News October 31, 2024: Xocchiali, Plagazi, Flower, Ljusgårda, Zerotude, GoCiklo, civil-military accelerator startups, Textual, Virtune, STOIX, Valu8, and more

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

Mergers & acquisitions

• Xocchiali (Malmö, developer of technology for smart glasses, founded 2020) is fully acquired by Malmö-based investment company Sandberg Development. The latter had previously invested in Xocchiali through its incubator program (SEK3.9M according to data registered with Bolagsverket, sourced via Eivora). Xocchiali was founded by Pål Borge, Sarandis Kalogeropoulos, Günter Alce, and Paul Johansson. According to the press release, the founders will "keep supporting the company" (Swedish, machine translation).

Funding news

⬜️ publicly traded

• Plagazi (Gothenburg, technology that transforms waste into green hydrogen through plasma gasification, founded 2007): €29.5M ($32M) grant from the EU Innovation Fund (English). A year ago, Plagazi raised its most recent known equity funding, an undisclosed amount from the German family office Wermuth Asset Management. 📊 Plagazi has not published its 2023 numbers yet. For 2022, the company reported net revenue of SEK7.7M, and a loss of -SEK11.1M.
• Flower (Stockholm; software platform for energy forecasting, optimization and trading, founded 2020): €20M ($22M) in a Series A extension, following the €25M announced in mid August. The now completed €45M Series A was led by Northzone, with participation from Giant Ventures; 82an Invest, Sony Innovation Fund, and angel investors Thomas von Koch and Sebastian Knutsson. The startup plans to use the funds for the expansion into the DACH region, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium in 2025 and 2026, as well as to further development of its infrastructural Battery Energy Storage Systems (English). 📊 On September 30, I covered Flower's 2023 numbers, which showed net revenue increase of 1900% to SEK100.7M.
• Ljusgårda, aka Supernormal Geens (Tibro, vertical farming company, founded 2017): SEK150M (€13M, $14M) mostly from existing investors such as Philian and Back in Black Capital, with participation from some new investors. The funding includes the conversion of convertible notes of SEK83M secured during late 2023 and early 2024, into equity. The pre-money valuation was SEK190M, down 56% from fall 2023, after the company raised SEK87.5M. Ljusgårda will need to expand and raise more before reaching profitability, co-founder and CEO Andreas Wilhelmsson tells Di Digital. For 2024, he expects a loss smaller than last year's -SEK114M (Swedish / Di Digital paywall).
• Zerotude (Lund, software that helps property owners rapidly identify and compare all renovation measures across property portfolios, founded 2022): SEK7M (€600K, $650K) in first funding from Skåne Ventures and the Hypergene-founders Per Hidenius and Per Engwall (Swedish / Rapidus paywall). 📊 Just yesterday I happened to cover the startup's 2023 numbers.

Unannounced funding