All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links.
When it comes to hosting billion-dollar startups, the Swedish capital is second only to Silicon Valley. Its secret? An international outlook and a thriving ecosystem that's now home to a growing number of serial entrepreneurs. "Sweden is such a small country, we have to learn about the rest of the world fairly early on," says Ted Persson, design partner at investor EQT Ventures.
And with success comes investment. EQT, Northzone and Creandum have all launched major new funds in recent years, with a lot of that money pouring into Stockholm's startups. Co-working spaces are also becoming more commonplace, with openings focusing on verticals such as healthcare or hardware startups. "Stockholm has lagged behind and we've always had to go to London or the US for money, but now more companies stay where they are," Persson says.
Security firm Detectify scans websites to provide in-depth analysis of potential malware risks. It raised $1.07 million (£836,000) in January 2017 from Helsinki-based Inventure Oy. Founded in 2012 by Fredrik Nordberg Almroth, David Hallenius, Johan Edholm and Mathias Karlsson, the firm recently launched a bug-bounty programme with white-hat hackers. "We're working to increase the number of modules from this group of freelance hackers," says CEO Rickard Carlsson. Customers include Trello, King, TrustPilot and Le Monde. detectify.com
The Watty is a small device that connects to a fusebox and monitors household electricity use. Its companion smartphone app uses algorithms to detect and identify appliances in the home based on energy usage patterns. This information can then be used to save money on bills and cut down on carbon emissions. The company raised $3.32 million in funding from Cleantech Invest and EQT Ventures in July 2016. Watty employs 22 people in Stockholm and Palo Alto. watty.io
The internet is scaling fast: Cisco predicts that a million minutes of video content will cross the network every second by 2020. Greta's AI aims to optimise this infrastructure and work out the best route for traffic - such as video and images - to take, using an analytics dashboard. Its allows peer-to-peer networking where connectivity is poor, meaning faster content download times, particularly in markets such as Asia, the Middle East and Africa where web demand outpaces the development of web infrastructure. Founded in 2015 by Dennis Martensson and Anna Ottosson, the company raised €1.03 million (£804,500) in seed funding from BlueYard Capital the following year. greta.io
Healthcare startup KRY connects patients with doctors and therapists anytime and anywhere, using its app. The company, which has more than 100,000 patients, works with over 100 doctors in Sweden, who split their time between appointments at GP clinics and online consultations. Founded in 2014, KRY raised a $6.8 million seed round in August 2016. The service provides more than one per cent of Sweden's GP visits in primary care. kry.se
Natural Cycles uses algorithms to monitor female fertility. Founded in 2013 by Elina Berglund and husband Raoul Scherwitzl, the app has more than 200,000 users in 161 countries. It uses body temperature to measure fertility and can determine if it is safe to have unprotected sex based on methods developed by Berglund during her time at CERN. In February 2017 it became the first app to be approved for use as a contraceptive by a major European testing firm. naturalcycles.com
WHERE TO EAT: Teatern at Ringen, Götgatan 100, 118 62 Stockholm. These market stalls are run by a selection of top chefs who serve fast, delicious food from brunch until sundown.
WHERE TO WORK: SUP46, Regeringsgatan 65, 111 56 Stockholm. Founded in 2013, the SUP46 hub and co-working space is now home to more than 60 startups. Have some fika and find out who's who in Stockholm's bustling scene.
WHERE TO VISIT: Storkyrkobadet, Svartmangatan 20, 111 29 Stockholm. This traditional and little-known bathhouse is hidden beneath the tourist-packed streets of Gamla Stan. It's open for men on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays and women on Mondays and Thursdays.
WHERE TO STAY: Hotel Skeppsholmen, Gröna Gången 1, 111 49 Stockholm. Located on a tiny island slap-bang in the middle of the city, this hotel has great views and stylish rooms.
With half a million subscribers and a catalogue of more than 30,000 broadcast-quality tracks, Epidemic Sound aims to simplify the licensing of music for online use. The company was founded back in 2009 and raised $1 million in April 2017 to grow its staff to 130 by the end of the year. Co-founder and CEO Oscar Höglund has a background in television production; co-founder Peer Åström is a music producer whose CV includes Madonna and TV sing-a-long Glee. epidemicsound.com
Karma partners with businesses with the aim to reduce edible food waste. Kitchens sell their surplus food through Karma at a discounted price and people can buy it directly through its app. Launched in November 2016, it has 100,000 users and has raised €1 million from investors. As well as handling edible waste for Scandic and Choice Hotels, the startup works with more than 400 restaurants, cafés and grocery stores and says it has saved an estimated 15,000kg of food to date. karma.life
IKEA Kungens Kurva is the retailer's second-largest store. Its 55,200m2 of floor space is only bettered by South Korea's Gwangmyeong store, at 59,000m2.
Health and fitness startup Lifesum has 20 million registered users, five million of whom have joined in the past 12 months. Its smartphone app combines health data with fitness targets to create customised exercise and diet plans. "We are spending more and more time trying to understand what keeps us from establishing and maintaining healthy habits," says CEO Henrik Torstensson. Lifesum has 59 employees and raised $10 million in a July 2016 Series B funding round led by Nokia. lifesum.com
GarageBand competitor Soundtrap raised a €5.5 million Series A round from Stockholm-based Industrifonden in October 2016. The browser-based software lets people collaborate on music and podcast projects on any device. Founded in 2012 by a team with backgrounds in music and business development, Soundtrap is now used in more than 190 countries. It is also part of the Google Education programme and is used in schools across Europe and North America. soundtrap.com
Instabridge lets people share their Wi-Fi and access other hotspots around the world. The smartphone app is used by more than two million people to access upwards of a million password-protected Wi-Fi networks. Details are stored in a crowdsourced database, allowing anyone with the Instabridge app to get online. Popular in developing markets such as Brazil, India and Mexico, the company raised $4 million from investors including Balderton Capital. instabridge.com
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
