€80.5 mil fundraise, 2 x ceos stepping down + tax from hell overturned ⭐️
*TGI(m)F. edition124 i’m kay, and this is your weekly round-up of curated startup news from the nordics, delivered to your screen for easy reading every sunday 💌
🥛 got news?
i love to crowdsource updates from the people on the ground, so here’s the:
🔗 mondayfriday news drop. share the details by saturday for a potential sunday feature!
“if you have product-market fit, you don’t have time to think about whether you have product-market fit”
~ unknown, overheard at slush.
🇩🇰 Denmark
Heartcore announce the close of their €170 million Fund V with aims to make 25-30 early-stage investments from the fund.
Lunar’s Banking Services unit is becoming Moonrise + Robert Stambro joins as their new CFO, and their current CCO Gitte Roskær, is moving into the COO role.
Copenhagen ranks 4th for international workforce quality of life according to Mercer’s Quality of Living City Ranking.
SUPPLME, a complete daily liquid nutrition product challenging the traditional supplement industry, secures pre-seed investment from Antler.
The debate to ban young people (pre-18 yrs ) from social media platforms is evolving, and will be taken up in parliament. naturally, there a lot of opinions: from “fearfluencers” to “ADHD + screen time” , “toddlers at a casino” to ”sugar-free smartphones”.
Biotech company, Antag Therapeutics, has raised the second largest vc round in Denmark in 2024 at €80.5 million. Round was led by Versant Ventures and including Novo Holdings, EIFO and more.
Dynelectro, the company producing green hydrogen for carbon-neutral eFuels, enters into a partnership with the Italian technology provider SolydEra.
Heidi Haurholm-Rasmussen has joined venture capital fund, Heartcore, as their Head of Capital Formation.
“Tax From Hell” has been overturned, thanks to a loooong + collective effort from people on the ground in the startup ecosystem.
Quantum Use Cases Catalogue: 16 cross-industry use cases of quantum technologies in DK (includes cybersecurity, MRI scans + real-time trading).
Tembi, the market intelligence platform, has raised €3 million from Seed Capital Denmark.
Meet DTU Science Park’s 27 newly certified mentors.
According to the Minister of Economy, Stephanie Lose, unemployment in Denmark is at a low, but the competition for jobs feel like it’s at an all time high (a 24-hr job-posting close!).
A new pact to up-skill 1 million Danes in artificial intelligence by 2028.
ChurchDesk, the church management system, acquires KaPlan Software and receives funding from Osprey Investors.
Space Denmark launches, a new organisation connecting Denmark's space sector, and promoting DK’s spacetech industry on a global scale.
Kristine Helen Falgren has joined the Danish Quantum Community as their new Managing Director.
There wasn’t a single bid for the largest ever, off-shore wind auction project.
Dansk Vækstkapital - a fund totalling €1.2 billion - will move over to Danske Bank after 14 years under EIFO management.
🇸🇪 Sweden
Johannes Schildt, the founder of healthcare unicorn company, Kry, is stepping down from his post as CEO - instead taking on role as chair of the board.
Kristian Rönn founder + (ex) CEO of Normative, is stepping away from his post, with Sebastien Blanc taking over in his place.
Spotify is officially a $100 billion company (and, of course, spotify wrapped came out).
Sweden’s industry giants ready to put money behind new nuclear power.
Wilgot, a platform for the “the future of content, SEO + search”, is launching soon - you can sign-up for the waitlist.
UrbanVind secures €150.000 in pre-seed funding from EIT Urban Mobility through the Main Innovation Open Call for 2025.
MoveByBike Europe, the logistics company using e-cargo bikes for distribution, has raised €434k in a round led by Keystones.
Cerve, the company accelerating the digitisation of the food & bev supply chain, has raised €3.5 million led by SuperSeed.
Skincare brand, Mantle, are using jellyfish secretion as the “next power-packed ingredient for hydration”.
Swedish government announces the decision to “make it more difficult to become a Swedish citizen".
Climatetech software startup, Emission Twin has secured €800k from Loop Capital and Octaquest.
Big Audience Machine, a platform helping smaller marketing teams quickly and efficiently create omnichannel content, raised €350k from Antler, Dagg AI, and more.
The finalists for the i För-orten 2024 awards have been named including: Traino, TinkerClub, Vidre.ai and more.
Bardo, a carbon intelligence platform, has raised €3 million in additional funding from Cherry Ventures.
DREV, the company building contamination control technology for industrial cleanliness, partners with Kollmorgen, an Autonomous Mobile Solutions (AMS) company.
Talentium, an AI-powered hiring platform, has raised €3.5 million pre-seed funding led by EQT Ventures and is on Klarna CEO’s radar.
Following their €37 million round a few weeks ago, Magma Math raises another €662k from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Acorai, a healthtech startup offering heart failure management devices, secures €4.3 million in funding from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund, Taiwan Medical University, and a list of private investors.
Stockholm wins "City of the Year" by POLIS Network in part for it’s inclusive urban mobility, whilst in Gothenburg, the Social Democrats, proposed banning shared e-scooters.
Helena Fagraeus Lundström joins climatetech company, T.Loop, as their new CEO.
🇳🇴 Norway
Vouch, the talent referral platform, has now built a tool that also allows companies to be referred to the platform.
Recharge Health, the infrared light therapy company, have raised funding (and are still going) + have partnered with Bryan Johnson on his Don’t Die Summit.
Jacob Petersen joins wheel.me, a robotics and IoT company specialising in indoor mobility, as their new Chief Commercial Officer.
Settle, the mobile payments and e-commerce fintech platform, has been acquired by the London-based, Sokin, for an undisclosed sum.
Biotech company, Exact Therapeutics, raises roughly €12.3 million with GE HealthCare joining as a new investor and with contributions from existing investors.
Db, the outdoor / luggage brand, has received investment from LVMH Luxury Ventures Fund I – its second investment in Scandinavia.
Pal T.Naess, the (ex) co-founder of unicorn company, Gelato, will be advising the TESTNOR team to help the cyber company scale internationally.
🇫🇮 Finland
Summa Defence has acquired the deep-tech company specialising in AR + AI, Lightspace Technologies, for an undisclosed amount.
Zero, the AI-powered GTM platform has secured €2.5 million in pre-seed funding led by 20VC.
Helsinki FinTech Farm welcome 4 new members: Dundee ID Ltd, Fondia Oyj, Candour Identity + smeGo.
Finlands First Lady, Suzanne Innes-Stubb, was spotted in a Robes Rental dress at the Finnish Presidential Independence Day reception.
Fintech scale-up, Enfuce, announces a strategic partnership with tell.money.
🇮🇸 Iceland
Pre-orders are now open for the Circular Library Network's sharing infrastructure systems.
📚 stories, opinions + resources
read: taking spotify from 6 million subscribers to over 250 million in 11 years.
see: startup aarhus’ annual christmas gift list with select picks from local startups.
read: “this is what the world’s first all-ev car market looks like” — (norway).
read: unconventional ventures will not be releasing their annual funding report on inclusive (or lackthereof) venture capital, due to the lack of progress year on year. instead they’re asking for action, and are sharing their internal blueprint publicly.
read: “what kind of people become startup founders: exploration into the grassroots levels of entrepreneurship” - bachelor’s thesis, Henrik Asklöf
read: the 5 nordic companies that made sifted’s “ten fastest growing climatetechs by revenue” list: klimate, flower, dynelectro, earthbanc and skyfri.
this weeks wildcard: these are the 9 projects/organisations that have been granted €67.000 through the globus forward program (the actual comes from the nordic culture fund). the program supports long-term partnerships and capacity-building through nordic-global initiatives. with select projects cutting across policy, arts and culture, the idea is to support projects that cannot be carried out in the nordics alone, and so international collaboration is a must.
some of the current program’s grantees include:
→ The Nordic Alliance of Artists’ Residencies on Climate Action (NAARCA) by Artica Svalbard
→ How can heritage, craft & design inspire a new generation of conscious makers and creative entrepreneurs by Nonkululeko Mlangeni
→ Fostering Digital Sanctuaries by Ghost Agency
🌊 Katapult Ocean are hiring a Marketing and Communication Manager
🌙 Moonboon is hiring a Head of Finance and Administration
🏋️♀️ Bruce Studios are hiring a Product Manager
💡 Nico Blier-Silvestri’s Monday Spotlight (reach out to Nico to learn more about the person’s profile!): An Engineering Manager who brings leadership, technical excellence, and dedication to empowering teams to achieve their best is ready for the next challenge. With 14 years of experience in IT, starting from a background in software development and quality assurance, she has built a strong technical foundation and developed leadership skills along the way.
→ DTU X-Tech Finals: Fall 2024, December 12th, 15.00 - 20.00 at DTU Skylab.
→ Female Founder Pitching Day 2024 hosted by Tech Nordic Advocates, December 17 , 9:30am - 1pm EET in Helsinki.
→ Game Changers: Women in Leadership with Kindred & Women in Tech, December 10th at 17:30, Stockholm.
→ Jesper Wahlberg, Co-founder of aioss is looking for a new office space for his team of (soon to be) 6.
→ Shifting Your Career into AI hosted by Connected Women in AI, December 12th. Online.
Thanks for tuning in! i’m always on the hunt for newsworthy content to bring to the mondayfriday audience. and, if you ask me, the best place is from the community itself. so, please drop your updates HERE and fill me in on any startup related news in the nordics ✨
yours weekly,
kay
* thank god it's (monday)friday
