In the past decade, Sweden has undergone a remarkable evolution from being primarily recognised for housing IKEA, Volvo, and Ericsson to emerging as one of Europe’s most esteemed startup ecosystems. As the world faces unprecedented challenges, Sweden’s startup ecosystem is championing impact-driven initiatives, pioneering advanced technologies, and nurturing a culture of audacious entrepreneurship.
According to Dealroom, in 2023 Sweden rocked the global startup scene by raising a whopping €4.7 billion in venture capital investment, showcasing its unwavering commitment to innovation and social impact. What’s even more exciting? Nearly 75% of this investment went to impact startups, catapulting Sweden to the forefront of Europe’s impact-driven entrepreneurial revolution.
With a valuation skyrocketing to €239 billion, Swedish startups have doubled in worth in just five years, birthing 41 unicorn companies along the way such as Klarna, Spotify and Northvolt.
Despite being a smaller player compared to European giants, Sweden stands tall as the fourth-largest recipient of VC investment in Europe. But here’s the kicker: it’s ranked third for deep tech investment and second for impact startups, solidifying its position as a breeding ground for groundbreaking ideas and game-changing innovations.
In a world hungry for change, Sweden’s startup boom is revolutionary. So, buckle up, because the next big thing might just come from the land of the midnight sun as we showcase 10 super promising startups to watch in 2024 and beyond!
Alba Health: Stockholm-based Alba Health developed a gut microbiome test designed specifically for children, from newborns to 4-year-olds. Alba entered into a research collaboration with the HELMi cohort, one of the largest studies in the world, with over 10,000 microbiome samples from children. Founded in 2022, a biotech startup raised €2.6 million to prevent chronic diseases from early ages.
Atlar: Stockholm-based Atlar is a bank payments platform for automated money movement. Atlar provides businesses with end-to-automation of any payment flow including initiating transfers, reconciling transactions, handling direct debits, and more. Founded in 2022, the startup raised €5 million.
Bits Technology:
Founded in 2022, Bits Technology developed a no-code platform that allows users to create a fully customised onboarding experience and customer monitoring solution without having to produce a single line of code. The Stockholm-based startup raised €5 million for their KYB, KYC and AML solution.
Cloover:
Founded in 2022, Cloover offers a platform that allows vendors of renewable technologies to provide services through subscriptions. Stockholm-based startup raised €7 million to simplify the transition to renewable energy for individuals and businesses, making it both cost-effective and low-risk.
Dema: Founded in 2022, Dema is a platform delivering actionable insights for e-comm businesses to achieve profitable growth. Dema optimises e-commerce inventories through an AI-powered platform. Stockholm-based company raised €4 million to help e-commerce companies achieve profitable growth.
DREM:
Stockholm-based DREM provides energy-efficient heating solutions for homes and businesses. Founded in 2023, the company is on a mission to make it easy for homeowners to install and benefit from the energy efficiency and cost savings of heat pumps. DREM raised €4.5 million.
Improvin’:
Founded in 2022, Improvin’ is an AI-based sustainability performance platform that allows agri-food companies to measure and reduce emissions in their primary production and improve biodiversity together with their suppliers. Stockholm-based startup secured €3.9 million to drive emission reductions and sustainability in the agri-food industry.
Leya: Founded in 2023, Leya is an AI assistant designed for legal professionals, and adept at answering complex legal questions and optimising workflows. Leya delivers reliable, source-cited answers and allows lawyers to start using GenAI today. Stockholm-based legal tech startup raised €500k to further develop their solution.
Master Exchange: Stockholm-based Master Exchange is an innovative platform for music trading. Founded in 2022, the startup allows musicians to list songs on the listed exchange and the public can invest at a fixed price and receive royalty shares. The company raised €2.5 million for their musical stock exchange platform.
Rerun: Stockholm-based Rerun is a free and open-source SDK for building time-aware visualizations of multimodal data. It’s used by engineers and researchers in fields like computer vision and robotics to verify, debug, and demo. Founded in 2022, Rerun raised €3.2 million to make a dent in the computer vision space.
By the way: If you’re a corporate or investor looking for exciting startups in a specific market for a potential investment or acquisition, check out our Startup Sourcing Service!
