News February 15, 2023: Plant, Soultech, Petli, AI Medical Technology, Ribbn, Rerun, Motatos and more

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

Funding news

• Plant (Stockholm, SaaS solution for the real estate and construction sector to identify and reduce the climate impact): SEK6M (€540K, $580K) from AGV Invest (Swedish / Breakit paywall).
• Soultech (Stockholm, customer conversation platform for brands): SEK5M (€450K, $480K) from angel investors including Nils van de Poel, Mikael and Annica Kjellman, Bengt Maunsbach, Olof Faxander, Gustav Hagman, Anton Johansson and Viktor Emilsson (via mail, additional article in Swedish).
• Petli (Stockholm, dog training app): SEK5M (€450K, $480K) from Bling Capital as well as angel investors Heini Zackariassen, Theis Søndergaard and Sebastian Knutsson (Swedish, machine translation).
• Norrsken22, the Africa-focused VC fund initiated by Norrsken, co-led a $20M Series B round raised by Nigeria-based startup Smile Identity, provider of ID verification and KYC compliance solutions in Africa (English).

>> As subscriber, you have access to my exclusive curated Google sheet with all funding rounds.

News from Swedish startups, the tech sector and VCs

• Stockholm-based startup AI Medical Technology hopes to obtain a CE marking for its AI-powered diagnostic support tool for skin cancers during spring, after conducting a successful clinical study involving 37 pimary healthcare centres and 240 patients in Sweden. The goal is to start offering the solution as SaaS to healthcare providers later during 2023 (Swedish, machine translation). The company recently raised a SEK10.8M funding round.
• Ribbn is an AI-powered commerce platform for resale merchants unveiled today; co-founded by Vendela Ragnarsson and Joshua Beach, previously co-founders of Stockholm-based secondhand fashion platform Rerobe. Vendela Ragnarsson, who takes the CEO role, writes that Ribbn is the result of 3 years of iterations with and learnings from ReRobe. Moving forward, ReRobe will be led by Sophie Tillquist. Ribbn is based in Stockholm and Albuquerque, New Mexico (English).
• Rerun, Stockholm-based startup developing software for logging and visualizing computer vision, launched its Beta on Product Hunt today. "We’re building the visualization stack for computer vision that I have always dreamt of as a developer", writes co-founder and CEO Nikolaus West (English). Last summer, the company raised a $3.2M pre-seed round.
• Motatos, Stockholm-based online seller of surplus production and overstocks known as Matsmart on the Swedish market, launched in Austria. It's the company's sixth market and will at least initially be managed from Berlin (German, machine translation). In other news, Motatos announced Kris Beyens, CFO of Wolt and former COO and CFO of Skyscanner, as new Chairman of the Board (English, Swedish).
• Camilla Bergman, former CEO of Swedish startup news site Breakit, is working on a new media and news platform focused on niches within the Swedish B2B sector (Swedish, machine translation).
• The Swedish non-profit The Inner Foundation, founded and funded by VC Pär-Jorgen Pärson and his wife Annika Sten Pärson, published an open call for applications from social enterprises, programs or initiatives from Africa, Northern America and Europe (outside the Nordic countries), that "have an innovative approach to shaping long-term positive inner health for emerging adults" (English).
• 🎧 A newly formed trade union branch at Spotify Sweden has seen hundreds of members signing up, after the recent job cuts (English, 6 minutes).

Swedish tech earnings

• Acast (Stockholm, podcasting platform, publicly listed) published its year-end report 2022 (English).
• Upsales (Stockholm, B2B sales & marketing platform, publicly listed) published its year-end repor 2022 (English).
• Renewcell (Stockholm, alternative materials manufacturer for the textile industry, publicly listed) published its year-end report 2022 (Engish).
• Safeture (Lund, employee safety platform, publicy listed) published its year-end report 2022 (English).
• Skolon (Karlshamn, digital learning tool, publicly listed) published its year-end report 2022 (Swedish, machine translation).
• M.O.B.A. Network (Stockholm; acquires, develops and operates gaming communities for the global gaming market, publicly listed) published its year-end report 2022 (English).

Other interesting things related to Sweden

• SAS Scandinavian Airlines was hit by a cyber attack on February 14th, compromising its app. Some customers were presented with some information belonging to other people. According to SAS, no sensitive data was compromised (English, Swedish).
• IKEA has introduced a smart indoor air quality sensor named Vindstyrka. It will be released in all markets starting in April (English).

+++

That's it for today.