News February 23, 2023: Doconomy, Dreams Technology, Lexly, Your Speech Factory, Senseworks, Ambient, Quickbit, &Repeat and more

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

Mergers & acquisitions

• Doconomy (Stockholm, creator of climate-friendly fintech solutions), is acquiring Dreams Technology, Stockholm-based engagement banking platform. Financial terms were not disclosed, but according to Di Digital, the deal is worth SEK418M (€38M, $40M), and Doconomy will be valued at close to SEK1.5B after completing the transaction. Doconomy says it is going to incorporate Dreams Technology’s proprietary platform to its suite of leading environmental impact measurement tools (English, Swedish / Di Digital paywall).

Funding news

• Lexly (Stockholm, provider of online legal services): SEK19.3M (€1.7M, $1.8M) from unspecified existing investors. The money will be used to, among others things, drive further growth in the Nordics and Brazil, Lexly founder and CEO Magnus Stein tells me.
• Flow Motion Technology (Östersund, sports technology company with a patented technology that enhances athlete performance within the ice skate, inline skate and ski markets): SEK11M (€1M, $1.1M) from new and existing investors, among them Geltis and 23 NHL ice hockey players (Swedish / Breakit paywall).
• Your Speech Factory (Limhamn, AI communication coach for crafting and delivering brilliant presentations): SEK4.2M (€380K, $400K) from Almi Invest and undisclosed angel investors (Swedish / Breakit paywall).
• Senseworks (Umeå, financial audit collaboration platform): SEK15M (€1.4M, $1.4M) in a funding round led by Curitas Ventures, with participation from Bywit, Partnerinvest as well as angel investors including Sara Uhlén and Helene Willberg, for product development and the international expansion (Swedish / Breakit paywall).

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

News from Swedish startups, the tech sector and VCs

• Ambient is the new name of Stockholm-based open-source multiplayer game engine Dims. The startup, which was founded in 2021, just announced its version 0.1. This morning I saw it ranked #1 on the Hacker News front page, which is quite an achievement and means lots of traffic. According to data from Bolagsverket, Ambient so far only registered a small funding round of SEK4M (€360K, $380K) in late 2021; unannounced, as far as I can tell.

• Quickbit, publicly listed Stockholm-based crypto exchange, is reducing its workforce by one third to "improve its cash position". Most recently, the company had a bit more than 50 employees (English).
• &Repeat, Stockholm-based startup operating a deposit system for collecting disposable food packaging, is part of a first large-scale pilot project in which 20 stores of the convenience store chain Pressbyrån will test offering drinks in reusable to-go cups (Swedish, machine translation).
• Spotify launches a feature called “DJ” which delivers a curated selection of music alongside AI-powered spoken commentary about the tracks and artists a user likes, using what Spotify says is a “stunningly realistic voice.” The feature is initially only available in the US and Canada (English).
• PriceRunner CEO Mikael Lindahl is leaving the company, 9 months after Klarna's acquisition of the shopping comparison site was completed (Swedish, machine translation).
• Schibsted-owned classifieds juggernaut Blocket launched Honk in Sweden, a marketplace for car subscriptions (Swedish, machine translation).
• 🎧 “I wish all VCs would be forced to run a fundraising process from the founder perspective", says Sabina Wizander, Partner at Creandum and formerly member of Kry's C-level team, in this podcast interview (English, 33 minutes).

Swedish tech earnings

• Fragbite Group (Stockholm, global group of gaming and e-sports companies, publicly listed) published its year-end report 2022 (English).
• Duearity (Malmö, next generation medical device made solely for the treatment and alleviation of tinnitus, publicly listed) published its year-end report 2022 (Swedish, machine translation).
• Greater Than (Stockholm, AI-based predictive risk insights for auto insurance carriers, publicly listed) published its year-end report 2022 (English, PDF).
• Bricknode (Skövde, B2B focused SaaS cloud banking software, publicly listed) published its year-end 2022 report (English).

Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond

• Dealroom published a climate tech guide (English).
• How to think about balancing founder intuition vs. team expertise, and how that changes over time (English).

Other interesting things related to Sweden

• Struggling Swedish EV maker Nevs is halting its operation to avoid bankruptcy. Almost all of the 340 employees will likely be laid off (Swedish, machine translation).
• More than 100,000 people became Swedish residents in 2022. The top 5 countries of origin: Swedish-born people returning home, India, Poland, Germany and Syria (English).

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That's it for today.