mondayfriday#11: the startup solving dental health equity, the 1st well-being Unicorn?, Juni named fastest growing fintech
welcome to newsletter #11, week 50. i'm kay, and i'll be sourcing curated startup news in denmark from monday-friday, delivered to your screen in time for your morning coffee on sunday ☕️
rapid-fire 💥
🇳🇴 Norway
NOVELDA, the Ultra-Wideband sensor company has just raised 400M NOK in private placement (i.e. selling shares to pre-selected investors) as they enter their pre-IPO phase.
🇸🇪 Sweden
Cherry Ventures backed, Juni, the Gothenburg-based Fintech startup, sits at #1 in fastest growing fintechs in Europe in 2021 based on LinkedIn & Dealroom data.
Ark Kapital receives SEK 575M from the European Investment Fund to finance Swedish SME’s with more favourable lending terms.
Bloomberg News names Stockholm Europe’s capital of Impact as Sweden attracts $4.5B in cash aimed at ventures who target one of the 17 Sustainability Development Goals.
Kry named 1 of 55 international companies “to bet your career on” in 2022 by Business Insider (paywall!).
🇩🇰 Denmark
Adtech startup providing email marketing services, Passendo, has raised €2.3M in a pre-Series A round led by Dutch VC, Newion, and UK-based, FirstPartyCapital.
With a focus on DeFi, Web3 and more, Camille Zivré joins byFounders’ investment team whilst Carsten Salling becomes General Partner at Dreamcraft Ventures
Proptech startup, Hococo, has raised a $2.7M seed round which was led by Clausen Engineering. The disruptive startup is an all-in-one platform that works to manage the tenant-landlord relationship.
Andreas Green Rasmussen and Rune Hven-Jensen launch new 150 M DKK venture fund, Ugly Duckling Ventures targeted at Nordic startups (paywall!).
IT startup, Enterspeed has raised 6.5M DKK from PreSeed Ventures and North East Venture to optimise companies’ IT infrastructure without having to replace the whole model.
Danish government release new strategy to grow Power-to-X technologies and projects.
Fintech startup, Risika, raise their largest ever round with €5M led by Seed Capital.
🇮🇸 Iceland
Plaio, a SaaS solution for the pharmaceutical industry raises a €2M pre-Series A round, led by Frumtak Ventures.
🇫🇮 Finland
Mobal, the Helsinki-based SaaS startup has raised a €2M seed round led by Lifeline Ventures (who also backed Supercell, Wolt, and more).
local insights 👀
// pleaz make way for the first well-being unicorn…
This week, TechSavvy Media highlighted Pleaz, the HR & well-being platform that works to encourage “health breaks” for employees during the work day. In our new hybrid world, companies have focused on providing the right physical settings for their employees’ home-working conditions, but there’s an even greater pressure on their mental health and wellbeing. Having just raised a €1M round, the startup hopes to become the first well-being focused unicorn as they build towards the American market. Read more on here.
// the danish startup tackling dental health inequity…
Two weeks ago, Adent Health, the Dentaltech startup raised €2M in funding led by PreSeed Ventures & Calm/Storm Ventures. In the last year and a half they have grown to 60.000 users with aims to support the dental health of over 50 million people worldwide having discovered more people in the world have smartphones than toothbrushes. Using AI technologies the app is able to compare images taken by the user of their teeth with millions of other ‘mouths’ in the database and follow-up with recommendations. The user’s dental journey can then be tracked through images overtime, to see if these recommendations have the desired effect. Read more about the who, what when where and why of Adent Health here.
// the conversation on homegrown unicorns continues…
Following on from Jasmina Pless’ article in Altinget concerning the internationalisation of Danish startups, Steen Donner, CEO of DTU Science Park shares his views. To sum up, he believes that when Danish startups relocate to international markets this should not be seen as a detriment to our own ecosystem, but actually an opportunity to gain access to new markets and talent. Denmark is great at starting companies, but we’re not that great at keeping them so what’s important, Donner notes, is that when a Danish company exits internationally, they feed that experience, money and knowledge back into our ecosystem. Read the full article on what kind of Unicorn framework we need here.
job-alert 🚨
💸 Seedcamp are looking for their new Investment Intern.
🧠 Venture Capital 💰 €334.5M total fund raised 📍 Copenhagen
💸 Accelerace are on the hunt for a new Venture Scout.
🧠 Accelerator Programme 💰 $1.7M funding 📍 Copenhagen
💸 Woomio are searching for a Talent Sourcer to join their team.
🧠 SaaS, Marketing 💰 $3.3M 📍 Copenhagen