The Nordic region is well known for being a unicorn factory with companies such as Northvolt, Klarna, Pleo and Oura leading the way.
But with the difficult financial climate in recent years, the unicorn hub of the Nordics has seen more startups lose the esteemed status than achieve it. Swedish energy startup Polarium, Norwegian grocery delivery company Oda, last-mile delivery startup Instabee and e-scooter startup Voi have all lost their unicorn standing recently.
But the investment climate is shifting once again. Swedish scaleups Northvolt and H2 Green Steel secured the most capital in Europe for the first half of the year, with Stockholm landing the most funding of €10.8bn, according to Sifted’s H1 2024 review.
Several startups in the Nordics are getting closer to achieving a valuation of $1bn. Below, Sifted takes a look at 9 that are on track for unicorn status.
ICEYE
Finland’s ICEYE builds satellites that offer monitoring capabilities in real-time for things like floods and wildfires. It spun out of Aalto University, located in Espoo, in 2015 and has raised $302m in funding, according to Dealroom.
The company says it made over $100m in revenue in 2023 and experienced exponential commercial traction over the past few years internationally.
Launched: 2015
HQ: Espoo, Finland
Latest raise: €94m growth funding in 2024
Latest valuation: $544m-$816m (Dealroom estimate from 2022)
Swappie
Finnish startup Swappie runs a marketplace for refurbished smartphones. In comparison to its competitor, French unicorn Back Market, it does all the refurbishing in-house.
The company has around 800 employees and an annual recurring revenue of over €208m, according to the company.
Launched: 2016
HQ: Helsinki, Finland
Latest raise: €108m Series C in 2022
Latest valuation: $496m-$744m (Dealroom estimate)
Tibber
Norwegian/Swedish energy startup Tibber describes itself as a “digital electricity” supplier. It uses AI to buy only as much energy as a household needs based on its predicted consumption and will switch providers during a day based on which is cheapest.
In 2022, it had a revenue of $796m.
Tibber raised a $100m Series C round from Balderton Capital, Summa Equity and Eight Roads Ventures in March 2022, followed by another undisclosed cash injection from Harald Mix’s PE firm Altor.
Launched: 2016
HQ: Førde, Norway
Latest raise: undisclosed amount in June 2022
Latest valuation: $660m (March 2022)
NORNORM
Danish startup NORNORM is a subscription-based furnishing service that enables businesses to move from single-use office furniture to a circular model. It was cofounded by Inter IKEA Development in 2020 and has sold over 250k square meters of office furniture subscriptions.
It operates in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Poland Austria and the UK.
Launched: 2020
HQ: Copenhagen
Latest raise: €110m in growth funding in 2022
Latest valuation: $480m-$720m (Dealroom estimate)
Heart Aerospace
Swedish hybrid-electric plane startup Heart Aerospace is developing a 30-seater plane, which it plans to have in the sky by 2028. With orders of 250 planes, it is backed by Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the European Innovation Council Fund, as well as airlines United Airlines and Air Canada. It also recently decided to move its R&D centre to the US.
Launched: 2018
HQ: Gothenburg
Latest raise: $107m Series B in 2024
Latest valuation: $428m-$642m (Dealroom estimate)
Dixa
Danish customer engagement platform Dixa helps brands stay connected with customers via messaging, live chat, email or voice.
It is backed by General Atlantic, Notion Capital, Project A and Seed Capital among others. Dixa has completed several acquisitions in the last few years including Melbourne-based Elevio in 2021 as well as AI startups Solvemate and Miuros in 2022.
Launched: 2018
HQ: Copenhagen, Denmark
Latest raise: $105m Series C in 2021
Latest valuation: $420m-$630m (Dealroom estimate)
1X Technologies
Norwegian startup 1X is developing humanoids to address global labour shortages. Its second-generation android is a 30kg full-sized robot trained to be a butler, helping out with tasks in people’s homes.
Backed by OpenAI, it trains its robots using VR and GenAI.
Launched: 2014
HQ: Moss, Norway
Latest raise: $100m Series B in 2024
Latest valuation: $400m— $600m (Dealroom estimate)
Planhat
The Swedish startup Planhat has built a customer relationship management (CRM) system and was bootstrapped until 2022. That year it raised a $50m Series A from a single investor, UK-based Sprints which has previously backed companies like Revolut and Vinted.
At the time of the raise In 2022, Planhat had just over 100 employees and was growing 100-200% annually.
Launched: 2016
HQ: Stockholm, Sweden
Latest raise: $50m Series A in 2022
Latest valuation: $475m
Aira
Aira is a Swedish heat pump startup in Harald Mix’s portfolio of companies. Since its launch in 2022, it has expanded to Germany, the UK and Italy.
Aira had raised a total of €180m in equity funding, extending its Series B round to €145m in January this year. That investment was led by Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek. It has since raised €200m in debt.
Launched: 2022
HQ: Stockholm, Sweden
Latest raise: €145m Series B in 2024
Latest valuation: $474m (Kinnevik interim report)
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/nordic-soonicorn-unicorn-startup-list/
