News March 28, 2022: Blika, Sparwk, PaperShell, MyFurn, Hemavi, Oneflow and more

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

Mergers & acquisitions

• Blika (Stockholm, SaaS solution to help large multinational companies manage head office data) sold a 60% stake to Dutch investment firm Main Capital. Financial terms were not disclosed (English, Swedish).

Financing rounds

• Sparwk (Stockholm & Trondheim, online platform and collaborative workspace for music creators): SEK20M (€1.9M, $2.1M) from Bridge Investment and Adenasoft (Swedish, machine translation).

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News from Swedish startups, the tech sector and VCs

• PaperShell, a startup founded in 2021 based in Tibro, has developed a method to build paper back into a more resistant version of wood. It's now partnering with Swedish electric motorcycle manufacturer CAKE to evaluate whether PaperShell's material could make its way into motorbike body panels (English).
• A mother-daughter duo has founded Stockholm-based startup MyFurn and - largly self-funded - built a 3D platform for home buyers to click home their interior design choices - and to get everything in place, assembled and installed (Swedish, machine translation).
• Hemavi, Lund-based matchmaking platform for room rentals, has expanded into Denmark (English).
• Spotify decided to fully suspend operations in Russia after all (English).
• Oneflow, Stockholm-based software platform for managing and tracking contracts, plans a public listing on the Nasdaq First North Premier Growth Market during Q2 (English, Swedish).
• The City of Gothenburg is denying the Russian e-scooter company Whoosh the permit to operate in the city, because it has sanctioned Russian banks among its investors (Swedish, machine translation).
• VOI founder and CEO Fredrik Hjelm is pondering the idea of a "glassdoor for journalists" in a Twitter thread (English).

Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond

• In an uncommon move (until now at least), US grocery delivery company Instacart announced it cut its own valuation by 40%, from $39B to $24B (English).
• Musings about whether high quality startups and scaleups actually benefit from industry-typical long working hours (English).

Other interesting things from Sweden

• On April 1st, Sweden will lift the pandemic-related ban on entry from all countries (English).

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That's it for today.