“Why is Sweden the Beyoncé of Nordic startups and Denmark the shy kid at the party?”
This question, posed on LinkedIn recently by Danish founder Ken Villum Klausen, was the start of an investigation into why neighbour Sweden was attracting so much attention for its startups this year. Stockholm-based “vibe coding” site Lovable — which claims to be the fastest-growing European company ever — is the prime example.
“Sweden’s startup scene knows how to create momentum. Look at Lovable: founders turned overnight legends, every VC sharing why they invested or why they missed out,” Klausen, who is CEO of challenger bank Lunar, wrote. “Danish humility is a strength, but we can’t let modesty hold the ecosystem back.”
Many shared his lament. “Totally with you on this — we’re way too quiet,” wrote Ellen Kobberø, head of events at tech group Startup Aarhus.
Insulin, wind, pigs
The discontent is laid bare in the figures. It hasn’t been a banner year for Danish tech, with the number of equity deals falling 40% in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024 — amounting to €345m in investment versus €615m a year prior.
Swedish deals, meanwhile, have stolen plenty of headlines: Lovable raised $200m in July, one of Europe’s largest ever Series A raises. Another Stockholm startup attracting attention, Legora, which develops AI for legal teams, bagged an $80m round in May. Danish deals have been comparatively smaller this year: only three companies (drug discovery platform Orbis Medicines, quantum joint venture QuNorth and circular economy group BioCirc) have raised at least €25m in funding, compared to eight across the border. The largest Danish AI round in 2025 currently belongs to AI recruitment agent developer Kiku, which raised a €4m seed in July led by Cherry Ventures.
Sifted contacted Klausen about the response to his post. “My reflection is probably that I was right,” he says. “And maybe it’s even worse than Danes not speaking about successes. The fact is, most Danish tech successes moved out of Denmark before they really scaled,” he adds, naming [customer review site] Trustpilot, [food delivery business] Just-Eat, [game developer] Unity and [software company] Zendesk.
A lack of political support for tech, he feels, is a key reason why Denmark trails other European hubs. This week, Klausen wrote again on this issue on LinkedIn, recalling a recent meeting he had with Danish politicians (who he does not identify).
What he heard: “We [Denmark] basically care about three things: insulin [developed by Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk], wind energy and pig farming. If entrepreneurs want support, they should focus on building hubs connected to these industries.
“That’s the mindset. No ambition for AI, SaaS, or the next big Nordic scaleup.”
The Danish scene does receive significant financial support from its state-owned Export and Investment Fund (EIFO) of Denmark — it’s the fourth most active domestic backer of startups behind France’s Bpifrance, Italy’s CDP Venture Capital and Spain’s CDTI in Europe in 2025, according to Sifted data. EIFO has participated in five of the 12 biggest Danish equity rounds year-to-date. Its efforts to engage foreign investors haven’t been as impactful. For example, the number of US VCs that have made at least one investment in a Danish startup this year is 17 — 62% fewer than the 45 active in Sweden.
A few commenters said a particular reticence to show off, which many trace to a concept taken from a 1933 satirical novel called A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks by the Danish author Aksel Sandemose, was another factor. Sandemose’s so-called law of Jante, an idea hardwired into the Danish self-image, suggests that the culture discourages people from promoting their own achievements over those of others.
“There is this feeling that you’re not allowed to stick your neck out,” Mads Emil Dalsgaard, COO of Kilmate, which helps develop carbon removal strategies for companies, tells Sifted. “So we don’t want to be the first to do something; we want to see someone else doing it first and if they don’t get in trouble, we’ll follow.”
Einar Eidsson, head of product at Icelandic challenger bank Indó, also weighed into the debate, saying that Swedish companies such as fintech Klarna (where Eidsson previously worked), music streamer Spotify and furniture maker IKEA have delivered “great mass-market storytelling”. By contrast, “Danish global champions tend to be B2B [business-to-business] focused with companies like [ports business] APM, Novo, and Vestas,” he said.
Danish investor Louise Herping Ellegaard, however, offered a different take: really good companies are too busy serving their customers to shout about their activities on LinkedIn, she commented on the thread.
“That was definitely the case with my first startup Clio, [an edtech business]. If we ever did raise our voices, it was mainly in the industry publications — the ones our customers actually read.”
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/danish-founders-ask-wheres-our-lovable/
