Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK
PRESENTED BY INVEST STOCKHOLM

Highlights of 2022: Top five Stockholm tech stories of the year

As a new year dawns, we take a look back at some of the exciting innovations, new initiatives, strategic developments and creative uses of technology that made 2022 yet another successful year for the Swedish capital.

Published: 28 December 2022 09:08 CET
Highlights of 2022: Top five Stockholm tech stories of the year
  1. The rise and rise of femtech

Women’s health has long been overlooked in medical research and clinical trials in favour of men’s. In 2019, for example, The Guardian newspaper reported that five times more research was carried out into erectile dysfunction, which affects 19% of men, than into premenstrual syndrome (PMS), which affects 90% of women.

But interest in women’s health products has increased exponentially in recent years, not least among investors, especially in Sweden. Consequently the global femtech market size is projected to grow to €96.5 billion (1 trillion Swedish kronor) by 2030, from €48 billion (520 billion Swedish kronor) in 2021.

It is not only venture capitalists who understand the importance of more focus on women’s health – the Swedish government also declared as much in the Statement of Government Policy in October – “A greater emphasis will be placed on more equitable health care, women’s diseases and research on women’s diseases and health. Young women should not have to accept that it is normal to live with pain.” 

One of the most eye-catching femtech (the term was coined in 2016 by the Dane, Ida Tin, founder of the menstrual health app Clue) startups is Stockholm-based Pharmista Technologies, whose innovation is to establish a reusable pregnancy test to reduce women’s spending on their reproductive health, increase convenience, convey clearer test results, and reduce the use of single-use items made of plastic. Alice Mattsson, the co-founder of Pharmista, has said, “It feels good to be creating a product that should have been on the market decades ago.”

Alice Mattsson of Pharmista
  1. Female-led driven venture capital

Leading on from the surge in interest in femtech, BackingMinds, a women-led Stockholm-based venture capital fund, has been investing in high-performing founders outside the networks of traditional venture capital. Its recently launched €50 million fund will target companies with high potential outside of Europe’s capital cities and the types of entrepreneurs, such as women and immigrants, often overlooked by traditional investors.

BackingMinds founder, Susanne Najafi, recently said, “Sweden is far ahead in terms of demographic and digital transformation and we can apply many insights when looking for overlooked opportunities.” BackingMinds, which launched in 2016, is currently investing in 12 companies. BackingMinds finds and backs high-performing founders outside the networks of traditional venture capital.

“It’s not about charity or diversity investing – it’s about driving societal change and evening out injustices by making good returns,” says co-founder Sara Wimmercranz. “We go straight to the solution, challenging bias and putting focus on blind spots by delivering returns in companies where traditional investors see nothing but risks.”

  1. Frosty economy sparks wave of Klarna alumni-led startups

According to a study by Accel and Dealroom, Stockholm-based Klarna takes the crown for the most fintech startups founded by ex-staff in 2022 (15). The data comes from a study of startup creation from existing unicorns in Europe and Israel. The study emphasises how the ecosystem’s fintech unicorns are producing the next generation of startups, with companies such as Klarna providing many successful founders.

Former staff of Klarna are responsible for a whacking 23 new startups, 15 of them in fintech. This report comes as tech companies in Stockholm lean into a global economic downturn. However, the high number of highly-skilled laid-off tech workers this year could create fertile soil for a new generation of startups to emerge, as suggested by the Klarna alumni figures.

  1. Stockholm’s growth as the home of impact startups continues

In 2021 the Nordic countries raised €5.5bn (60 billion Swedish kronor and 26% of all startup funding) in impact startups, which was more than three times the amount in the US. In Sweden, and specifically in Stockholm, the increase was far higher, growing from €1.3bn (14 billion Swedish kronor) in 2020 to €3.6bn (39 billion Swedish kronor) in 2021, with Sweden surpassing even the UK and Germany. As a result, at the end of 2021, there were 460 impact startups in Sweden and this year, Stockholm even launched an official campaign to recognise the city as the “home”, as opposed to the “capital”, of impact.

Despite global finances being squeezed by recent world events, Stockholm continues to significantly invest in impact startups. One avenue for this investment is through nonprofit organisations such as the Norrsken foundation in Stockholm, which runs an accelerator program for impact startups, in addition to raising three venture capital funds, managing three co-working spaces and hosting more than 200 events each year.

Read Invest Stockholm’s report on the surge of impact investing in the Swedish capital

Jacob Felländer erecting his most recent exhibition, NowNowNowland
  1. Technology almost catches up with the creative mind

Stockholm artist Jakob Felländer may have gained a modicum of fame as the artist who sold several works to Hillary and Bill Clinton, but he’s becoming more widely known as the artist who is best at incorporating high tech into his work. And there are many challengers in the creative industries, as evidenced by the Stockholm Creative Tech Week in November.

Felländer’s most recent exhibition, NowNowNowLand in the Slakthusområdet area of Stockholm, consists of 200 square metres of images and digital augmented reality (AR) works, displayed on buildings in the area. Felländer has photographed major cities all over the world and the idea is to connect the Slakthusområdet area with the rest of the world. Through the The Great Escape app, and with advanced AR technology, visitors can interact with the works, which come to life while music pours out over the Slakthusområdet area.

His previous exhibition, The Great Escape, was a multi-dimensional ­project including photography, painting, sculpture, fashion, music, and education, all connected through his augmented reality app, The Great Escape. “I had a parallel virtual reality (VR) universe where you travelled through my images,” says Jakob. “Since the shapes in there were 3D, I could extract them and 3D print them as if they were sculptures.”

“There was also an augmented reality (AR) element where the image came out into the room. It was almost as though you could walk through the images and through the different layers. Which means that you were walking through my process and the images made with my hundred-year-old camera, charcoal, and paint. It was a combination of everything, of old and new technology, of time, space, and dimensions, and virtual and physical.”

This all sounds like the future. But that was just 2022 in Stockholm!

Looking for new opportunities and a better quality of life? Click here to find out more about moving to Stockholm

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

READER INSIGHTS

How to find a job in Sweden: Five tips from those who’ve been there, done that

The Swedish job market poses unique challenges for newcomers. The Local's readers share their best tips for cracking the career code.

Published: 10 April 2024 11:32 CEST
Updated: 13 April 2024 15:50 CEST
How to find a job in Sweden: Five tips from those who've been there, done that

Network, network, network!

A statistic that often gets tossed around is that seven out of ten jobs in Sweden are obtained through personal connections, and there’s no doubt that a good network is crucial to your job hunt, making the labour market extra challenging for newcomers to the country.

In fact, networking was the main tip mentioned by The Local’s readers.

“The job market is quite hot in Sweden, and talent is in short supply. People hiring do not have a lot of time to find the right talent, and tips from friends, colleagues and former colleagues are the way to first, find out organisations are hiring, and secondly, get your CV on the short list,” said Kyle, a Canadian reader who works in innovation management in Gothenburg.

“If you are going for a major employer like Volvo, network gets you in the door, as HR does not have much to do with hiring… the hiring managers do all of it and have no time, due to the insane number of consensus meetings. If you are looking for smaller organisations, they have even less time to find people, and networking is their primary way to find talent,” he added.

NETWORKING IN SWEDEN:

Some of the networking tips readers mentioned were going to job fairs, getting an internship to help you establish connections in your preferred field, joining clubs (this could be anything from your local gardening association to meetups for coders, but focus on clubs that may be popular among people working in your chosen field), and drawing on your organic network of friends, neighbours and others.

Don’t neglect the groundwork

The saying “dress for the job you want, not the job you have” is getting worn out (and people may look at you funny if you turn up to interviews in a Batman suit), but there’s truth to the notion of making sure you know what you want – and preparing for it.

In other words, don’t wait for a job ad to appear before you start to customise your CV and figure out what skill set you need. Create your CV now so that you’re ready to tweak it to your dream job – you could even have a general look at job ads in your field to see what requirements are needed. And don’t forget to spruce up your LinkedIn profile so that it fits with your career goals.

“I believe that several factors contribute to successfully landing a desirable job in Sweden. It’s essential to prepare to meet the requirements beyond just having a university degree. Many individuals realise these requirements only after completing their studies when they start searching for a job, which can be too late,” said Adnan Aslam from Pakistan, who works as a food inspector.

“I recommend identifying the job advertisements for positions you aspire to hold in the future and then preparing for those requirements during your studies. For me, acquiring a basic level of proficiency in the Swedish language and obtaining a Swedish driving licence were crucial. I pursued these goals during my studies and was able to secure a desirable job before graduating,” he added.

READ ALSO:

Felipe Cabral even has a GPT assistant trained on his own CVs and old cover letters, and said the set-up only takes ten minutes if you already have your documents. “With that in place, you can give instructions like: Read this job description and create a tailored version of my CV and letter for it. (…) Remember to always review and ask it not to create data aside from your documents.”

Be flexible and ready to adapt

Moving to a new place inevitably means having to learn not just the practicalities such as how to write a CV or which websites to use to look for job openings, but also learning how to navigate a new culture with all its unspoken expectations.

Swedish workplaces are generally less hierarchical than many other countries, but that doesn’t mean you can say whatever you want whenever you want without anyone raising an eyebrow. Swedes are usually direct, but be careful of being too abrasive or boastful: raising your voice, even during a spirited argument, or banging your own drum to show off your skills may not go down well.

“Talk, deliberate, complain like a Swede and you’ll come across like you know what the job entails, so your trustworthiness increases,” said an Indian data analyst who preferred to remain anonymous.

“Office politics are just as strong in Sweden as anywhere else. The flat hierarchy is deceiving as social hierarchy is enforced quite a bit in that lack of formal hierarchy. Take your time in learning these dynamics wherever you work before revealing your talent and capabilities. Expect those internal politics to happen, and they won’t hurt so much when they do,” said Kyle, the Canadian reader in Gothenburg.

This article about Swedish office politics may be useful.

Stay true to yourself

Adapting to your surroundings is one thing. Completely changing who you are is another.

For one thing, your happiness is as important as your career progression, and for another, your foreignness need not be an impediment: it’s also a skill that sets you apart from the rest. It means you have unique experience, and also, in the right setting, provides an opportunity to sometimes violate those social rules we mentioned above, because people assume you will, anyway.

“Trust is key. Build trust in your network, work with integrity. It’s OK to violate jantelagen if you are maintaining integrity. Sometimes your outsider and more honest/open opinion will burn bridges, especially those that may feel threatened by talent. But it will build trust with other colleagues who see it as brave and more trustworthy to work with,” said Kyle from Canada.

Hunker down for the long haul

We don’t want to scare you, because there are plenty of examples of people who quickly find their dream job in Sweden and settle into their new workplace, enjoying perks such as long summer holidays, generous parental leave and the famous work-life balance.

But if you do find it tougher than you expected: know that you’re not alone.

Several readers who responded to the survey said they were still trying to find a job in Sweden.

“I found jobs all over Europe but not here. They say they have a lack of experienced senior engineers but the don’t seem to be doing much to solve this,” said a Brazilian in Gothenburg.

A reader from Bangladesh said she was “at a loss” as to how to make a career change from her current AI role in Stockholm, despite many years of experience as an IT project manager.

“Over the past 18 months, I’ve submitted over 600 applications to various organisations. Unfortunately, despite being overqualified for some positions, I’ve faced rejections at every turn, from both large and small companies. The job market here, especially for foreign-born women, feels overwhelmingly challenging,” she said, adding that the struggle had impacted her mental health.

The Local has on several occasions reported on foreign residents’ struggle to get a foot on the Swedish job ladder, with many facing hurdles such as employers’ unfamiliarity with international degrees, discrimination, or a lack of network that can provide paths into a company.

So during the job hunt, don’t forget to care for yourself. Share your concerns with fellow job-seekers, ask for help and join networking groups – this is good not just for creating new contacts, but also in terms of your social well-being and meeting people who are in a similar situation.

And finally, as one British reader in Stockholm advised, keep looking: “Be open-minded with the opportunities that present themselves. It isn’t an easy market to enter and doesn’t feel inclusive.” But he added, “don’t give up”.

SHOW COMMENTS