Sweden consistently produces outsized startup success relative to its population — from Spotify to Klarna. Stockholm is Europe's per-capita unicorn capital, with deep expertise in fintech, gaming, and SaaS. A strong engineering culture, early adoption of digital services, and access to Nordic and global capital markets give Swedish startups a durable edge. The directory currently lists 111 organisations across 9 cities.
111 entries.
Almi Invest is the venture capital arm of the Swedish state-owned group Almi, investing risk capital in early-stage startups alongside private co-investors. One of the most active early-stage investors in Sweden, it backs companies across technology, life sciences and cleantech and recycles returns into new companies.
Swedish entrepreneur, founder and CEO of Lovable, a Stockholm-based AI coding startup that lets people build software through natural language. He previously co-founded the e-commerce product-discovery company Depict.ai and was an early engineer at Sana Labs, with earlier research work at CERN.
Anyfin is a Stockholm-based fintech founded in 2017 that helps consumers cut the cost of their existing loans and credit-card debt by refinancing them at lower rates, using a photo of a statement and data-driven credit assessment. It has expanded from Sweden into Finland, Norway and Germany with a focus on reducing borrowing costs rather than lending more.
BackingMinds is a Stockholm-based venture capital firm founded in 2016 that deliberately invests in founders and markets overlooked by mainstream investors, backing early-stage technology companies in the Nordics and beyond. Co-founded by Sara Wimmercranz and Susanne Najafi, it focuses on 'blind spots' where it sees underestimated potential.
Brickanta is building an AI-native operating layer for early-stage commercial construction planning. The platform interprets drawings, code constraints, and cost data to automate bid analysis and estimation, reducing procurement risk and planning overhead for project owners and contractors.
Candela is a Stockholm-based marine technology company founded in 2014 that designs and builds electric hydrofoil boats and ferries, which lift out of the water on computer-controlled foils to cut energy use dramatically and extend the range of electric propulsion. Its models include leisure craft and the P-12 electric passenger ferry, and it aims to eliminate fossil fuels from waterborne transport.
Established 2015 (building on earlier university incubation). Venture builder and fund for tech startups from Chalmers University using an Encubation model; provides pre-seed funding, business coaches, and lab access. Notable spin-offs include Minesto and KomboSat. Scope: Regional (West Sweden).
Christina Brinck is the President of Volvo Group Venture Capital, the corporate venture arm of the Volvo Group focused on investing in transformative technologies for sustainable transportation, logistics, and manufacturing. She leads strategic CVC investments in deep tech and software startups that align with the Volvo Group's long-term innovation agenda across mobility and industrial sectors. Brinck is a confirmed speaker at NORDEEP 2026 representing the corporate venture perspective in the Nordic ecosystem.
The 20th-edition annual conference connecting the Nordic and Baltic cleantech ecosystem, with startup pitch competitions, workshops, and one-on-one investor pitching. Explicitly founder- and investor-focused.
Creandum is one of Europe's leading early-stage venture capital firms, founded in Stockholm in 2003 and now operating from Stockholm, Berlin, London and San Francisco. It backs technology companies from seed to Series A and has been an early investor in category-defining businesses including Spotify, Klarna, Bolt, Kahoot, Depop and Pleo. In 2024 it closed its seventh flagship fund at around 500 million euros to continue backing European founders.
Daniel Ek is the co-founder and CEO of Spotify, the world's largest music streaming platform, which he launched in 2006 and took public on the NYSE in 2018. Outside Spotify, Ek is an active angel investor and a key figure in Stockholm's thriving tech ecosystem. Through his personal investments and Prima Materia, his private investment firm, Ek backs early-stage European startups across healthcare, AI, defense tech, and consumer technology. He invested EUR 100M into Prima Materia to support moonshot companies working on some of Europe's hardest problems. Ek has also backed several Nordic startups directly as an angel, and his presence in the ecosystem has helped attract global attention and talent to Sweden's startup scene. He is widely regarded as one of the most successful European tech founders of his generation.
Detectify is a Stockholm-based cybersecurity company founded in 2013 that offers an external attack surface management and web-vulnerability scanning platform, powered by a crowdsourced community of ethical hackers whose findings are automated into its product. It helps security teams continuously discover and monitor their internet-facing assets for weaknesses.
Stockholm's premier developer conference at Kistamässan, with 70+ international speakers across web development, architecture, AI/ML, and cloud.
Einride is the Swedish pioneer of autonomous freight, best known for its cab-less "Pod" trucks that are designed from the ground up without a driver. Rather than retrofitting automation into traditional vehicles, Einride built a purpose-made electric platform paired with remote operations. Its "Mesh" system allows a single human operator to supervise multiple autonomous pods in real time from a control center, enabling higher utilization while keeping safety oversight in the loop. The year 2026 is a defining moment for Einride. Following a merger with Legato Merger Corp. III, the company began trading on the Nasdaq Global Market on 10 June 2026 under the tickers ENRD and ENRDW, at a pre-money valuation of roughly $1.35B and with a $113M PIPE raised ahead of the debut. This public-market transition gives Einride the balance sheet to scale fleet deployments, charging infrastructure, and regulatory approvals across key logistics corridors. By mid-2026, Einride is executing on major commercial contracts with GE Appliances in the United States and DP World in the UAE. It does not sell trucks in the traditional sense; it sells freight capacity as a service (FaaS), bundling vehicles, energy management, and its digital "Saga" operating system that optimizes routes, energy usage, and scheduling. The 2026 focus is on "Einride Grids": dense regional networks in Northern Europe and the US Southeast where autonomous pods handle repeated hub-to-hub routes, driving down costs compared to diesel trucking while cutting emissions. Einride's ecosystem ties include Norrsken House in Stockholm and early innovation pilots through Plug and Play. Its investor base blends Nordic growth capital and strategic logistics backing: EQT Ventures, NordicNinja, Maersk Growth, Soros Fund Management, and Temasek are among the key supporters. In 2026, Einride stands out as the most mature European autonomous freight platform, combining electric hardware, autonomy software, and logistics orchestration into a single commercial service. The company is also investing in safety validation, regulatory engagement, and remote-operations tooling to scale autonomy responsibly across multiple jurisdictions.
Epidemic Sound is a Swedish company headquartered in Stockholm that operates a royalty-free music and audio licensing platform for content creators. Founded in 2009, it provides creators, businesses, broadcasters and agencies access to a library of music tracks and sound effects, owning the rights to its catalog so users can publish and monetise content without separate licensing. The platform offers a Studio tool, mobile and desktop apps, and integrations with software such as Adobe Creative Cloud. In March 2021 it raised a growth round led by EQT Growth and Blackstone at a reported $1.4 billion valuation.
EQT Growth is the growth equity arm of EQT, one of Europe's largest alternative investment firms headquartered in Stockholm. Launched in 2019, EQT Growth manages over EUR 4B and invests EUR 30-200M in high-growth technology companies scaling across Europe and globally. The fund focuses on category-leading software, fintech, and marketplace businesses at Series C and beyond. Notable investments include Vinted (led its EUR 250M Series F), Mollie, Epidemic Sound, and Small Giant Games. EQT Growth leverages the broader EQT platform's industrial network and 30+ years of operational value creation expertise.
EQT Ventures is the VC arm of EQT Group, launched in 2016 in Stockholm with offices in London, Berlin, and San Francisco. Managing over EUR 2.2B, the firm invests EUR 1-25M from seed through Series C in AI, fintech, mobility, and marketplaces. EQT Ventures uses Motherbrain, its proprietary AI deal-sourcing platform, to identify opportunities early. Portfolio includes Einride, Epidemic Sound, Voi, and Wolt. The fund leverages EQT's network of 300+ industrial advisors for strategic support.
Ester Sklarsky is Principal at Sound Bioventures, a Nordic life science venture capital firm specializing in early-stage biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and medtech companies in Scandinavia and the broader European region. She is an active investor and participant in the Nordic life science investment community. Sound Bioventures is one of the leading dedicated life science VCs focused on the Nordic ecosystem.
Southern Sweden's biggest electronics-industry expo at Sparbanken Skåne Arena, targeting design and purchasing professionals across smart city, transport, and medtech. Relevant for hardware founders in the Öresund region.
Exeger is a Stockholm-based deep-tech company that manufactures Powerfoyle, a patented, silicon-free dye-sensitised solar-cell material that converts both indoor and outdoor light into electricity. Founded in 2008 by entrepreneur Giovanni Fili and scientist Dr Henrik Lindström — joint winners of the European Inventor Award in 2021 — the company spent a decade developing and patenting the technology before scaling commercial production at two factories in Kista, Stockholm. Powerfoyle is integrated as a thin, flexible film directly into product surfaces, removing the need for charging cables or disposable batteries. Shipping products span headphones and earbuds (Urbanista, adidas), cycling helmets (POC), professional hearing protection (3M Peltor), digital shelf labels (VusionGroup), remote controls (Philips, Hama) and IoT sensors. Exeger has raised over €169M from backers including SoftBank, Swedish pension fund AMF, the European Investment Bank (€35M InvestEU loan) and Fortum, and in late 2025 secured a SEK 130M grant from the Swedish Energy Agency and was selected for the NATO DIANA defence accelerator.
FashionLab is a Swedish fashion content platform that uses generative AI to produce product imagery and video for apparel brands at scale. The product replaces parts of traditional studio production by generating brand-aligned visuals with customizable models, scenes, and localization variants. The company has operational ties to the Eurasian ecosystem through the 500 Eurasia program.
Fast Track Malmö is a startup accelerator based in Malmö, Sweden, that has gained recognition for its founder-friendly approach and strong results. Launched in 2015 and backed by Malmö’s public and private stakeholders (including Malmö City, Minc incubator, and VC firm Hax), Fast Track Malmö (FTM) selects around 10 startups per year from around the world for its program. The accelerator provides an up-front investment of €50,000 for 5% equity – a relatively generous seed deal – along with a 3-month intensive program and free housing for international teams. Each cohort gets access to mentors from successful Swedish startups (like King, Truecaller, etc.) and a series of workshops on product, growth, and fundraising. FTM has been particularly successful in drawing startups from across Europe to Malmö, turning the city into a surprising startup hotspot. Alumni have gone on to raise over $100M collectively. For instance, Worldfavor (sustainability data platform) and Bibliotech (UK edtech) both participated in FTM and later raised significant rounds. The program culminates in Demo Day during Malmö Startup Live, where founders pitch to a curated audience of Nordic and international investors. Fast Track Malmö prides itself on its supportive community – it often ranks highly in founder NPS surveys. Notably, 70%+ of its startups secure funding within 6 months post-program. Malmö’s strengths in game development and IoT sometimes reflect in FTM cohorts (some gaming startups and hardware/IoT teams have come through). Another distinctive trait: FTM works closely with Minc, the Malmö incubator, to offer follow-on incubation and soft landings for teams that relocate to Sweden. This extended support helped Fast Track Malmö produce success stories despite operating in a smaller ecosystem. By 2023, the accelerator reported its alumni have created 100+ jobs and 30% of them have at least one female founder – stats that underscore its impact and inclusive ethos. Fast Track Malmö demonstrates that with smart funding and community backing, even a mid-sized city can accelerate startups to global success.
Flower is a Stockholm-based energytech company founded in 2020 by John Diklev; its name is a contraction of flexible power. Flower develops hardware-agnostic AI and machine-learning software for forecasting, optimisation, and trading of flexible energy assets, including large-scale battery energy storage systems, solar and wind farms, hydro, EV charge points, and data centres, operating them as a virtual power plant to provide grid balancing, frequency regulation, congestion management, and day-ahead trading. Alongside its optimisation platform, Flower develops and operates grid-scale battery storage projects in Sweden. The company raised a Series A round led by Northzone in 2024.
Marketing data platform that collects, cleans and normalizes data from 600+ ad, analytics and CRM sources into a unified marketing data hub. Founded 2014 in Stockholm.
Week-long distributed tech festival across Gothenburg with events hosted by Chalmers, Lindholmen Science Park, Volvo, and local startups. Covers automotive tech, AI, sustainability, and industrial IoT with a strong Gothenburg flavor. Most sessions free. Useful for founders in mobility, industrial tech, and climate who want to connect with Western Sweden's corporate-innovation ecosystem.
GP Bullhound is a global technology investment bank and investment firm founded in 1999, advising technology companies and entrepreneurs on capital raising and M&A while also managing funds that invest in leading tech businesses. It has advised on more than 700 transactions worth over 58 billion dollars and operates from offices across Europe and the United States, including a long-standing Nordic presence.
Gunilla Osswald is CEO of BioArctic AB, a Swedish biotechnology company focused on neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. BioArctic co-developed lecanemab, marketed as Leqembi, a groundbreaking amyloid-targeting antibody therapy approved for early Alzheimer's disease in partnership with Eisai. She is one of the most prominent biotech executives in the Nordic region, leading a company that achieved a major therapeutic milestone.
HealthCap is one of Europe's largest dedicated life science venture capital firms, headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Founded in 1997, the firm invests in biotech, pharmaceutical, and medical device companies across the Nordic region and internationally. HealthCap has backed numerous successful life science companies over more than two decades and manages multiple funds with a strong track record in European biotech.
Virtual matchmaking event connecting healthtech startups with healthcare providers, hospitals, and investors across the Nordic region. Features structured 1:1 meetings and pitch sessions focused on digital health, medtech, and care delivery innovation. Valuable for health-tech startups seeking clinical pilot partnerships and Nordic market entry.
Organizer of the Ignite Sweden Summit and corporate-startup matchmaking program, active since 2017. Ignite Sweden has facilitated over 4,000 meetings between startups and large corporations, accelerating B2B partnerships and innovation procurement across Swedish industry sectors including manufacturing, energy, and public services.
Summit on corporate-startup collaboration in Sweden featuring case studies, B2B networking, and structured matchmaking between startups and large enterprises. Organized by Ignite Sweden, the national innovation matching program. Particularly valuable for B2B startups seeking pilot contracts and enterprise partnerships with Swedish corporates.
Industrifonden is one of the Nordics' longest-established venture capital firms, an evergreen fund based in Stockholm that invests in early-stage Nordic technology and life-science companies. Founded in 1979, it takes a long-term, evergreen approach, recycling returns into new investments and backing deep-tech, industrial and health startups.
Uppsala's premier innovation-ecosystem gathering, organised by UIC, with a startup hub exhibition, a Disruptor of the Year pitch competition, and 10+ side events bringing together startups, investors, academia, and industry.
Insurely is a Stockholm-based open finance and open insurance data infrastructure company founded in 2018. It provides consented, structured real-time access to consumer financial data across insurance, pensions, investments, savings, and credit, enabling banks, fintechs, and AI companies to build services such as provider switching, pension transfers, and personalised financial advice. The company offers two main product lines: Open Finance Data Access for data users and Open Finance Premium APIs for data providers. Insurely is registered as an insurance intermediary with the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority and serves European financial institutions.
Jessica Martinsson is Director General and CEO of SwedenBIO, Sweden's national trade association for the life science sector representing biotech, pharmaceutical, and medtech companies. She leads the organization that owns and produces Nordic Life Science Days, the largest partnering event in the Nordic life science industry. She advocates for Swedish life science competitiveness and innovation policy at national and EU levels.
Partner at Northzone in Stockholm, investing in consumer and marketplace companies across the Nordics and Europe. She backs early-stage founders and supports them through scaling and follow-on rounds.
Joel Larsson is a Partner at Pale Blue Dot, the Swedish venture capital fund dedicated exclusively to early-stage climate technology companies. He is an active investor in the Nordic and European climate tech ecosystem, backing startups working on decarbonization across energy, food, and industrial sectors. Larsson is a confirmed speaker at NORDEEP 2026 and a prominent voice in the Nordic climate investment community.
Juni is a Gothenburg-based financial management platform for e-commerce businesses, founded in June 2020 by Samir El-Sabini, Jonathan Sanders, and Anders Orsedal. The platform offers multi-currency accounts, virtual and physical cards, credit products, analytics, and accounting integrations designed specifically for online merchants and digital advertisers. Juni holds an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) licence from Sweden's Finansinspektionen and has raised $282 million across five funding rounds including a $206 million Series B.
Kinnevik is a Stockholm-based growth-stage investment company listed on Nasdaq Stockholm that backs innovative digital businesses in healthcare, software, consumer, and climate sectors. Originally a traditional Swedish industrial conglomerate founded in 1936, Kinnevik transformed into a focused growth investor and was an early backer of companies like Zalando, Tele2, and Millicom. The firm manages a portfolio valued at several billion euros and takes concentrated positions in companies it believes can become category leaders. Kinnevik provides patient capital with a long-term orientation unusual among European growth investors.
Klarna is a Swedish fintech company that pioneered the “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) model globally. Founded in 2005 by Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Niklas Adalberth, and Victor Jacobsson, Klarna started by offering online shoppers in Sweden a way to purchase goods on invoice (pay after delivery). Over the next decade, the company expanded across Europe and beyond, becoming a dominant online payments provider. As of 2021, Klarna was Europe’s highest-valued private tech company at $45.6 billion, reflecting meteoric growth fueled by consumers’ appetite for installment payments. Klarna’s app and services allow users to split purchases into interest-free installments or pay later, and it partners with over 450,000 retailers worldwide, including global brands like H&M, IKEA, and Nike. The company has over 150 million users across 45 countries and handled $80 billion in transaction volume in 2021. Klarna’s journey, however, has seen dramatic swings: after reaching a $45B valuation in mid-2021, a combination of rising interest rates and tech market downturn led to a downround in 2022, cutting its valuation to $6.7 billion (an 85% drop). The company restructured, laying off 10% of its staff, and refocused on profitability. By 2023, Klarna returned to profit and saw renewed growth, aided by expanding beyond BNPL into a full shopping app with price comparison, loyalty features, and banking services (Klarna obtained a banking license in Europe in 2017). In 2025, Klarna reportedly delayed an IPO amid market volatility but ultimately went public in September 2025, raising $1.37 billion. Despite valuation fluctuations, Klarna remains the global leader in BNPL, with a strong brand among Gen Z and millennial shoppers. Its journey from a small Stockholm startup to a financial giant serving 65 million customers (2025) at one point valued at $75 billion exemplifies the rise (and resiliency) of Europe’s fintech sector.
Kognic is a Gothenburg-based AI company, formerly known as Annotell, founded in 2018 that provides a data platform for annotating and refining the sensor data used to train and validate perception systems in automated driving and other safety-critical AI. Its tools help automotive and robotics teams align their datasets and models with human intent.
Kristina Ekberg is Partner at HealthCap, one of Europe's largest dedicated life science venture capital firms, headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. She focuses on biotech and pharmaceutical investments in the Nordic region and beyond. HealthCap has been one of the most active life science investors in Scandinavia for more than two decades, managing multiple funds with a strong track record of exits.
Kry is a Stockholm-based digital healthcare company founded in 2014 that connects patients with doctors, nurses and psychologists through video and app-based consultations, and also runs physical clinics in some markets. Known as Livi outside the Nordics, it operates in Sweden, Norway, France, Germany and the United Kingdom and became one of Europe's most funded digital health companies.
Lassie is a digital pet-insurance company that combines coverage with preventive-care engagement. The app uses education modules and behavior incentives to reward owners for proactive pet health practices, linking prevention to premium outcomes.
Stockholm-based legal AI platform for law firms and in-house legal teams, assisting with research, contract review, and drafting across complex matters. Used by 1,000+ legal teams in 50 markets. Reached €85M+ ARR in under 18 months. Raised $550M Series D at a $5.6B valuation from Accel, Atlassian, and NVIDIA's NVentures.
LEVELS is a Stockholm-based venture studio that co-founds and builds technology companies from scratch, pairing its own operators and capital with founding teams to take ideas from concept to launch. It contributes hands-on product, design and go-to-market work in the earliest stages, then supports the resulting companies as they raise external funding and scale.
Founded in 2023, Lovable builds an AI-powered full-stack software development platform that converts natural-language prompts into deployable applications. The product generates real frontend and backend code, integrates directly with GitHub, and is used by both non-technical founders for MVP creation and enterprise teams for rapid prototyping.
Luminar Ventures is a Stockholm-based seed-stage venture capital firm and one of the most active early investors in the Nordics, providing seed financing together with hands-on operational support. It focuses on digital technology startups, backing founders from the earliest stages and helping them build toward Series A and beyond.
Swedish entrepreneur, co-founder and CEO of Legora, a Stockholm-based legal-AI platform he started in 2023 to help lawyers work alongside AI agents. He holds dual degrees in computer science and business and previously held roles at McKinsey and in venture capital.
Mentimeter is a Swedish company based in Stockholm that develops an interactive presentation and audience-engagement platform. Presenters create live polls, quizzes, word clouds and Q&A sessions that audiences respond to from their own devices, used in both business and education settings for meetings, training, lectures and brainstorming. Founded in 2014 by Johnny Warström and Niklas Ingvar, it has expanded internationally; in June 2022 it raised a $42 million Series C round to support growth, including expansion into the United States.
Mikael Bäck is a Vice President and Corporate Officer at Ericsson, the Swedish multinational telecommunications and networking equipment company headquartered in Stockholm. He is a recognised industry advocate for European digital infrastructure policy, engaging with EU institutions and governments on topics including 5G rollout, 6G development, and open radio access networks. His role at Ericsson encompasses strategic engagement with European policymakers on connectivity, network sovereignty, and the future of wireless infrastructure investment across the continent.
Natural Cycles is a Stockholm-based femtech company founded in 2013 that makes a fertility-awareness app which uses body-temperature data and an algorithm to identify fertile and non-fertile days. It became the first app cleared by the US FDA to be marketed as a form of contraception and also supports users planning pregnancy.
Navigare Ventures is a Nordic deep tech venture capital firm and fully owned subsidiary of Wallenberg Investments AB, investing at seed and Series A stages in science-driven companies across the Nordic region. Its core investment themes span future of computing, advanced materials, and life science, with a portfolio covering AI, quantum computing, synthetic biology, and nanotechnology. Navigare Ventures is a long-standing partner of the NORDEEP Nordic Deep Tech Business Summit and plays an active role in the broader Nordic innovation landscape.
Neko Health is a Stockholm-based preventive health company co-founded in 2018 by Hjalmar Nilsonne and Daniel Ek (the Spotify founder). Neko operates clinics that offer AI-powered full-body health scans using proprietary sensors and imaging technology to detect early signs of cardiovascular disease, skin cancer, diabetes, and other conditions. A scan takes about 15 minutes and costs a fraction of traditional medical imaging. The company has raised over $260 million, including a $260 million round in 2024, and is expanding its clinic network across Sweden and the UK. Neko Health represents a new model of proactive, technology-driven healthcare that could reshape how Europeans approach preventive medicine.
Nicoya is a Stockholm-based venture capital firm investing at the frontier of food innovation as a dedicated 'future foods' investor. It partners with entrepreneurs transforming how food is produced and consumed, backing companies working on healthier, smarter and more resilient food systems with a long-term perspective on value creation.
Niklas Zennstrom is a Swedish-born serial entrepreneur and investor, best known as the co-founder of Skype and Kazaa. After selling Skype to eBay for USD 2.6B in 2005, Zennstrom founded Atomico (listed separately as VC), one of Europe's most prominent growth-stage venture funds. Beyond Atomico, Zennstrom makes personal angel investments in early-stage European startups, particularly those working on climate tech, sustainability, and deep technology. He co-founded the Zennstrom Philanthropies and is a driving force behind efforts to position the Nordics as a global hub for impact-driven technology. His combination of entrepreneurial credibility, global network, and climate focus makes him one of Europe's most sought-after angel backers.
Europe's premier games-industry gathering at Slagthuset in Malmö, with conference talks, expo floor, the Nordic Game Awards, and a closing Masterclass Friday. Draws studios, publishers, and investors from across the Nordics.
The premier Nordic life-science partnering event organised by SwedenBIO, rotating to Stockholm in 2026. Brings biotech, pharma, medtech, and digital-health players together for partnering meetings, panels, and company presentations.
Organizer of Nordic Tech Week, Stockholm's city-wide, open-access technology festival that connects hundreds of independently hosted panels, hackathons, and investor summits under one platform. The week gathers startups, scaleups, investors, and ecosystem actors across the Swedish capital, anchored by the open Tech Open gathering in Kungstradgarden.
Stockholm's city-wide, open-access technology week with hundreds of independently hosted panels, hackathons, and investor summits connected under one platform and anchored by the open Tech Open gathering in Kungstradgarden. The festival convenes startups, scaleups, investors, and ecosystem actors from across the Nordics for five days of programming.
Nordic.js & Nordic.design is a Stockholm-based events company co-founded by Jonny Strömberg, Martina Elm, and Johannes Edelstam that organizes the Nordics' largest JavaScript conference, Nordic.js, which has run annually since 2014, as well as Nordic.design, a sister conference focused on digital design. The organization has attracted over 1,700 visitors from more than 30 countries across its events, with Nordic.js selling out for multiple consecutive years. The conferences are held each autumn in Stockholm and are known for their single-track format featuring both internationally renowned speakers and rising stars from the JavaScript and web development community.
Stockholm's iconic JavaScript community conference, running since 2014 and known for its curated single-track program covering frontend frameworks, Node.js backends, tooling, and the emerging wave of AI-augmented developer workflows. 700+ senior JavaScript engineers from across the Nordics and beyond. The post-conference social events in Stockholm's bars and restaurants are a defining feature. Tickets EUR 500-700.
Normative is a Stockholm-based climate-tech company founded in 2014 that provides carbon accounting software, helping companies measure their full greenhouse-gas footprint, including scope 3 supply-chain emissions, and produce science-based reduction plans and regulatory reports. It co-founded the SME Climate Hub together with the United Nations and works with enterprise customers across Europe.
Norrsken Foundation is a Swedish non-profit organization founded in 2016 by Klarna co-founder Niklas Adalberth, dedicated to helping entrepreneurs solve the world's greatest challenges including poverty, climate change, and mental health. The foundation operates an accelerator program and co-working hubs called Norrsken House in Stockholm, Brussels, Amsterdam, Kigali, and Barcelona, supporting early-stage impact startups with pre-seed investment and mentorship from over 110 entrepreneurs and investors. In 2025 it rebranded its accelerator as Norrsken Evolve and closed a €57 million fund for early-stage impact companies across Europe. Norrsken House Stockholm serves as a key venue for Nordic Tech Week events.
Founded 2016 by the Norrsken Foundation. Eight-week impact accelerator selecting 20 startups annually; offers USD 125K for 5% equity and mentorship from global tech leaders. Focus on climate, health, and education. Scope: International.
Northvolt is one of the most consequential climate-tech companies ever built in Europe because it attempted to establish a continental battery manufacturing base for the electric era. The company became a flagship industrial project by combining battery-cell production, recycling ambitions, and strategic partnerships with European automotive and industrial players. That vision mattered well beyond Sweden: Northvolt symbolized Europe's effort to reduce dependence on external battery supply chains and to anchor advanced manufacturing capacity closer to regional customers. Its story is also a reminder that deep industrial startups operate under very different constraints than software companies. Battery manufacturing requires enormous capex, long build cycles, complex procurement, and tight execution across energy, materials, logistics, and customer contracts. Even with that complexity and its later financial distress, Northvolt remains central to understanding Europe's climate and industrial-tech ecosystem because it reset expectations for how ambitious startup-backed manufacturing on the continent could be. In directory terms, Northvolt broadens the picture beyond software and marketplaces by representing the hardware-heavy, infrastructure-scale side of innovation that shapes the future of transport, energy resilience, and industrial policy across Europe.
Agentic security platform that automates threat modelling for engineering teams using AI coding tools like Cursor and GitHub Copilot. Continuously maps codebase architecture, flags security risks and delivers contextual remediations in developer workflows; in production at Miro and Tandem Health.
Øredev is one of Europe's premier developer conferences, held annually in Malmö since 2005 and celebrating its 20th edition in 2026. The three-day program spans the whole software development process, including backend, frontend, AI, architecture, security, and team culture, drawing developers, architects, and tech leads from across the Nordics. A strong hiring and learning venue for engineering-heavy startups in the Öresund region.
Pale Blue Dot is a Swedish venture capital firm dedicated exclusively to investing in early-stage climate tech companies across the Nordic region and Europe. Founded to accelerate decarbonization through technology-driven solutions, the fund backs startups working on energy transition, carbon capture, sustainable food systems, and related sectors. It is one of the most prominent climate-focused VC funds operating in Scandinavia and a partner organization at NORDEEP 2026.
General Partner at Northzone, the pan-European venture firm, splitting time between Stockholm and New York. A long-standing fixture of Nordic venture, he led Northzone's landmark investments in Spotify and iZettle and has shaped the firm's growth into a multi-billion-euro platform.
Pocket Gamer Connects' first dedicated Sweden event, a focused two-day games-industry networking and dealmaking conference with an indie developer pitch competition.
Sana (Sana Labs) is a Stockholm-based AI company founded in 2016 that builds an enterprise platform combining AI agents, enterprise search and learning tools. Its products include Sana, for AI agents and enterprise search, and Sana Learn, a learning and content-creation platform used by organisations to access knowledge, automate work and learn with agentic AI. Backed by investors including NEA, Menlo Ventures and EQT Ventures, the company reached over $130M in total funding before Workday announced a definitive agreement to acquire it for approximately $1.1 billion in September 2025.
CEO/co-founder of Klarna, Sebastian has Polish roots and has made angel investments in Poland. He participated in funding for Warsaw-based custom packaging startup Packhelp, among others. His presence brings a bit of Scandinavian fintech savvy to the Polish ecosystem. Associated startups: Packhelp (and likely other Polish e-commerce enablers).
Sofia Lindelöw is the Managing Director for the Nordics at Norrsken Foundation, the Stockholm-based impact organization co-founded by Klarna's Niklas Adalberth. She leads the foundation's community and operations across Sweden and the broader Nordic region, supporting entrepreneurs working on solutions to global challenges in health, climate, and education. Prior to Norrsken she held senior roles at Epidemic Sound and holds an M.Sc. in Technology Management from Lund University.
A former Spotify executive turned prominent angel (and VC at Atomico), Sophia from Sweden has invested in Polish startups, particularly in fintech and healthtech. She was an early angel in Warsaw-based Doctorly and supports female-founded companies in Poland through programs like Lift Women. Associated startups: Doctorly, Village Network (and other Polish startups via Atomico Angel Programme).
Sound Bioventures is a Nordic life science venture capital firm investing in early-stage biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and medical technology companies in Scandinavia and the Baltic region. The firm focuses on science-driven innovation in therapeutics and diagnostics and is an active sponsor of the Nordic life science community. It served as Investor Dinner Sponsor at Nordic Life Science Days 2026.
Founded in 2009 in Malmo, Spintop Ventures is a Nordic early-stage VC investing EUR 0.5-3M at seed and Series A in enterprise software, digital consumer platforms, and IoT. The firm manages over EUR 150M across multiple funds and focuses on B2B SaaS and data-driven businesses in Sweden and the broader Nordics. Portfolio companies include Bambuser (live video shopping), Doktor.se (digital health), and Ingrid (e-commerce delivery). Spintop provides hands-on operational support in sales, recruitment, and go-to-market strategy.
Spotify is the world's largest audio streaming platform, offering music, podcasts, and audiobooks to over 600 million users including 230+ million paid subscribers across 180+ markets. Founded in Stockholm in 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon, Spotify went public on the NYSE in 2018 and has fundamentally transformed the global music industry. The company pioneered the freemium streaming model and continues to expand into new audio formats, creator tools, and advertising technology. Spotify is often considered Europe's most iconic consumer tech company.
GU Ventures is the incubator and holding company of the University of Gothenburg and one of Sweden's longest-running university incubators. It helps researchers and entrepreneurs commercialise ideas from the university, providing seed funding, business-development support and workspace to build science- and technology-based startups.
Stockholm chapter of the global Startup Grind community, powered by Google for Startups. Hosting monthly fireside chats and networking events since the early 2010s, the chapter connects Stockholm's founder community through founder stories, investor panels, and community meetups in one of Europe's most active startup ecosystems.
Startup Grind fireside chat and networking event in Stockholm featuring global ecosystem builders and experienced founders. Part of the international Startup Grind community with 3.5M+ members across 600 chapters. Valuable for founders seeking mentorship, investor introductions, and connections with the Stockholm tech community.
Stegra (formerly H2 Green Steel) is one of Europe’s most ambitious industrial decarbonization projects, aiming to rebuild steelmaking around renewable energy and green hydrogen. The company is building a fully integrated production campus in Boden, northern Sweden, where abundant hydropower and regional mining supply chains converge. The core innovation is the direct-reduction process: instead of using coal to reduce iron ore, Stegra uses green hydrogen, cutting CO2 emissions by roughly 95% compared with blast-furnace steel. That technical shift is the foundation for a new European supply of low-carbon steel, which is increasingly demanded by automakers, construction firms, and consumer brands. The company rebranded to Stegra in September 2024 to signal that it is more than a steel mill. Its long-term platform vision is to combine renewable power, hydrogen production, and mineral processing into a repeatable template for heavy industry. By 2026, the Boden plant is reported to be more than halfway constructed, with gigascale electrolyzers (supplied by Thyssenkrupp Nucera) being installed and key offtake contracts signed. Customers reportedly include Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Scania, and IKEA, and more than half of initial output has been pre-sold — a strong indicator that the “green premium” market is real. Stegra’s financing structure is as notable as its technology. Rather than relying solely on venture capital, the company blends project-finance debt with growth equity, totaling more than €6.5 billion in commitments. This makes it one of the largest private industrial raises in Europe and a flagship case for climate infrastructure funding. Its origins are tied to Vargas Holding, a Swedish venture-builder that also co-founded Northvolt and Polarium, acting as an institutional co-founder rather than a conventional accelerator. Early support from EIT InnoEnergy helped validate the project at the EU level. Stegra’s investor roster reflects its strategic importance: Altor Equity Partners, GIC, Just Climate, Temasek, and Porsche SE are among its backers. In 2026, Stegra represents the “Northvolt effect” done right: a proof that Europe can re-industrialize around clean energy and keep advanced manufacturing on the continent. If it succeeds, it will be a template for decarbonizing other hard-to-abate sectors, from cement to fertilizers, and a cornerstone of Europe’s green-industry competitiveness.
Sting (Stockholm Innovation & Growth) is Sweden’s leading startup accelerator and incubator, founded in 2002 and based in Stockholm. Over two decades, Sting has built a reputation as one of Europe’s most successful support programs for high-tech startups. Each year, ~25 startups participate in Sting’s programs, which are tailored to ICT, sustainability, and deep tech ventures. Sting offers two main tracks: the Accelerate program (a shorter, intensive accelerator with investment) and the Incubate program (a longer incubation with office space and coaching). Startups benefit from SEK 400,000 (≈€35,000) in pre-seed investment via Sting’s Propel Capital angel fund, as well as hands-on mentorship from experienced entrepreneurs. Sting is notable for its extensive network in the Nordics – participants get access to 80+ industry mentors and introductions to a broad investor pool in Sweden and internationally. The results speak volumes: Sting has supported 270+ startups since inception, with a survival rate over 70% and multiple high-profile alumni. Success stories include Yubico (security keys unicorn), Sellpy (fashion recommerce, acquired by H&M), and ClimateView (climate planning SaaS). In addition to funding and coaching, Sting offers free office space at A House in Stockholm, product development labs, and perks from partners. The program emphasizes key performance indicators (KPIs) and growth milestones – Sting aims to help companies reach first customers, significant revenues, or Series A readiness within 6–18 months. Beyond individual companies, Sting has played a crucial role in Stockholm’s ecosystem: it co-founded SUP46 (Start-Up People of Sweden) co-working space and hosts Sweden’s annual Startup Demo Day. Sting alumni have collectively raised over €600 million. With the Swedish ecosystem maturing, Sting remains a cornerstone – providing new founders with structured support, an entrepreneurial community, and that all-important first investment to turbocharge their growth.
Sting Demo Day is the flagship pitch event of Sting (Stockholm Innovation & Growth), one of Sweden's leading startup accelerators. Carefully selected high-potential founders from Sting's climate, health, AI, and deep-tech programs each deliver a 3-minute pitch of their vision and growth plans. The invite-only audience gathers 200+ handpicked investors and ecosystem allies, making it a prime fundraising and networking moment in the Stockholm ecosystem.
Nordic region's leading digital-transformation expo at Kistamässan, with six co-located shows on AI & Big Data, Cloud, Cyber Security, DevOps, Data Centre, and Mobile. Free entry, 5,000+ visitors, 250+ exhibitors.
Annual year-end networking mixer organized by SUP46 (Start-Up People of Sweden) in central Stockholm, bringing together the Swedish tech community for informal drinks, reflections on the year, and forward-looking talks from prominent founders. 500+ attendees. Free with RSVP, limited capacity.
Stravito is a Stockholm-based AI-powered insights intelligence platform that centralises consumer, market, and business research for large enterprises. The company unifies an organisation's existing research in one secure space and pairs AI with human expertise to make insights fast and easy to access for better decision-making. Its product includes an Insight Library, an AI Assistant, and AI Personas that turn segmentation research into interactive consumer profiles. Founded in 2017 by former iZettle employees, Stravito serves enterprise brands including Nestlé, Unilever, Danone, and Comcast.
Swedish foodtech innovation company and organizer of the annual Big Meet Summit, an 'un-conference' gathering the world's leading foodtech companies, entrepreneurs, scientists, and investors to debate the future of the global food system. Sweden Foodtech runs accelerator and matchmaking activities and partners with EIT Food on cross-European innovation programmes.
Annual foodtech 'un-conference' organized by Sweden Foodtech at Rosendals Tradgard in Stockholm, where leading foodtech companies, entrepreneurs, scientists, and investors gather to debate the future of the global food system. The 2026 programme features an EIT Food entrepreneur parade and a high-energy pitch session spotlighting top European foodtech startups.
Organizer of digital health matchmaking events for Swedish innovation networks, bridging healthtech startups with hospitals, research institutions, and public sector buyers. Sweden Innovation X facilitates structured meetings and demo days, helping medtech and digital health founders validate solutions and secure pilot partnerships within Sweden's healthcare system.
SwedenBIO is Sweden's national trade and interest organization for the life science industry, representing biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and medtech companies. Through its commercial arm SwedenBIO Service AB, it owns and produces Nordic Life Science Days (NLSDays), the largest Nordic partnering event for the life sciences sector. The organization advocates for Swedish life science competitiveness, innovation policy, and industry development at national and international levels.
Stockholm-based AI medical scribe that listens to doctor-patient consultations and generates structured clinical notes in real time, reducing physician documentation time by up to 70%. Raised a $50M Series A led by Kinnevik in 2026.
Organizer of Nordic-focused founder masterclasses, pitch events, and advocacy programs. Tech Nordic Advocates champions Nordic startup ecosystems by connecting founders with mentors, investors, and policymakers across the region, helping early-stage companies from Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Norway access capital and international market opportunities.
Online fundraising and growth masterclass for Nordic founders, hosted by Tech Nordic Advocates. Covers investor targeting, pitch optimization, and balancing growth with capital efficiency. Features expert guidance and live Q&A sessions. Valuable for seed and Series A founders navigating the European venture capital landscape.
Online workshop on go-to-market strategy led by Tech Nordic Advocates, covering market entry, channel partnerships, and early revenue generation for Nordic startups. Features practical frameworks and Q&A with experienced operators. Particularly valuable for early-stage founders preparing to launch products in European markets.
Organizer of Techarena, Scandinavia's largest tech and business event hosted annually in Stockholm since 2017. The conference draws over 8,000 attendees including Nordic founders, enterprise leaders, and international investors for keynotes, pitch competitions, and networking focused on AI, sustainability, and digital transformation.
Nordic/Baltic scale-up conference at Friends Arena with 7,500+ attendees and 400+ investors. Known for stage-specific pitch competitions and a strong sustainability and ESG focus.
Techarena's tech-and-policy track inside Almedalsveckan on Gotland, with three stages, 150+ speakers, 60+ panels, a Nordic startup showcase, and 3,000 invited VIPs alongside Sweden's political class.
Ted Persson is a Partner at EQT Ventures, the venture capital arm of EQT Group, one of Europe's largest and most active private equity firms. EQT Ventures employs an AI-driven sourcing approach through its proprietary Motherbrain platform to identify and back early-growth technology companies across Europe. Persson is a confirmed speaker and investor participant at NORDEEP 2026.
Tillvaxtverket is the Swedish government agency responsible for promoting economic growth and entrepreneurship across Sweden's regions. The agency administers a range of programs supporting startups and SMEs, including grants for innovation projects, regional venture capital funds (through the Swedish regional co-investment funds), and programs focused on internationalization and digital transformation. Tillvaxtverket also manages EU structural funds in Sweden, channeling significant European investment into regional innovation ecosystems. For startups, the agency is particularly relevant through its support of incubator networks, its coordination of the Swedish national innovation strategy, and its programs helping entrepreneurs in less urbanized regions access capital, mentorship, and market opportunities beyond Stockholm.
Tink is an open banking platform headquartered in Stockholm, founded in 2012 by Daniel Kjellén and Fredrik Hedberg. It provides open banking APIs and services that let banks, fintechs and merchants access financial data and build their own financial products. Originally a consumer financial-management app, Tink pivoted to offer its technology to other businesses, becoming one of Europe's open banking infrastructure providers. In June 2021 Visa agreed to acquire Tink for approximately €1.8 billion, completing the deal in 2022, after which Tink became wholly owned by Visa while retaining its brand.
Truecaller is a Stockholm-based company that develops a mobile caller-identification, spam-blocking and call/SMS-management app for Android and iOS. Founded in 2009 by Alan Mamedi and Nami Zarringhalam, the app lets users identify unknown callers and filter spam, with India being its largest market. The company listed its Class B shares on Nasdaq Stockholm in October 2021 and has grown to roughly 500 million active users, while expanding into adjacent data services.
Trustly is a Stockholm-based open banking payments company founded in 2008 that enables merchants to accept direct bank payments from consumers without cards, apps, or registration. The platform connects to over 8,000 banks across Europe and North America, powering pay-by-bank experiences for e-commerce, financial services, gaming, and travel companies. Nordic Capital acquired a majority stake in 2018 and the company has grown rapidly, processing tens of billions in payment volume annually. Trustly is a key player in Europe's open banking ecosystem and the broader shift away from card-based payments.
Uppsala Innovation Centre (UIC) is a leading Swedish incubator and accelerator, consistently ranked among Europe’s top public incubators. Founded in 1999 and located in Uppsala – a city known for its major university and pharma industry cluster – UIC supports startups from idea to growth, with a strong focus on life sciences, medtech, energy, and IT. It is a public-private partnership, co-owned by Uppsala municipality, Uppsala University, SLU (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences), and local industry. UIC offers a suite of programs: a pre-incubation phase for concept validation, a core incubation phase (up to 2 years) for business development and raising seed capital, and a accelerator phase for scaling up and internationalization. Uniquely, UIC doesn’t take equity but charges a modest fee – hence it’s seen as a neutral player with the startup’s interest at heart. Startups benefit from individualized coaching by experienced business advisors, free office and lab space, and connections to Uppsala’s rich network of experts (the city hosts big players like GE Healthcare, Pfizer, etc.). Access to lab facilities is a key advantage for biotech startups – UIC arranges subsidized lab rentals through partnerships with SLU and local science parks. Over 20+ years, UIC has nurtured over 1,000 companies. Alumni include OssDsign (innovative cranial implants, now publicly listed) and ScandiNova (pulsed power systems, a world leader in its niche). The incubator’s portfolio has also seen several acquisitions by international firms. UIC is particularly known for helping research-heavy projects with commercialization – many UIC startups are founded by professors or PhDs aiming to solve real-world problems with their inventions. They also run UIC “Business Lab” and “Startup Bootcamps” for very early-stage teams, including student entrepreneurs. UIC’s impact is evident: Uppsala punches above its weight in innovation metrics, and UIC has been recognized by UBI Global as a top-5 global incubator in 2019. By coupling Uppsala’s academic prowess with professional business guidance, Uppsala Innovation Centre continues to turn ideas “from lab to market,” driving regional growth and bringing science-based innovations to society.
VEF (Vostok Emerging Finance) is a Stockholm-listed investment company that backs growth-stage fintech companies in emerging markets such as Brazil, Mexico, India and Pakistan. It takes minority stakes with a long-term perspective, supporting founders building financial services for underserved consumers and businesses from investment through to exit.
Verdane is a Nordic growth equity firm with offices in Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, Berlin, and London that specializes in technology-enabled, sustainable growth companies. The firm invests at growth and late stage, typically in companies with $5-100 million in revenue, and manages over $6 billion in committed capital. Verdane focuses on digital consumer, software, and sustainable businesses, and is one of the largest dedicated growth investors in Northern Europe.
Vinnova is Sweden's innovation agency, responsible for fostering sustainable growth through research, development, and innovation. It distributes approximately SEK 3 billion annually in grants and co-funding to businesses, universities, research institutes, and public organizations across Sweden. Vinnova is a key government body enabling innovation in life sciences, digital health, and technology, and served as a Spotlight Panel Host at Nordic Life Science Days 2026.
Voi Technology is a Stockholm-based micromobility company founded in 2018 that operates shared electric scooters and e-bikes across more than 100 European cities, partnering with municipalities under a permit-based, heavily regulated model. It is one of Europe's largest e-scooter operators and has emphasised sustainability and unit economics, reporting adjusted profitability in recent years.
Voi Technology is a Swedish micromobility company headquartered in Stockholm that operates shared electric scooters and e-bikes across European cities. Founded in 2018, it was one of the first electric scooter operators to launch in Europe, partnering with cities to provide app-based, dockless vehicle rentals as a sustainable alternative for short urban trips. The company reported reaching profitability in 2024 and has scaled to nearly 1,000 employees across multiple European countries, raising financing through both equity rounds and bond issuances.
Walerud Ventures is a Stockholm-based venture firm that backs Nordic deep-tech companies at the pre-seed and seed stage, working hands-on as investors, advisers and part-time operators rather than passive backers. Founded by members of the Walerud family, it focuses on 'planet-positive' science and technology and has helped build early Nordic deep-tech companies.
Hybrid VC fund and tech innovation hub founded in 2016 running accelerator programs at The Factory and investing in early-stage digital and fintech startups. Support: equity investment, mentorship from in-house experts, workspace access. Scope: National.