News September 15, 2022: Troopr, Foodrunners, Big Akwa, Heart Aerospace, Acast, Ampli Ventures, Soho House 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

• Troopr (Stockholm, social platform to arrange and discover sports and fitness): SEK4M (€370K, $370K) in a seed round from Curitas Ventures, Wave Ventures and angel investors Mattias Weinhandl and Jessica Almenäs (Swedish, machine translation).
• Foodrunners (Stockholm, mobile app for comparing grocery prices): SEK3M (€280K, $280K) from Polish VC firm Invento Capital. In the wake of this funding, Foodrunners announced the launch on the Polish market. It's the startup's first expansion outside of Sweden (exclusive).
• Big Akwa (Härnosand, land-based fish farming system, which will function in industrial symbioses with other enterprises): SEK3M (€280K, $280K) from Almi Invest, Sparbanksstiftelsen Norrlands Riskkapitalstiftelse and undisclosed private investors (English, Swedish).

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News from Swedish startups, the tech sector and VCs

• Electric plane maker Heart Aerospace is dropping previous plans for a pure electric 19-seater. It will now build a 30-seat hybrid-electric regional aircraft called the ES-30 (English), for which it signed a "letter of support" from among others SAS (English). The startup plans to expand heavily in Gothenburg (English).
• Stockholm-based podcasting company Acast will cut its currently 400 people strong workforce by around 15 percent, to "improve the path to future profitable growth" (English, Swedish).
• Ampli Ventures is a new investment company focused on backing SaaS companies in seed stage or Series A, founded by Hannah Meiton and Adrian Iredahl together with VC firm Alfvén & Didrikson. The latter provided the majority of the initial SEK300M (€28M, $28M) in capital to be invested (English, Swedish).
• Instabox is gearing up for letting consumers place packages in its smart lockers, to give a boost to second hand platforms. The first partner to trial this is Uppsala-based second-hand clothing and accessory app Plick (Swedish, machine translation).
• Einride is expanding into the German market and opening an office in Berlin (English, Swedish).
• Pepins, Swedish fundraising platform for scaleups, will allow trading of shares in companies listed on the platform, starting in October (Swedish, machine translation).
• Wayflyer, an Irish revenue-based financing platform for e-commerce businesses, has launched on the Swedish market (English).
• Volvo On Demand (formerly known as "M") is introducing a monthly car subscription in Stockholm, for SEK7,990/month (English).
• The global members club Soho House will open the doors of its new Stockholm venue at the end of November, in a former church building in the district of Östermalm, near Östermalmstorg (Swedish, machine translation).

Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond

• Adobe is buying design tool Figma for $20B (English).
• Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency, has switched to proof-of-stake, cutting its energy demands (English).
• A framework for finding design partners. Design partners are the first few users a startup enlists to help it define the company’s problem space and shape the solutions offered (English).

Other interesting things related to Sweden

• Swedish PM Magdalena Andersson resigns as right-wing parties win vote (English).

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That's it for today.