News January 9, 2023: Posterton, C-Green, Omocom, Anyfin, CAKE and more

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

The first full "back to work" week in 2023 is starting a bit slow. No announced funding news today.

Mergers & acquisitions

• Posterton (Stockholm, online store for posters) is being acquired by the Swedish holding company THis Group for SEK65M (€5.8M, $6.2M) in stock, plus additional cash (English, Swedish).

News from Swedish startups, the tech sector and VCs

• Stockholm-based startup C-Green, which develops technology to convert wet biowaste into solid hydrochar, signed a cooperation agreement with the environmental company Ragn-Sells, with the goal of establishing 8–10 C-Green biorefineries in the coming years. The first facility will be located outside Norrköping and become operational in 2023 (English).
• Omocom, Stockholm-based provider of on-demand microinsurance for the circular economy, has received approval to offer its services in the UK, the company's 14th market (English, Swedish).
• Anyfin, Stockholm-based consumer finance app which is available in Sweden and 3 other European countries, says its app has been downloaded 1 million times (English).
• From the "eat your own dogfood" department: Sinje Gottwald, who works in Barcelona for Swedish electric motorcycle startup CAKE, is crossing the African Continent on one of the company's motorcycles (English).

Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond

• North American startup investment fell by a whopping 63% in Q4 2022 compared to Q4 2021 (English). Also: The US startup M&A market in Q4 2022 was one of the quietest in the last 20 years. It rivals the dotcom bust & Global Financial Crisis for its paucity (English).
• OpenAI is reportedly in talks to sell existing shares in a tender offer that would value the company at around $29B (English / WSJ paywall, alternative URL).
• A list of impressive things accomplished by small teams (English).

Other interesting things related to Sweden

• AI-based digital twin technology will be used in Swedish schools to simulate the effect of initiatives and measures aimed at preventing bullying (Swedish, machine translation).
• Only around 10 percent of the plastic that is thrown away in Sweden is recycled into new plastic. The rest is burned to become energy – contributing to 8% of Sweden's climate emissions (Swedish, machine translation).
• After Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year, usage of cash notes in Sweden went up by almost 8 percent, which is the biggest increase in over 20 years (English).

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That's it for today.