News July 1, 2022: NA-KD, Go North, Milepost, Growloop, Minna Technologies, Steven, Bruce, Tobii, Trustly and more

Here is today's curation of news from Sweden's startup and tech sector.

Funding news

• NA-KD (Gothenburg, online fashion retailer): €50M ($52M) in debt funding from Triplepoint, alongside an ongoing equity funding round (Swedish / DI Digital paywall, Swedish #2, machine translation).
• Go North (Gothenburg, e-commerce aggregator aiming to acquire and scale brands on Amazon and beyond): SEK225M (€21M, $22M) through a bond issue from around 30 investors (Swedish, machine translation).
• Milepost (Stockholm, provider of EV charging infrastructure): SEK45M (€4.2M, $4.4M) in a funding round led by Feat Capital and Milepost CEO Jörgen Lantto, with participation from other undisclosed investors (Swedish, machine translation).
• Growloop (Stockholm, digital leadership coaching service for organizations): SEK10M (€930K, $1M) in a seed round from Sting and other unspecified investors (English, Swedish).

>> Daily updated, subscriber-exclusive Google sheet with all funding rounds raised by private Swedish startups and scaleups. Request access.

News from Swedish startups, the tech sector and VCs

• Gothenburg-based Minna Technologies keeps striking deals to integrate its subscription management solution into 3rd party apps, with Stockholm-based fintech app Steven being the newest partner (English).
• Cash reserves are getting thin for Stockholm-based fitness studio subscription service Bruce (Swedish, machine translation).
• Eye tracking technology of Stockholm-based company Tobii will make it into Sony's upcoming PlayStation VR2 headset (English, Swedish).
• Mimi Billing met operator-turned-VC Sophia Bendz for brunch. They talked about how Spotify - where Bendz as one of the first employees was in charge of marketing and communication - in its very early days created massive hype through the famous invite-based closed beta approach, how the music streaming company was built into a global household brand, and about Bendz's prolific startup investor career which she kicked off in 2012 (English / Sifted soft paywall, alternative URL).

Swedish tech earnings reports

• Trustly (Stockholm, payments platform for digital account-to-account transactions): Swedish, machine translation.

Other interesting things from the startup/VC world

• Sequoia, probably the most powerful and influential VC firm in the world, is now down bad, because it held on to stocks of various of its investments after the companies went public (English).
• Asking users to complete an "obstacle course" to use a product is not an option - funnel optimization for web3 companies will become critical to their success (English).

Here ends the "essential" part of the newsletter. Below's section is a Friday bonus for those with a bit of extra time.

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Weekend reads about tech & beyond

• When it comes to Spotify and Netflix, Stratechery's Ben Thompson changed his mind about which company has more potential as an "aggregator" - he now thinks it's Spotify (English).
• Atlassian is 20 years old and unprofitable (English).
• Belief in AI sentience is becoming a problem (English).
• The perils of "audience capture" in the world of influencers: the gradual and unwitting replacement of a person's identity with one custom-made for the audience (English).
• 14 years ago, Kevin Kelly famously proposed that an artist could make a living online with a thousand true fans. Has time proved him correct? (English).
• The crypto crash could have been a humbling moment for the industry. Instead, companies are doubling down (English).

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That's it for today.