Stockholm is one city that has long been known for innovation, sustainability and progress. It’s no surprise that this year’s hottest startups are putting individual and collective well-being at their core – from preventive health apps to environmental platforms. The tech ecosystem is further strengthened by the biggest unicorns such as Klarna and Epidemic Sound, creating a new crop of entrepreneurs, while alumni of Swedish heavyweights such as Spotify, Volvo and Einride are launching new startups. It is this collision between old and new that drives innovation the Stockholm way: with coffee.
“Stockholm is the perfect city for starting a new business, due to its strong entrepreneurial ecosystem, top-notch education system, supportive government subsidies and high quality of life,” says Jonas Lindberg Nyvang, founder of electric scooter startup Stilride.
PaperShell
This sustainable startup converts paper into a material that is stronger than wood. After extracting hemicellulose from plants and cellulose fibers from kraft paper, typically found in packaging, they transform and bond these natural fibers in the laboratory to form a new, heat- and water-resistant composite. One of the startup’s prototype products is the Paper°Surf, a snowboard made from PaperShell’s patented material. “We are currently working on sports products and interior architecture to tell the story of its aesthetic potential,” explains Anders Breitholtz, CEO and co-founder alongside Mathieu Gustafsson. Gustafsson says future large-scale manufacturing will focus on sectors such as transportation, architecture, consumer goods and electronics. Founded in 2021, the startup has raised €9.7 million ($10.6 million) and began production in spring 2023. papershell.se
Milk thread
When Nina Siemiatkowski left her job as a marketing director to become a wildlife photographer in the savannahs of Kenya, she was confronted with the rapid decline of lion populations. When she returned to Sweden in 2018, she founded the environmental technology platform Milkywire to connect environmental initiatives and supporters. “Only 2 percent of donations typically achieve environmental goals, and there can be a lack of transparency and efficiency in the sector,” Siemiatkowski explains. “Yet I saw a strong desire to contribute to the environment – and an opportunity to leverage digital technology.”
Instead of traditional carbon credits, the Milkywire platform enables direct donations to curated portfolios of environmental projects, with extensive reporting on contributions and impact metrics. Milkywire receives 10 percent of every donation. Over the past three years, it has seen its turnover increase by 200 percent, raising more than 20 million dollars (approximately 18 million euros) in contributions to the impact funds. Entrepreneurship runs in the Siemiatkowski household: husband Sebastian is the CEO of Klarna. milkywire.com
Hyper type
The average knowledge worker spends about 30 hours a week checking emails. Teenie Fung and Beatrice Baltscheffsky’s AI-powered technology aims to lower that figure, and the startup claims it can increase efficiency tenfold. Hypertype extracts employees’ most relevant information from their emails and documents and, through natural language processing, can then synthesize long email threads and output auto-generated replies.
“Before ChatGPT was released, many companies were still skeptical about integrating AI solutions into their daily operations,” says Baltscheffsky. “Today we receive several requests per week to implement our models in their systems. Companies are aware that they need to start working with AI, but are overwhelmed by everything that is happening.” Founded in 2021, Hypertype has raised $1.5 million (approximately €1.37 million) in pre-seed and angel funding from Luminar Ventures. hypertype.co
Neko
In February 2023, Spotify founder Daniel Ek opened the doors of his new company: health technology company Neko. Located in the heart of Stockholm’s shopping district, it features a full-body scanner that can collect 50 million data points and 15 gigabytes of health data in just 15 minutes. Through radar, laser, 3D and thermal images captured by more than 70 sensors, Neko can screen for certain types of cancer, cardiovascular problems, diabetes and skin irregularities, detecting abnormalities down to 0.2 millimeters in just seconds.
Neko sold more than 1,500 45-minute appointments in less than two hours and there are now more than 10,000 people on the waiting list. Currently, a maximum of 14 scans are performed daily. Founded together with Hjalmar Nilsonne, whose previous startup specialized in energy data analysis, Neko initially received $30 million (almost €27.5 million) in funding from Ek and its investment company, Prima Materia, followed by investments from Lakestar, Atomico and General Catalyst . nekohealth.com
FRESH SOUND
Freshsound provides a licensing platform for commercially released songs, with pricing algorithms and recommendations that help brands soundtrack their next campaign in an instant. CEO Stevie Gyasi came up with the idea behind his company after trying to select a short song clip for an advertising campaign and getting caught up in red tape. “The record label told me I had to contact six songwriters and negotiate with each of them,” he says. “It can take months to license one song – and you can get a ‘no’ from a 1 percent rights holder.” In May 2023, Freshsound, which was launched in 2021 by Gyasi and Sara Larsson, closed a €2 million ($21.5 million) seed funding round. Freshsound.com
FEVER ENERGY
The typical electricity grid is dependent on a central supplier and the end user – think of large central power stations that transmit generation loads over long distribution lines to customers across a vast region. Fever aims to enable the decentralized network. By deploying AI and connecting any type of distributed energy source to the grid, production can take place closer to where it will be used – meaning more renewable energy sources are added. Fever, founded by Ruben Flam, Jonatan Raber, Klas Johansson and Ron Stolero, raised 1.6 million euros in seed funding in February 2023. The company is now working with utilities, EV manufacturers and charging point operators. fever.energy
Treyd
Founded in 2019 by Peter Beckman and Sameh El-Ansary, Treyd operates a ‘sell first, buy suppliers later’ model that thrived during the supply chain crisis of 2021. It works by fulfilling supplier invoices on behalf of companies, who then deliver their goods can receive and sell, generate cash flow and repay their loan within 120 days. Freight prices may have normalized, but traders’ cash flow problems remain: high inflation means demand for Treyd continues to grow. It currently serves more than 500 customers, typically small, direct-to-consumer businesses ranging from electronics to outdoor brands. About 30 percent of its customers and revenue now come from Britain, since Treyd expanded there in the fall of 2022. In total, it has raised approximately €11.3 million ($12.3 million) in funding. treyd.io
Encore
In 2015, André Eriksson was a backend engineer at Spotify when the streaming giant moved to the cloud. This meant that tasks suddenly became more difficult, workflow became slower, and building features became more difficult. So he built Encore as a side project. By enabling cloud services directly in the application code, the end-to-end development platform prevents developers from wasting hours on daily repetitive tasks and the pain of dealing with platform-level mismatches from local to cloud. In 2021, Eriksson joined forces with ex-Spotify colleague Marcus Kohlberg to launch Encore as a product, raising €2.75 million ($3 million) in seed funding led by London-based Crane Ventures. encore.dev
Dema.ai
Founded in 2022 by Marcus Tagesson, Henrik Hoffman and David Feldell, Dema.ai builds real-time analytics tools for small, direct-to-consumer e-commerce brands. The B2B platform collects, cleans and enriches companies’ commercial data, including operational profitability, in real time. This data, says Tagesson, “has only been available for the top 1 percent of e-commerce companies.” Generative AI then turns the raw data into actionable insights, such as predictive models that can suggest which stocks to rerank. “Our customers are moving from making decisions based on gut feeling to a truly data-driven approach,” Tagesson adds. After raising a €4 million ($43.1 million) pre-seed funding round led by J12 Ventures, Dema.ai launched in spring 2023 in partnership with 15 e-commerce companies. dema.ai
GydEd
This digital therapy service focuses on the student experience: college students check in weekly with a chatbot, which then passes on wellness data to campus administrators, who can in turn provide proactive support. App users can also contact on-site welfare staff. “Most universities have great resources and support networks,” says Sebastian Thomas, who co-founded the startup with Simon Norrman in 2020. “It’s just that students often don’t know how to access it.” Since its inception, GydEd has piloted four U.S. colleges, identifying thousands of students at risk of depression or dropping out of college. The full launch will take place in the autumn. gyded.me
This article appears in the January/February 2024 issue of WIRED UK magazine.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK