News October 3, 2022: Influeri, Bowter, Kobb, Codeball, Techstars Stockholm, Akribian, Sesamy and more

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

Funding news

• Influeri (Stockholm, automated marketing system based on AI that optimizes influencer marketing campaigns): SEK12.5M (€1.1M, $1.1M) from Swedish pop star Zara Larsson and other undisclosed investors (Swedish, machine translation).
• Bowter (Arvika, rental platform for electric boats): SEK4M (€370K, $360K) from Dragon Invest, via Draknästet (Swedish, machine translation).
• Kobb (Gothenburg, grower of seaweed and developer of seaweed-based industrial products used for food, cosmetics and dietary supplements): "high 7-digit amount" (SEK) from Colunt Mare and other undisclosed investors (Swedish / PDF).

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

News from Swedish startups, the tech sector and VCs

• The team behind Stockholm-based code collaboration system Sturdy has pivoted and launched the AI-powered code review solution Codeball. Founder Gustav Westling says that they stumbled upon this idea while experimenting, and saw such a huge potential in an AI-solution that can recognize risky code changes, that they decided to launch it as a separate product. This also means that Sturdy won't be actively developed any further (exclusive).
• Ankra, Reeler and Swiftly are the 3 Sweden-based startups that were accepted to the first class of the international accelerator Techstars' new Stockholm program. A total of 12 teams are part of the class. All receive an investment of $120K (English).
• Akribian, Lund-based developer of gamified learning solutions, has reportedly filed for bankruptcy (Swedish, machine translation).
• Swedish pay-as-you-go content service Sesamy launched its system for letting publishers sell articles on a one-off basis, with Breakit being the first outlet to try it (English, Swedish).
• Stockholm-headquartered renewable energy developer OX2 has signed letters of intent with Swedish edible seaweed companies Nordic SeaFarm and KOBB to explore the possibility of seaweed farming at offshore wind farms (English).
• During September 2022, Swedish startups and scaleups raised around SEK2B (€180M, $180). This is the lowest amount for any month this year, largely due to the absence of "mega rounds" (Swedish, machine translation).
• Since early 2022, VOI co-founder Adam Jafer is angel investing in (very) early stage startups on behalf of Sequoia as "Scout", while still active in an operational role at VOI as tech lead. So far he has made 10 investments, but only 1 in Sweden (Dework) (Swedish / Breakit paywall).

Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond

• UK- and Israel-based VC firm 83North raises its 11th fund to the tune of $400M to invest globally (English).
• In Silicon Valley (but certainly also elsewhere), angel investing has become a status symbol (English / Bloomberg paywall, alternative URL).
• Twitter thread about product storytelling inspired by Elon Musk (English).

Other interesting things related to Sweden

• Swedish scientist Svante Pääbo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for "groundbreaking discoveries" (English, Swedish).

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That's it for today.