Swedish Tech Weekly #280



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 2620 subscribers today.

Mergers & acquisitions

• The US-headquartered PE firm Insight Partners (IP) is becoming the majority owner of Detectify, Stockholm-based attack surface management platform for AppSec teams. IP had already been an investor, and is both buying existing shares, as well as investing an undisclosed amount in funding (English).

• Xocchiali (Malmö, developer of technology for smart glasses) is fully acquired by existing investor Sandberg Development (Swedish, machine translation).

• Sana (Stockholm, AI-powered knowledge tools for the enterprise) acquires Israel-based workflow automation startup CTRL for an undisclosed amount (English). The company also announced new substantial funding, more in the section below.

• Raketspel (Stockholm, mobile game studio) is being acquired by the publicly traded Stockholm-based investment firm RightBridge Ventures (English).

• Swedish PE firm EQT bought Australia-headquartered talent management platform PageUp, which previously was majority-owned by Battery Ventures (English).

Funding news

• Sana (Stockholm, AI-powered knowledge tools for the enterprise): $55M led by existing investor NEA, with participation from other existing investors including Menlo Ventures. The valuation is cited to be $500M (English).

• Plagazi (Gothenburg, technology that transforms waste into green hydrogen through plasma gasification): €29.5M ($32M) grant from the EU Innovation Fund (English).

• Flower (Stockholm; software platform for energy forecasting, optimization and trading): €20M ($22M) in a Series A extension, led by Northzone, with participation from Giant Ventures; 82an Invest, Sony Innovation Fund, and angel investors. The funds will be used for the European expansion (English).

• EvolutelQ (Stockholm, AI-powered end-to-end intelligent business automation platform): $20M in a mix of equity and debt funding led by Round2 Capital, with participation from Nordea Growth Fund, DCAP Select, and PH ventures, for the continued expansion in the US (English).

• Ljusgårda, aka Supernormal Geens (Tibro, vertical farming company): SEK150M (€13M, $14M) mostly from existing investors such as Philian and Back in Black Capital (Swedish / Di Digital paywall).

• Challengermode (Stockholm, esports platform): SEK27M (€2.3M, $2.5M) led by existing investor Back in Black Capital, with support from other existing investors, and new investors Ballista Capital and Seeker (English).

• Aligned Bio (Lund, advanced nanowire technology for the biomedical industry): SEK19.4M (€1.7M, $1.8M) from new investors including Smile Inject Capital, family offices and individuals, as well as existing investors (Swedish / Rapidus paywall). ➡️ Partial closing of this round first covered in my PRO subscription on July 24.

• Siccum (Pajala, freeze-dewatering technology for extracting more value from waste): SEK19.2M (€1.7M, $1.8M) grant from the Swedish Energy Agency (Swedish, machine translation). ➡️ Startup first covered in my PRO subscription in September 2023.

• Zerotude (Lund, software that helps property owners rapidly identify and compare all renovation measures across property portfolios): SEK7M (€600K, $650K) in first funding from Skåne Ventures and angel investors (Swedish / Rapidus paywall). ➡️ Startup first covered in my PRO subscription on May 10.

• For PRO subscribers: 8 additional rounds as well as more details and numbers for many of the above mentioned rounds (English).

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

News from the Swedish startup & tech sector

• 15 companies were selected for the first ever accelerator on civil-military "dual use" innovation initiated by the Swedish Armed Forces and Vinnova, and operated by LEAD (Swedish, machine translation).

• Swedish electric boat startup Candela and Stockholm's public transport provider SL launched their long anticipated pilot project, in which an electric hydrofoiling boat operates on a commuter route in Stockholm (English).

• Mavenoid, Stockholm-based automated product support platform, launches an AI-powered "Voice Assist" feature. It enables customers such as product manufacturers and retailers, to offer self-service support via phone (English).

• Virtune, Stockholm-based regulated crypto asset manager and issuer of exchange-traded products (ETP) launched last year, announced having reached one billion SEK in assets under management (English).

• Tandem Health, the current leader among the various Swedish startups offering generative AI solutions to make patient-doctor consultations more efficient and effective, signed Swedish healthcare giant Aleris as customer (Swedish, machine translation). ➡️ PRO subscribers have learned of five other Swedish startups in this quite crowded space.

• Textual, Gothenburg-based provider of generative AI content solutions for e-commerce, went bankrupt two weeks ago, due to an outstanding tax payment. Now founder Henrik Gemoll bought the estate back, together with undisclosed other investors (Swedish / Breakit paywall). ➡️ Bankruptcy first covered in my PRO subscription on October 24.

• Freedrum, Malmö-based maker of a virtual drum kit, is bankrupt. ➡️ Bankruptcy first covered in my PRO newsletter on October 30.

• Stockholm-based nuclear energy startup Blykalla and Swedish-Swiss global engineering company ABB plan to jointly develop advanced nuclear reactor technology (English).

• Satcube, Gothenburg-based developer of portable satellite terminals, will deliver satellite terminals to Airbus Defence and Space in a deal worth €1M (Swedish, machine translation).

• A list of the 30 founders/teams who made it into the semi-final of the För-orten startup competition – which focuses on entrepreneurs from socioeconomically disadvantaged areas across Sweden (Swedish, machine translation).

• Copabet, a Stockholm-based social platform where friends compete by predicting games of major sports events, is about to launch an equity crowdfunding campaign (English).

• StockRepublic, Stockholm-based social trading platform for banks, is expanding into the UK (English).

• Akka, a membership-based French equity crowdfunding platform for investments in European startups, is launching in the Nordics (English).

• The Financial Times published the first edition of a ranking named "Europe’s Long Term Growth Champions 2025". The top-ranked Swedish tech company is Epidemic Sound on #37 (English).

• In a report submitted to the government, Sweden's innovation agency Vinnova identifies six technology areas that should be prioritized (English).

• In an European comparison, Sweden ranks poorly when it comes to treatment of stock options and employee ownership in startups. Alliance VC's Henrik Torstensson urges the government to make improvements (English).

• Levels, the Stockholm-based venture studio which has been struggling recently, acquired the estate of a bankrupt joint venture, and is now rebooting (English).

• Norwegian impact investor Katapult is putting together a team in Stockholm (Swedish / Impact Loop paywall).

• Norwegian specialist growth investment firm Verdane, which also is highly active in Sweden, closed its new fund Idun II at €700M, to back companies that will create a more sustainable future by decarbonising the economy (English).

• J12 published the latest updated version of their seed pitch deck template (English).

Exclusives for PRO subscribers last week

• 15 new Swedish tech startups tracked (559 so far this year).

• A stealth startup from Sweden is working on an AI-powered app for creating virtual representations of loved ones.

• A startup from northern Sweden emerged from stealth mode, soon to launch a tool to build "unique websites faster with chat".

• A Swedish fintech founded this year announced a major first customer.

•  An ambitious new AI-powered prospecting platform, founded by serial entrepreneurs who have raised a lot of funding for their previous company, appears to have thrown in the towel pre-launch.

• Fresh revenue numbers from up-and-coming, under-the-radar Swedish startups.

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Other interesting things from the startup/VC world & beyond


• The European Union will spend €1.4B next year to bolster deep tech research and support scale-ups in strategic areas like AI, low-carbon technologies, agritech and biotech (English).

• Fewer tech employees are being laid off now than in any quarter since Q2 2022, according to data compiled by Layoffs.fyi (English).

• OpenAI has launched its anticipated search engine, which is directly integrated with ChatGPT's existing interface (English).

• Apple's AI features (aka Apple Intelligence) will come to EU iPhones in April next year (English).

• As VC funds in the US are getting larger, this may led to a misalignment with the goals of founders (English).

• "Tech support is sales. It's the face of a company" (English).

• A simple rule for when to consider selling a startup (English).

• On the phenomenon of "ghost jobs" (= ads for positions that aren’t actually open) in the US (English).

• Apple launched Tap to Pay for iPhone in Sweden (English).

• As more companies pull the brakes on large power-hungry green projects in Sweden, the country's nuclear revival risks being undermined – as uncertainty grows over how much electricity the economy will actually need in the coming decades (English).

• At least 1,300 hectares of green space have disappeared from Sweden's large towns and cities in the last five years (English).

• A group of climate researchers warn of the greatly underestimated risk of a collapse of ocean currents in the Atlantic which could have catastrophic consequences for the Nordic countries (English).

• Sweden and Norway are rethinking their view on cash over Russia security fears (English).

• Sweden's largest coworking space operator Convendum recently entered a corporate reconstruction, and has frozen SEK90M in tenant deposits for this several months long process (Swedish / Di Digital paywall)

• The Stockholm-based creative studio The Great Exhibition has introduced the world's only indoor office roller coaster (English).

• Sweden has abolished the tax on plastic bags introduced in 2020 (Swedish, machine translation).

• Volvo Group and Daimler Truck are establishing a new joint venture headquartered in Gothenburg to develop a software-defined vehicle platform for heavy duty vehicles (English).