The Hottest Startups in Stockholm in 2024 Macky Briones | usagoldmines.com

Why is Stockholm, a capital metropolis with a inhabitants lower than a million, dwelling to world manufacturers resembling Skype, Spotify, Klarna and Minecraft? “I believe it has to do with the Swedish creed,” says Ben Eliass, CEO of bodycare model Estrid. “It is a nation which put emphasis on high-quality schooling and invested closely in telecoms infrastructure within the nineties, so all of us grew up with high-speed web.”

Many additionally credit score a social welfare system that acts as a “security web” for entrepreneurship. “It permits individuals to take excessive threat and begin corporations, not needing to be too afraid of the downsides,” says Max Junestrand, CEO of legaltech startup Leya. Certainly, Sweden has now produced extra unicorns per capita than another nation in Europe, aside from Estonia, incomes a fame because the Silicon Valley of Europe“Stockholm has a really distinctive ecosystem the place you possibly can stand on the shoulders of giants,” says Colin Treseler, CEO of Supernormal. “They’ve invested an unbelievable quantity of sources into the expertise right here, making a crucial mass of engineers, designers and product thinkers which are distinctive at their craft.”

Estrid

As soon as, at a cocktail party, Amanda Westerbom confessed to her associates that she most well-liked to make use of males’s razors. Surprisingly, lots of her associates additionally did—not solely they provided a greater shave however they have been additionally cheaper. With the assistance of co-founders Alan Aygun and Ben Eliass, Westerbom determined to vary that and, in 2019, they launched razor model Estrid. “We designed the deal with ourselves, purchased a €500 3D printer from a {hardware} store and began iterating,” Ben Eliass, CEO of Estrid, says. “That factor printed lots of of handles, working day and night time. In the long run, it nearly burned down my home as a result of it was underneath such pressure.” The result’s a 5-blade razor with a vegan hydration strip and an ergonomic weighted deal with that the corporate now delivers to over 1,000,000 subscribers throughout Europe. “We’re dethroning one of the vital dominant client monopolies of the trendy period, turning into a subsequent era, all-encompassing private care model. A subsequent era Dove if you’ll.” estrid.com

Atlar

Joel Wägmark, Johannes Elgh, and Joel Nordström met whereas working at fintech startup Vink, which in 2022 was purchased by Visa for $2.2 billion. “We noticed firsthand how shortly client fintech was altering,” says Nordström. “However the equal monetary tooling for companies simply didn’t exist. Finance groups on the overwhelming majority of corporations use a mixture of Excel, on-line financial institution portals, and legacy programs from the eighties and the nineties. It’s a variety of guide work.” Atlar, the bank-to-bank funds platform Wägmark, Elgh, and Nordström launched in 2022, eliminates such complexity by automating funds for companies with a number of financial institution accounts throughout Europe. “We join on to conventional banks and supply quicker, extra UX-friendly instruments with which to handle money, forecast money stream, and make funds.“ says Nordström. With greater than 35 prospects throughout ten international locations, together with the US, UK, France and Germany, Atlar has raised €13M from traders together with Index Ventures and Basic Catalyst. atlar.com

Leya

Leya has developed a GenAI platform that automates repetitive and guide duties executed by attorneys. “We noticed firsthand how attorneys struggled with textual content and admin-heavy duties resembling filling in templates and extracting data from numerous paperwork,” says CEO Max Junestrand. “We wish each lawyer to be empowered by AI of their work to perform extra.” The startup—a Y Combinator alumni—was based in 2023 by Max Junestrand, August Erseus and Sigge Labor. In July 2024, they introduced a $25m collection A spherical, led by US VC Redpoint Ventures, totalling $36m in funds raised. They’ve over 100 shoppers in ten markets throughout Europe, together with UK agency Chicken & Chicken, the biggest regulation agency within the Nordics, Mannheimer Swartling, and Spanish regulation agency Pérez-Llorca. ”We’re targeted on fixing particular authorized duties,” Junestrand says. “This has differentiated us from the gang the place the main focus lies extra on offering a platform of normal LLM capabilities.” leya.law

Lovable

Anton Osika, founder and CEO of Lovable, is on a mission to create what he calls the “final piece of software program”. “We made an AI that builds software program,” he says. “We launched Lovable to let everybody have the identical capabilities that product growth groups at tech corporations have at their fingertips.” Lovable’s product, GPT Engineer, permits customers to construct web sites and net apps by a easy chat interface. “Not like different AI instruments that may code, which may take hours to generate outcomes, Lovable offers individuals immediate suggestions and permits for speedy iteration,” Osika says. Launched in 2023, the startup at the moment has greater than 2,000 customers and a waitlist of 27,000 individuals from over 154 international locations. Lovable has closed a $7.5 million pre-seed funding spherical led by VCs Hummingbird and by Founders. Additionally backed by traders together with Mattias Miksche, Shopify’s Siavash Ghorbani, Voi’s Fredrik Hjelm, and Creandum co-founder Stefan Lindeberg. “One consumer constructed a real-time dashboard for monetary information, simply by prompting,” Osika says. “She determined to give up her job to construct startups with AI instruments as a substitute.” lovable.dev

H2 Inexperienced Metal

In January 2024, cleantech startup H2 Inexperienced Metal raised €4.75 billion to finish its flagship challenge in Boden, a metropolis in north Sweden: the world’s first large-scale inexperienced metal plant. On account of its reliance on coal, commonplace metal manufacturing is chargeable for as much as 9 p.c of world carbon dioxide emissions. Based in 2020, H2 Inexperienced Metal goals to decarbonize steelmaking through the use of hydrogen fuel, which produces water vapor somewhat than carbon dioxide. The Boden plant is because of start iron manufacturing by 2026, and expects to produce about 5 million tonnes of the steel by 2030. Purchasers embody automakers BMW, Porsche and Volvo. h2greensteel.com

Supernormal

Fabian Perez and Colin Treseler spent weeks brainstorming concepts earlier than they conceived their startup Supernormal. “Expertise ought to give tremendous powers to information staff,” Treseler says. “We drew inspiration from our earlier groups at GitHub and Meta, the place one of many core work rules was that if a gathering wasn’t documented, it didn’t exist.” Supernormal helps staff earlier than, throughout, and after conferences, with instruments starting from automated note-taking creating and sharing detailed agendas and insights from conferences. Greater than 325,000 shoppers use the software program, together with Pink Hat, Motorola, Harvard College, Salesforce, Energy Digital, and Forbes. They’ve raised a $10m seed spherical led by Balderton Capital. supernormal.com

Fever Vitality

Fever Vitality develops digital energy vegetation (VVP)—swimming pools of distributed power sources, like photo voltaic panels or batteries, that can be utilized to ship power to the facility grid. “A VVP is rather like a standard energy plant,” says Ruben Flam, CEO of Fever Vitality. “An excellent instance could be a fleet of electrical autos that may discharge power again to the facility grid.” Based by 2022 by Flam, Klas Johansson and Ron Stolero, in February 2024, it raised a €10m seed spherical led by Basic Catalyst with the participation of Norrsken VC and La Famiglia. The startup can’t disclose shoppers’ names, however claims they’re already working with giant utility corporations and EV producers. fever.energy

Neko Well being

Since its launch in 2023, practically 5,000 individuals have visited Neko’s well being heart in Stockholm. Contained in the clinic, they underwent a $230 non-invasive full-body scan in lower than an hour that checked for indicators of potential pores and skin, metabolic and cardiovascular ailments. In line with the corporate, the scans recognized probably severe circumstances in a single p.c of that cohort, together with aortic aneurysms, extreme diabetes and pores and skin most cancers. Launched by Spotify founder Daniel Ek and Hjalmar Nilsonne, the healthtech startup has raised €60 million from traders that embody Atomico, Basic Catalyst, and Lakestar. A brand new Neko well being heart in London will probably be opening quickly. nekohealth.com

Evroc

Based in 2022 by Mattias Åström, Andreas Birnik, and Andreas Jönsson, Evroc launched out of stealth in 2023 with €13 million in funding from backers resembling EQT Ventures and Norrsken VC. In August 2024, it raised an additional €42 million. The mission? To construct a sustainable hyperscale cloud in Europe. “Europe has sadly fallen behind in cloud providers and American gamers at the moment management greater than 80 p.c of the overall cloud market,” says Åström. “We’re based evroc to place an finish to this international dominance.” Building of their flagship information heart in Arlandastad will begin on the finish of 2024. “We may also search for appropriate areas for our personal information facilities in France and Germany,” says Åström. “By 2030, we anticipate to have a community of 10 hyperscale information facilities throughout Europe.” evroc.com

PaperShell

In Might 2024, Italian furnishings designer Arper launched a brand new version of the workplace chair Catifa 53. The unique was made with leather-based, steel and plastic; the brand new model makes use of, as a substitute, a sustainable composite biomaterial manufactured from kraft paper and resins, which is as sturdy as a fiber composite and as weather-resistant as plastic. This wooden substitute was invented by PaperShell, an organization launched in 2021 by Anders Breitholtz and Mathieu Gustafsson. The fabric isn’t solely fully fossil free however also can, on the finish of its life cycle, be transformed into biochar. The corporate has raised €13.3 million. papershell.se

This text first appeared within the November/December 2024 version of WIRED UK.