By Elsa María Granados
Sweden is well known as the birthplace of some of the most successful giants in the world, such as Spotify, Skype and Klarna.
The country is a very appropriate ecosystem for the flowering of startups –both to start and to grow into large companies–. And not any kind of companies: innovative and technological-based companies are the usual bet. Indeed, for being one of the countries where innovation is more supported and boosted, Sweden ranked second in the 2019 edition of the Global Innovation Index. Sweden is also considered one of the most entrepreneurial countries .With only 10.4 Million people of population, Sweden had more than 10,000 startups around 2019.
One of the factors that enables this high entrepreneurship to flourish into successful big companies is the backup of the VC investments. According to the recent analysis published by F. Norrestad in Statista, “in 2018, Sweden had the highest amount of venture capital (VC) investments made per capita in Europe. Roughly speaking, around 140 US dollars were invested in VC businesses per inhabitant in Sweden during that year.”
Here at Strata, we’re listing the top 10 Swedish tech funds that support startups and help them grow into the present force that they represent today.
Almi Invest
Almi Invest is a public venture capital company whose mission is to serve as a bridge to private equity. It is a sector independent venture capital company which invests in start-ups all over Sweden, working the Tech, Life Science, Industry and Cleantech sectors, encompassing all subsectors from Mediatech, Medtech to Renewable Energy. Almi Invest works through 8 regional funds and a national fund: the GreenTech. This one is focused on making a positive climate impact by investing in climate-smart or CO2-reducing innovative companies. With a total fund capital of €341,06M and 370 active companies, they invest between 1 to 10 million SEK (97.727 -977.270 EUR) per company. These companies must be Swedish innovative start-ups with a global market vision and a unique technology or niche.
Do you know Almi Invest? We would love to hear your opinion!
Creandum
Creandum is a venture capital advisory firm based in Stockholm, Sweden. The firm’s role is powering innovation from Stockholm, San Francisco, London, and Berlin. They invest in innovative technology companies at seed, early and later stage, with an initial ticket so far that ranges from € 200 k to € 8M.
Do you know Creandum? We would love to hear your opinion!
EQT Ventures
With 146 investments and 14 exits, EQT Ventures is a venture capital firm that operates across Europe and the US, supporting “the next generation of global winners”. It is based in Stockholm, Sweden, and it also has offices in London, Berlin, Paris and San Francisco. Their mission is to serve founders of technology-based start-ups and scale-ups and help them in their journey to build great and sustainable companies. EQT Ventures backs companies independently of the sector and at any stage of development, with equity investments that range from €1 to €75 million.
Do you know EQT Ventures? We would love to hear your opinion!
Nordic Makers
Nordic Makers is a venture capital based in Stockholm, Sweden. Their objective is to be a new kind of investor, offering a friendly ecosystem for ambitious founders of early-stage companies. They preferably invest in companies which already have some traction, leading seed rounds that range from $500k to $2m (€443k-€1.77m). This is their core business. However, after the 2020 Pandemic, they also launched a Pre-Seed programme for helping companies just starting their journey. They already have 46 investments and 4 exits.
Do you know Nordic Makers? We would love to hear your opinion!
Industrifonden
Industrifonden, based in Stockholm, Sweden, is a venture capital firm with a reach across the Nordics. They invest in radically innovative early-stage companies of Life Sciences, Deep Tech and Transformative Tech sectors. Their mission is to support “Sweden’s shift to new techno-economic paradigms”, through investments whose median size is $5M . Their numbers/figures so far are: 261 investments, 126 exits and $660M (€585M) of assets under management.
Do you know Industrifonden? We would love to hear your opinion!
NFT Ventures
NFT Ventures is a Swedish venture capital firm active in Northern Europe, with investments in companies of the Nordic and the UK markets. It has its offices in Stockholm -where it is based-, Helsinki and London. From there, they aim to invest in innovative fintech (financial technology) startups, empower their entrepreneurs and drive the fintech disruption of Northern Europe. NFT Ventures is focused on fintech and also interested in other sectors whose product is related to fintech: e-commerce, insurtech, proptech and regtech. Thus, their portfolio companies cover verticals within fintech such as payment, lending and personal finance, among others. Up to now, NFT Ventures has made 69 investments and has obtained 17 exits. They are looking for already established startups to help them grow until becoming market leaders.
Do you know NFT Ventures? We would love to hear your opinion!
Kinnevik
Kinnevik, with its motto “we invest for a reimagined everyday”, has reached figures of 163 investments and 62 exits, thus being one the strongest Swedish VC. Headquartered in Stockholm, its investments are focused on healthtech, consumer services, foodtech and fintech sectors. They back digital companies at every stage, investing in Europe, with a focus on the Nordics, and in the US.
Do you know Kinnevik? We would love to hear your opinion!
Aggregate Media
Aggregate is a venture capital firm that invests in small and medium-sized companies in Sweden, Norway and Finland. Its investment consists of media space that they invest as growth capital; in their own words: “we offer advertising space in several media channels in return for ownership in the investee company”. This firm is based in Stockholm, Sweden, and its investment sectors are the media, e-commerce, digital services and B2B sectors. So far, this firm has made 180 investments and 135 exits.
Do you know Aggregate Media? We would love to hear your opinion!
Inbox Capital
Inbox Capital is a Swedish venture capital company, headquartered in Stockholm and operating in the Nordics. It has reached 64 investments and 8 exits. Mainly focused on disruptive and fast growing tech companies, they invest in several verticals: Fintech, Medtech, E-sports, B2B SaaS and Deep Social Networks. The companies they invest in must have reached a certain level of sales thanks to their business model.
Do you know Inbox Capital? We would love to hear your opinion!
Wellstreet Ventures
Wellstreet Ventures is a venture capital firm headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Their mission is to impact the Nordic startup environment, considering themselves as a “super-active early-stage investor”. They invest in the technology, globalisation, sustainability and digitization sectors and have reached figures of 60 investments and 20 exits. They offer their Wellstreet Ventures Fund I, for supporting tech companies with pre-seed to seed investments. They also offer two other funding programs: Wellstreet Launchpad, powered by Google for Startups and designed for training entrepreneurs and “support them in building scalable and sustainable companies”, and Wellstreet Fintech Loft, in collaboration with AWS, which aims to “build the next generation of fintech companies”.
Do you know Wellstreet Ventures? We would love to hear your opinion!
