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Stockholm has long touted the mantle of being the ‘Silicon Valley of Europe’ – and a banner run of IPOs and fundraises from the country in 2025 have helped it to live up to its epithet.
Sweden regularly makes an appearance in the global top 10 for producing unicorns, per Dealroom data. Investors are taking note; between 2020 to 2024, Swedish startups raised an eye-watering €22.7 billion – tailing behind just the UK, Germany, and France.
Spotify, Klarna, and Lovable are just a few of the familiar household names that were minted in the country.
Indeed, it’s alumni from these buzzy scaleups that have created a “flywheel” effect that catalyses Sweden’s tech ecosystem, said Magnus Skåninger, chief executive of Saminvest, a Swedish state-owned venture capital firm that launched in 2016. With over $600 million in assets under management, and investments into funds such as Course Corrected, Voima Ventures, Norrsken VC, Oxx, Pale Blue Dot, and Alliance Ventures, the firm is squarely betting on the Nordics.
“When you’re looking at the tech sector, ten years ago, there were a lot of successful companies,” he said. “There is some kind of flywheel effect, with them entering back into the ecosystem. If you have a lot of those companies and talent, you will grow that talent.”
Case in point, ex-Klarnauts have gone on to launch 62 new startups after leaving the now public company.
Skåninger outlined Saminvest’s lofty ambitions to help Sweden tap into its full potential – particularly in the impact and green tech spheres.
Filling the gap
Saminvest’s investment strategy focuses on backing sectors in early stages that are underfunded. “When we started, we tried to find emerging teams,” Skåninger said. Sweden already had the likes of Creandum and EQT Ventures – but the Swedish government wanted them to focus on sectors where there was initially a lack of access to capital.
“We have a flexible mandate,” he added. “We can invest into other Nordic funds – but they need to have a Swedish entity and senior personnel on the ground, and we can’t fund more than 50% of the fund.” Usually, the firm invests in around 20-30% of the fund. It also has a business angel programme, and backs local incubators at the earliest stage.
The firm has an “agnostic” approach to the market – it’s particularly keen to back life sciences, deeptech, and impact-based funds.
When they started out, Skåninger noted that the impact space “wasn’t hot” – but they wrote one of the first checks to Norrsken VC anyway.
Today, we have this discussion with several funds, but there’s some kind of backlash,” Skåninger said. “If you have a discussion with the European Investment Fund (EIF) they’ll argue the green transition trend is here. We still think there’s a lack of capital in the sector.”
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The US is eyeing the Swedish market
Klarna’s cofounder and CEO Sebastian Semiatowski has often paid homage to Sweden’s robust welfare system for fostering a strong commitment to education (including a mandate to put a computer in every home), a policy that’s paid dividends in the talent the country has produced.
The country boasts KTH Royal Institute of Technology, an institution that’s produced founding engineers at upstarts such as agentic AI startup Sana – which was recently acquired by Workday for $1.1 billion – and Lovable, which has raised over $200 million in funding from Accel, Visionaries Club, and Creandum.
The influx of US investors and acquirers in the region isn’t a new phenomenon, but one intensified by the strong pool of talent and a slate of IPOs of companies of Swedish origin in the US, such as Spotify and Klarna.
One of the biggest boons the market brings is an international-first approach. “If you start a company in Sweden, you need to look at growing internationally immediately,” Skåninger told European Women in VC.
Saminvest is a venture capital company that was established by the Swedish government in 2016. Saminvest invests in sustainable venture capital funds and angel investor programmes that expand the venture capital market in Sweden. Through Saminvest's indirect investments and work with investment funds, innovative and fast-growing companies can gain access to more capital and expert advice. Learn more about Saminvest here.