News February 1, 2024: Heart Aerospace, Fragsheet, Nenda, PluvioFlow, Medlo, CAKE, GoCiklo, Hypertype, Leya, Venture Cup, and more

Here are today's news from Sweden's startup and tech sector.

Funding news

⬜️ publicly traded

• Heart Aerospace (Gothenburg, manufacturer of an electric regional airplane, founded 2018): $107M in Series B funding from new investor Sagitta Ventures, and existing investors Air Canada, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, European Innovation Council Fund, EQT Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, Norrsken VC, United Airlines, and Y Combinator (English). No valuation is known. Di Digital reports that close to half of the cash had been obtained previously, but was only now converted into equity (Swedish / Di Digital paywall).
• Fragsheet (Stockholm, platform for gamers to find other players and e-sports and gaming-related events, founded 2021): SEK7.8M (€690K, $750K) from angel investors and the marketing agency King. According to data registered with Bolagsverket (via Eivora), the funding was raised in several tranches at widely varying share prices, which is why I am unable to point out a definite valuation. This capital injection comes in addition to the SEK3.25M in funding which I covered in May 2023, bringing the total funding to roughly SEK11M. Breakit reports that Fragsheet has now 150,000 users, and is seriously starting to monetize its platform this year (Swedish, machine translation).
• Nenda (Stockholm, streaming service for businesses, founded 2019): SEK7M (€620K, $670K) from angel investors Andreas Lind and Johan Hernmarck, as well as existing angel investors. The company cites operating 645 screens in commercial environments, reaching one million people per month (Swedish, machine translation). Total equity funding registered with Bolagsverket amounts to around SEK27M (including this new round which has not been registered yet). For 2022, Nenda reported net revenue of SEK2.6M (up 4x from 2021), and a loss of -SEK9.2M (vs -SEK8M in 2021).
• PluvioFlow (Lund, developer of simulation tools for hydrological modeling, founded 2023): undisclosed amount in pre-seed funding from Sandberg Development and LU Holding (English) 🆕 More information about this new company on the early-stage startup tracker page, or in the Google Sheet.
• Update on the funding raised by OptiBinary which I covered in the "unannounced funding" section two days ago: Impact Loop talked with the startup's co-founder and CEO Per Hallendorf about the round and specifies the investor list: Almi invest, Speed Capital, Triangel Invest, and private investors (Swedish / Impact Loop paywall).
• Update on the funding raised by LingoLooper which I covered in the "unannounced funding" section on Jan 8: The equity funding amounting to SEK1.6M (as previously reported) was raised from Yuncture, and the angel investors Lasse Birk Olesen and Jacob Hansen, co-founder and CEO Danielle Karlsson confirms to me. Additionally, LingoLooper received around SEK600K in a grant from the Region Västra Götaland.
• In a follow-on investment, Mudcake (formerly Trellis Road), participated in a $15.4M Series A funding round raised by German startup Planet A Foods, which is focused on producing food ingredients that are decoupled from limited resources & exploitation (English).

Unannounced funding

• Medlo (Stockholm, SaaS platform for healthcare staffing, founded 2017): SEK2.1M (€190K, $200K) from undisclosed investors (most likely primarily existing ones), at a pre-money valuation of SEK25.1M – down 55% from spring 2021, after the company raised SEK6M. Total equity funding registered so far amounts to SEK11M, raised from angel/private investors. For 2022, Medlo reported net revenue of SEK3.1M (total revenue was SEK7.9M), up 3x from 2021, and a near-break-even result.

The information in this section is based on public data registered with Bolagsverket (Swedish Companies Registration Office), and represents a curated, non-exhaustive selection.

Data from Bolagsverket is sourced via Eivora.

News from Swedish startups, the tech sector and VCs

• CAKE, the struggling Stockholm-based electric motorcycle startup founded in 2016, has filed for bankruptcy, after a planned bridge round of SEK80M only received half the amount in commitments. CEO Stefan Ytterborn believes that the company's existing six different share classes may have deterred potential new investors (English, Swedish / Di Digital paywall, Swedish #2, machine translation). CAKE has raised around SEK700M in funding from the likes of Creandum, AMF, Headline, Back in Black, and others.
• GoCiklo, a Stockholm-based startup founded in late 2021, is launching battery swapping stations in the Swedish capital, aimed at delivery drivers on light electric vehicles (this is how it looks like). This follows a first launch in Gothenburg in September 2023 (Swedish, machine translation). The company was founded by Mattias Tingvall, Kristoffer Myhrman, and Roland Elander. It has not registered any equity funding with Bolagsverket so far, but at least partly funded its operations to date through the Swedish product-as-a-service financing provider Lisa&, according to this LinkedIn post.
• Hypertype, Stockholm-based startup founded in 2021 offering an AI email assistant, has recruited the well-known Swedish influencer Margaux Dietz on a project basis to support the company in marketing and sales. Dietz is also becoming a shareholder (Swedish, machine translation). Hypertype, founded in 2021 by Teenie Fung and Beatrice Baltscheffsky, was one of the first startups in Sweden to seize the genAI opportunity, when it launched in March 2023. One year previous to that, the company raised its only funding round to date, SEK12M in pre-seed funding led by Luminar Ventures.
• Leya, the Y Combinator-backed Stockholm-based generative AI company aiming to build the future of professional legal services (previous coverage), is launching on the Spanish market (Spanish, machine translation).
• Venture Cup opened the applications for the annual startup competition "STARTUP" (Swedish, machine translation).
• The nominations for the Nordic Women in Tech Awards 2024 have opened.

Swedish tech earnings

⬜️ publicly traded

• Awaio (Jönköping, booking platform for sharing office spaces, founded 2020) reported net revenue of SEK5.2M for the financial year ending August 2023 (up 2.5x from the previous period), and a profit of SEK1M. The company has not raised larger outside equity funding, aside from some pre-seed funding from Propel Capital/Sting.
• Vitec Software Group ⬜️ (Umeå, provider and acquirer of standardized software and SaaS solutions for various niches, founded 1985): year-end report 2023 (English).
• Kinnevik ⬜️ (Stockholm, investment company): year-end report 2023 (English).

Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond

• The annual Nordic State of AI report released by Finland's Silo AI is out (English / PDF with 70 pages)

Other interesting things related to Sweden

• Sweden's central bank says it might soon cut the country's main interest rate (English, Swedish).
• Volvo Cars plans to stop funding its publicly traded subsidiary Polestar and evaluates a distribution of Polestar shares to Volvo Cars’ shareholders (English).

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That's it for today.