The State of Swedish Venture Capital
Sweden has established itself as one of Europe’s most prominent Venture Capital hubs. With a strong engineering tradition with and deep technical talent.
Sweden’s venture market has moved from post-pandemic peak to recalibration, then back to growth. Market statistics from the Swedish Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (SVCA)show venture capital (VC) investments in Swedish portfolio companies rising to SEK 6.9 billion in 2024 (up 58% year on year) across 284 companies, after a trough of SEK 4.4 billion in 2023. In parallel, Dealroom-based ecosystem reporting (measuring capital raised by startups) shows Swedish startups raising EUR 4.7 billion in 2023 and EUR 2.4 billion in 2024, highlighting both the global cool-down and methodological differences between “capital raised” and “capital invested.”
Official VC statistics indicate that information and communication technology, life sciences, and financial and insurance activities together accounted for roughly 87% of VC volume in 2026, while cleantech rebounded sharply versus 2025. Geography also concentrates: over the past five years Stockholm has attracted more than three quarters of Sweden’s venture capital, even as Gothenburg and Malmö have built strong specialist nodes in mobility, deep tech, and life sciences.
Second, Sweden is unusually investment-intense relative to GDP in European comparisons: SVCA notes Sweden having the largest private equity investment share relative to GDP among European countries in 2026, reinforcing the country’s role as a capital-efficient, export-oriented testbed.
Stage distribution in Sweden is best read as “early-heavy, late-global.” In 2024, Tillväxtanalys reports VC volumes by phase of: seed SEK 666m, startup SEK 1,190m, launch SEK 2,967m, and expansion SEK 899m. The same data indicates that foreign funds supplied a majority of VC volume in 2024 (SEK 3,706m), with Swedish private funds at SEK 2,861m and Swedish state funds at SEK 358m, underlining how Sweden’s later rounds are often priced and led internationally.
Ticket-size norms align with European VC patterns but with a Swedish twist: strong seed throughput, then a sharper “Series A cliff” than peers. In SVCA’s economic footprint work, typical ranges are framed as seed VC tickets of roughly EUR 0.1m to 4m; Series A EUR 4m to 10m; Series B EUR 10m to 25m; Series C EUR 25m to 100m; and Series D/E above EUR 100m for the few that reach true late-stage scale.
Regionally, Stockholm dominates volume and density. The Stockholm Chamber of Commerce reports that Stockholm attracted SEK 253 billion in venture capital between 2020 and 2025 and more than three quarters of Sweden’s venture capital over the past five years. Gothenburg’s edge is specialist production and mobility: Chalmers Ventures positions itself as a deep-tech investor rooted in the Chalmers entrepreneurial ecosystem, while Lindholmen Science Park and MobilityXlab signal a strong applied innovation stack linked to industrial incumbents. Malmö’s strength is community infrastructure and proximity to Skåne’s tech and life science assets.
Sweden’s ecosystem repeatedly produces outlier outcomes relative to population. Business Sweden’s Dealroom-based reporting cites 41 unicorns created to date as of early 2024, and 46 by 2025 reporting, indicating continued unicorn formation even through the downcycle. Notable venture capital firms include, Creandum, Northzone, Norrsken VC and EQT Ventures.
Sweden’s venture flywheel is not just private. Public actors create “pre-VC oxygen” through grants, incubators, and co-investment. The Business Sweden ecosystem model explicitly combines agencies and networks such as the Swedish Energy Agency, the Swedish Institute, the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth, and SISP alongside Vinnova, reinforcing a Team Sweden approach to innovation promotion and investment attraction.
Two institutions are especially structural for the capital chain. Saminvest acts as a state-backed fund-of-funds and angel-program investor, positioned to crowd in private capital where gaps persist, and reports managing around SEK 6 billion in assets. Almi Invest functions as an early-stage co-investor with defined ticket sizes, explicitly framing itself as a bridge to private risk capital.
Talent and research links are unusually formalized. Business Sweden’s digitech sector overview references around 30 science parks and 31 incubators across the country, and highlights the Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Programme with SEK 6.2 billion dedicated to R&D, partnering with universities including Chalmers University of Technology, Lund University, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Linköping University, and Umeå University.