”I truly look forward to our event every year – to be able to get the latest of industry trends, as always, meet all the new selected businesses presenting their case to investors – and most of all to see how companies have been scaled since last year” says Magnus Rehn who together with Boel Swartling, founded Sweden Sustaintech Venture Day six years ago, because they saw a huge gap in the funding in this market. Since then, a lot has happened, and the sustainability trend has just continued to drive the market.

Since the start, Sweden Sustaintech Venture Day, a day exclusively for scaleups and investors, has showcased 155 pitches, from 117 different companies. Investors, from smaller angels, VCs and very large funds, tend to come back. To give a figure, only during the 2020 event they represented 1800 Billion SEK in total all together.

”What we see now is that AI and digitalisation support the development of electrification, energy storage, transmission and mobility with much more progress than ever before. Both consumer demand and government regulations force industries and organisations to step up the plate on sustainable solutions” comments Magnus on the trends.

”Last year we saw fewer projects getting larger investments, and the distribution over number of companies was less. This trend became very clear after the pandemic when angels and VCs were not in a hurry, and thus investment rounds have been taking considerably longer time to close”.

”We still see that small innovative startups or larger already capitalized scale-ups may find access to capital, whereas the typical mid-size scale-up has a harder time finding the right investors. This is why Sweden Sustaintech Venture Day is such a perfect arena, where many a selected larger scaleup has passed the doors” says Magnus Rehn.

This year the SSVD theme is focusing, not as usual, on a market trends, but rather on the different growth phases and possibilities for scale-up financing. There will be various discussions on lessons learned from those who have been successful in their scaling.

”Sweden is way ahead in sustainable tech solutions. The vision from the start was to push the development, to be the exchange platform and matchmaker arena, as well as to market Swedish Sustaintech internationally, contributing to a positive climate impact globally, Magnus comments on the role of Sweden Sustaintech Venture Day, this year organised and hosted by the long-term partner Cleantech Scandinavia.

Another change in format is that the event will pair companies together and the investor panel asks questions to three companies at a time, which should make it more interesting.

”This year, I have taken a less operational role in the project, and will be in one of the pitching panels, which I very much look forward to” says Magnus Rehn.

Some of Magnus favorite cases over the years has been Svea Solar – solar energy, Reliefed – disruptive manufacturing, Enerpoly – battery storage, Cor Power Ocean – who has succeeded business wise in an energy area where no-one else has succeeded, and Ignitia – weather forecast for the tropics.

”This year we are hoping that the investments are continuing to grow and that more money is channeled to new areas and scalable companies in the mid-size segment. There are so many well cared for businesses that are true investment cases” says Magnus Rehn.