News June 22, 2022: Tricylon, Ment, Logcast, Klarna, Sleep Cycle, Northmill, Spotify, top Nordic early-stage VCs and more

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

Funding news

• Tricylon (Gothenburg, robotics technology for the manufacturing and assembly industry): SEK7M (€650K, $690K) from Almi Invest and other undisclosed investors (Swedish, machine translation).
• Ment (Stockholm, developer of a smart digital service for ADHD): undisclosed amount from Curus and other undisclosed investors (English).
• Logcast (Stockholm, voice-first social network with NFT integration): undisclosed amount from Goodwater Capital (English, Swedish).
• Flat Capital participated with SEK5M in the $300M Series C funding round recently announced by US startup Remote, which has built a platform to hire distributed employees, and then make sure they are remunerated easily and legally (Swedish, machine translation).

>> 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

• Klarna is adding a loyalty card feature to its mobile app, powered by Stocard, the German mobile wallet startup the company acquired last year (English).
• Gothenburg-based sleep tracking company Sleep Cycle, which dubs itself "the world’s most popular sleep solution", says that aggregated coughing frequency data from 100,000s of daily US users let it detect Omicron outbreaks early (English).
• Stockholm-based fintech Northmill launches a no-fee bank account and debit card (which also supports Apple Pay) for customers in Sweden (English).
• In New Zealand, Spotify is testing a tool to record a podcast directly into the Spotify app (English).
• Sifted and Dealroom ranked the top early-stage investors in the Nordics, divided into Series A (Creandum ranks #1) and seed (top Swedish firm is Industrifonden at #5) (English / Sifted soft paywall, alternative URL).

Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond

• Silicon Valley-headquartered VC firm Accel is rolling out a new, $4B late-stage fund, just as certain rivals lose momentum (English).
• UK-based Kiko Ventures announced a $450M VC fund focused on cleantech investments (English).
• German startup Personio nabs $200M at a $8.5B valuation for its all-in-one HR Solution made for SMEs (English).

Other interesting things related to Sweden

• Sweden's greenhouse emissions increased in 2021 by 4%. Industrial emissions returned to pre-pandemic levels (Swedish, machine translation).
• On the Island of Gotland, 10 sheep have been equipped with a solar-powered smart necklace that creates a virtual fence. When the sheep are crossing the designated area, they first receive 3 audible warnings - and if they do not reverse, they receive an electric shock (Swedish, machine translation).  
• In the US, IKEA launched a new virtual design tool that can make it easier to imagine how furniture might look in one's home (English).

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That's it for today.