Swedish Tech Weekly #272

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This newsletter was sent on September 9, 2024 to subscribers of Swedish Tech Weekly.


Welcome to the latest from Sweden's startup & tech sector.

I'm Martin Weigert. Swedish Tech Weekly brings you a selection of some of the news I covered in my PRO newsletters last week, and is sent to 2535 subscribers today.

Mergers & acquisitions



• Benify (Stockholm, employee benefits and rewards platform) is being acquired by UK-based industry peer Zellis, in a deal that's reportedly valuing Benify at €300M-€400M including debt (English).

• Coloreel, bankrupt Jönköping-based startup developing technology that enables high-quality coloring of textile thread on demand, has been acquired by a so far undisclosed foreign company (Swedish / Di Digital paywall).

• Assessio Group (Stockholm, talent assessment company) acquires Wisnio, an Estonia- and UK-based startup offering decision tools for hiring, succession planning, and developing high-performing teams (English).

Funding news

• Baseload Capital (Stockholm, investment entity that funds the deployment of heat power worldwide): €53M ($59M) in a Series B funding round led by new investor ENGF (English).

• Doccla (London & Stockholm, operator of a virtual hospital ward): £35M (€42M, $46M) in a Series B round led by Lakestar, for the European expansion (English).

• Palm (Stockholm/Amsterdam/London, AI-powered treasury management system for enterprise teams): $6.1M in a seed round led by Speedinvest and Target Global, with participation from Upfin, Liquid2, Greens Ventures, and angel investors (English). ➡️ Startup first covered in my PRO subscription on May 23.

• Surfboard Payments (Stockholm, in-store payments provider): SEK30M (€2.6M, $2.9M) from unspecified new and existing investors, for expanding to new markets (English).

• Foodtel, formerly SFW - Sustainable Food Waste (Helsingborg, B2B SaaS solution for temperature monitoring of food): SEK15M (€1.3M, $1.5M) led by Novax, via FoodBridge (English). ➡️ Funding first covered in my PRO subscription on August 1.

• Amferia (Gothenburg; developer of materials that can efficiently kill bacteria when used as medical devices, for example within wound care): SEK13.5M (€1.2M, $1.3M) from existing investors including Chalmers Ventures, and some new investors (English).

• Tiptapp (Stockholm, app to find people who help move things in and out of the home): €1M ($1.1M) growth loan from Gilion, for expanding marketing initiatives in the German market (English).

• Insurello (Stockholm, digital solution that simplifies and democratizes the process of claiming insurance compensation): SEK8.4M (€740K, $820K) from existing investors Nordstjernan and Schibsted Marketplaces (Swedish, machine translation).

• SRCFUL (Kalmar, decentralized community for blockchain-powered renewable energy contribution): $500K in pre-seed funding led by Borderless Capital (English).

• Cyclicor (Lund, bio-based polymers using a novel green technology where both the production process and the final polymer are completely free from hazardous chemicals): SEK4.8M (€420K, $470K) from new investors including I Love Lund, and existing investors (Swedish, machine translation).

• RecoMended (Borås; aims to become a large-scale, automated and brand independent actor in textile repair): SEK2M (€180K, $190K) from Susanne Najafi (founding partner of Backing Minds), raised in the wake of the TV show Draknästet (Swedish, machine translation).

• Spolto (Gothenburg & Pune / India, platform connecting people in India that want to engage in sports with academies and coaches): $160K in a seed extension round by Andrew Johnston, co-founder & CEO of Stockholm-based SaaS startup LetsShare (English).

• Tickital (Stockholm, ticket sharing app for public transport and beyond): SEK1.5M (€130K, $150K) from Susanne Najafi, Jonas Tellander, and Shervin Razani, raised in the TV show Draknästet (Swedish, machine translation)

• Original Creation (Umeå, traceability platform for materials and assembled objects, founded 2023): SEK1M (€90K, $100K) grant from the program Avancerad Digitalisering, for the validation of both the technical and commercial aspects of the platform (Swedish, machine translation).

• House:ID (Malmö, digital homeowner app): undisclosed amount in a strategic investment from Nordic insurance company IF (Swedish, machine translation).

• Ampli Ventures invested €2M in Denmark-based startup ProfitMetrics.io, which offers a platform for analyzing profitability in e-commerce (English).

• For PRO subscribers: Many additional rounds, as well as more details, valuations, and numbers for many covered rounds (English).

• For PRO subscribers: Google Sheet with funding data, 1000+ rounds added during the past 12 months, updated daily (English).

News from Swedish startups & the tech sector

• The 16 startups that will participate in Venture Cup's STARTUP 2024 final have been announced (Swedish, machine translation).

• Stockholm-based startup Polar has launched version 1.0 of its monetization platform for developers, and became "Product of the day" on Product Hunt (English). ➡️ Company first covered in my PRO subscription in May 2023.

• Neko Health, the Swedish preventative health care startup founded by Daniel Ek and Hjalmar Nilsonne, has opened in London – the first clinic outside of Stockholm (English). "Neko Health is the Apple of healthcare", concludes UK-based podcaster turned VC Harry Stebbings (English).

• Swedish startup Enerpoly opened "the world’s first zinc-ion battery megafactory" near Stockholm (English).

• Ingrid Capacity, Stockholm-based energy storage infrastructure provider, will together with Locus Energy construct 13 new large-scale battery energy storage systems across southern Sweden, to "improve the problematic power deficit situation in 13 communities in southern Sweden" (English).

• Femcare, Stockholm-based digital healthcare provider for women, just opened its first physical gynecology clinic in Stockholm (it's the second in total). ➡️ Company first covered in my PRO subscription in September 2023.

•  Journalkollen is an AI tool developed by software engineer Hugo Johansson, which translates test results, diagnoses and medical texts into an understandable summary. ➡️ First covered in my PRO subscription on September 2.

• Hyber, subscription-based rental platform for children clothes and products from Stockholm, is bankrupt (Swedish, machine translation). ➡️ Added to the "Bankruptcies & shutdowns" tracker for PRO subscribers.

• Also bankrupt: The Ode To, Stockholm-based online gallery and shop for art (English). ➡️ Bankruptcy first covered in my PRO subscription on August 8.

• Stella, Stockholm-based startup offering a sleeping app for kids, made a deal with Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) to be included in the airline's inflight entertainment system (English).

• Travalytics is an upcoming solution for gathering employee travel intelligence, tailored towards companies covered by CSRD. It was created by the Lund-based companies Backtick Technologies and Trivector, and co-funded by the European Union and Vinnova (Swedish, machine translation).

• The Swedish fintechs Betalo, Ledyer, Scayl, Tab Technology, and Visualizy will join the 13th round of Mastercard Lighthouse's FINITIV program (English).

• Budbee, Stockholm-based last mile delivery provider, will stop traditional home delivery services in The Netherlands, and completely focus on delivery to lockers (English).

• Impact Loop analyzed the financial performance of 437 Swedish impact companies. Together, they reported a net revenue of SEK17.2B for 2023, up more than 19% YoY. The aggregated result for 2023 was a loss of -SEK3.4B, vs -SEK3.1B in 2022 (Swedish / Impact Loop paywall).

• The applications and nominations for the Nordic PropTech Awards 2025 are open (English).

• Two Norwegian startups are expanding into Sweden: Cardboard, a SaaS subscription management platform which just raised €1.9M in seed funding (English), and Fairsight, a talent assessment platform (English).

• Swedish investment firm byWiT, focused on "digital challengers", is earmarking SEK100M for investments in "great, but distressed companies", to take them back to profitability. This effort will be led by David Wendel Thoms (English, Swedish / Di Digital paywall).

PRO subscribers last week also read about

• 16 new Swedish tech startups (439 so far this year)

• A Swedish startup in the payments space, founded by serial fintech entrepreneurs and veterans, emerged from stealth mode.

• A young bootstrapped AI-powered recruitment startup from Stockholm reports having secured contracts worth a six-digit-Euro amount, in less than 1.5 week.

• Founders whose startup went bankrupt earlier this year, are starting over with a new company in the same space.

• Bankruptcy of a hardware startup from southern Sweden.

• Bankrutpcy of a Swedish investment firm, that recently had multiple of its portfolio companies go bankrupt

•  And much more

Join PRO here. Ideal for startup investors and analysts.

Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond

• Germany’s AI company Aleph Alpha, last year hailed as Europe’s greatest hope in developing advanced AI independent of Silicon Valley, is exiting that race, by pivoting towards offering software to help corporate and government clients use AI chatbots and tools (English).

• In the US, none of the hot venture-backed tech companies seen as likely IPO prospects filed to go public in August. Hence the IPO market will likely end 2024 on a low note (English).

• Paul Graham wrote a viral piece pointing out that there are "two different ways to run a company: founder mode and manager mode" (English).

• Every founder and board should be intellectually honest in asking themselves whether they represent a transformative leap relative to the competition or are just incrementally better (English).

• Children under the age of two should not be exposed to any screens whatsoever according to new guidelines unveiled by the Swedish health authorities (English, Swedish).

• Sweden ranks #12 in Europe in this year's eGovernment Benchmark report by Capgemini, an improvement from #16 last year (Swedish, machine translation).

• In large parts of Sweden, the electricity price during the past weeks has been the lowest since the year 2000 (Swedish, machine translation).

• Volvo Cars has scraped its plan to sell only electric vehicles by 2030, citing a need to be "pragmatic and flexible" amid changing market conditions and cooling demand (English).

• Axfood, Sweden's second largest food retailer, launched milk packages designed by AI for its private label brand Garant (Swedish, machine translation).

• In what's described as "the largest investment of its kind in Sweden", the agricultural cooperative Lantmännen is investing SEK1.2B in a new plant for plant-based protein in Lidköping (English).

• Sweden will scrap its tax on airline tickets from the middle of next year (English, Swedish).

• In August, the number of bankruptcies in Sweden declined for the first time since July 2022 (English).

• Last week, Sweden recorded its highest temperature in September, ever (Swedish, machine translation).

• Hypotheses on why it is hard to find fresh fish in supermarkets in Sweden (English).

• Swedish church leaders protest against the wedding trend of women being “handed over” by their fathers – something which goes against the traditional custom in Sweden (English).