startup will use this funding "to move towards volume sales of the products" (English). Cetasol previously raised funding from Volvo Penta and Qamcom, the initiators of the company.
• AI Medical Technology (Stockholm, AI powered diagnostic solutions enabling healthcare providers to make faster and more reliable diagnoses, founded 2020): SEK12M (€1M, $1.1M) in an oversubscribed bridge financing round raised from existing investors, including Northern Venture CapSek, and unspecified new investors. The money will be used to "support ongoing regulatory efforts and development of the company’s AI-driven support tool, Dermalyser, a clinically validated decision support tool for the diagnosis of malignant melanomas" (English). I covered a small part of this funding on April 12 in the "unannounced funding" section. As I wrote then, the pre-money valuation was SEK102.5M, up 33% from a year ago.
• Sproud (Malmö, producer of a milk drink made from peas, founded 2018): SEK10M (€850K, $920K) from existing major shareholders, including Findeln, Dream Beverage Group, and London-based VGC Partners (Swedish, machine translation). This follows a SEK15M funding round raised in late 2023 (according to data from Bolagsverket, at a pre-money valuation of SEK25M – massively down from previous valuations).
• STILRIDE / STILFOLD (Stockholm, technology for manufacturing personal mobility devices using industrial origami, founded 2020): SEK5M (€430K, $460K) grant from EIT Manufacturing, for the newly launched training initiative MetaFold Academy, which is aimed at advancing green manufacturing practices within the automotive sector (English).
• BonusBlock (Stockholm, marketplace with AI-driven data scoring that connects Web3 projects with quality users, founded 2023): undisclosed amount from VNTRs, in first funding (English). 🆕 More information about this new company on the early-stage startup tracker page, and in the "new startups" Google Sheet.

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Unannounced funding