Sweden's startups will raise $5 billion in 2026, says Business Sweden CEO

Swedish startups are on track to raise $5 billion in 2026, up from $3.2 billion in 2025, according to Jan Larsson, CEO of Business Sweden, the Swedish Trade and Invest Council. His opinion piece in Fortune is headlined "Sweden's startups will raise $5 billion in 2026. Our secret sauce is 150 years old." The text available here is only a fragment of the four-minute article, so the full argument behind that headline is not covered.

Larsson names three companies leading the fundraising. Lovable, which makes vibe-coding tools, has a valuation of $13.3 billion. Neko Health, which builds body scanners, is valued at $7 billion. Legora, which develops AI tools for lawyers, is valued at $5.55 billion.

He says the momentum helps every stage of the Swedish ecosystem. At one end is the Uppsala spinout behind Leqembi, one of the first drugs to slow Alzheimer's. At the other is Anglo-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca, whose largest factory is in Södertälje. Larsson presents these as examples of how Swedes like to tackle hard problems.

His broader point is that as AI becomes commoditized, more value will attach to solving difficult, real-world problems of this kind. That is the link he draws between Sweden's strengths and where he expects the AI economy to head.

For readers following the Nordic AI scene, the piece offers a snapshot of the scale of Swedish venture funding and of the companies driving it, framed by a senior figure in Sweden's trade and investment promotion. The 150-year-old "secret sauce" the headline refers to is not explained in the excerpt.