Sweden Sustaintech Venture Day today on 31st of May is a display of 30 scale-up companies in Swedish sustaintech, or cleantech. This year’s statistics from Cleantech Scandinavia on investments made in cleantech in the Nordics, and the Sweden Sustaintech Venture Day industry analysis, both confirms that Swedish cleantech is an attractive segment for the world’s investors*). While 2021 investments were slightly down on a total, there is a strong trend upwards, and an increase in non-Nordic and non-European investor activity. Compared to other segments, cleantech is doing well. Sweden is still the uncontested Nordic leader in attracting investments with over 70% of investments going to Swedish companies in larger share late stage funding.
*) Data from Cleantech Dealflow Report from Cleantech Scandinavia. **) Data from industry analysis of 800 companies from SSVD
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Investors have chosen to focus their money on cleantech these past years despite war and Covid which is fortunately driven by climate awareness, a sense of urgency, and the huge potential in the segment” says Boel Swartling.
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Swedish cleantech companies have stepped up into the major leagues of fundraising during 2022. In Sweden, there are now 7 listed and 5 unlisted companies in the Euro billion range, defined as Unicorns, and there is a definite potential for more companies in this range, according to the annual analysis of over 800 cleantech companies by Boel Swartling, investor and Founder of Charge Amps, also co-founder of the event.
In our company selection we have selected interesting cases such as in new fuels; Liquid Wind, new sustainable battery solutions, energy savings, energy storage and efficiency for wind and solar. Also EV charging, AI forestry, or waste management as in Bintel and WA3RM. Ebikes are still hot and international success story Vässla is on board for the second year” Boel Swartling says.
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According to Cleantech Scandinavia, companies that were in early stages several years ago have now matured into later stage financing. It is clear that Sweden has a competitive advantage from being an early mover in cleantech innovation and sustainable energy.
The clear majority of the companies in the upper end of round sizes in the Nordics are located in Sweden, as can be seen in the much larger share of late-stage investments in Sweden compared to the other Nordic countries” says Magnus Agerström, CEO of Cleantech Scandinavia who will be presenting break-downs of the report on stage.
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SUMMARY OF THE FACTS
In the top 5 segments in the Nordics, based on total invested amounts, the top company in each sector received investments of close to €100M or more, these are Northvolt – €1,1bn, Volta Trucks – €290M, Svea Solar – €95M, Swappie – €118M and H2 Greensteel – €260M. Also Polarium (€95M), Nornorm (€110M), Tibber (€90M), Exegete (€75M), Einride (€190M), Morrow (€100M) and Sensible4 (€110M) raised capital rounds in the upper echelon. Several of these companies have been participating at Sweden Sustaintech Venture Day in earlier stages.
”The data confirms our aim that Sweden Sustaintech Venture Day should be an important arena for scale-ups to meet investors” sats Boel Swartling.
Whereas 2021 showed a large inflow of European investors to the Nordics, almost 60% of the amounts in 2022 involved actors originating outside of Europe.
”If we include rounds with non Nordic European investors into this figure, an interesting data-point is that almost 80% of the total investments into Nordic cleantech companies actually involve sources located outside the Nordics” says Magnus Agerström.
Nordic investors are however more engaged in the earlier stages where 60% of the number of deals only have Nordic investors.
2022 saw €4.3bn invested in 339 deals, compared to €6,1bn and 383 deals in 2021. However, 2021 was an exceptional year where private investments into the cleantech sector grew much faster compared to any previous year with investment volumes increasing 3,3x compared to the previous year. By comparison, the investments in 2022 increased 2,3x (+133%) by amount, compared to 2020. European cleantech investments declined with -14% which should be compared to the tech sector in general where European start-up investments declined -25% in 2022.
This year, the Top 5 cleantech segments, were Energy Storage (31,7%), Transportation & Logistics (21,3%), Energy Generation (12,5%), Manufacturing & Industrial (7,2%), Recycling & Waste (6,3%). There will be companies presented at Sweden Sustaintech Venture Day in all these segments.
To give the 2023 annual Sweden Sustaintech Venture Day an international touch, the event is this year held on the 31st of May, in connection with a conference on deeptech and innovation, hosted by Sweden and the European Innovation Council (EIC) in connection with the EU Presidency. The stage theme this year will be Future Flow of Energy – Moving Towards a Game Changing Energy System where the stage programme will deep dive into the whole energy system and the transition as we make the shift towards many different sources in the same system. There are major challenges ahead and there are many Swedish solutions to these interface problems, ready for scaling. Workshops, presentations and break-out sessions will deal with this theme.
