Danish startups push tax credit fix as AI SaaS debate grows

This is a Friday newsletter roundup for the Danish startup ecosystem. Its main push is a campaign on the startup tax credit. Since 2020, the author says, SKAT has kept reinterpreting the scheme, leaving founders uncertain, many facing repayment demands of millions of kroner, and some fighting for years at the Tax Appeals Tribunal. Esben Gadsbøll, Alexander Tolstrup and Danske Tech Startups have lost patience and launched a campaign called "Få nu skattekreditten fikset", which readers can sign. The author ties this to Denmark's ambition to be an AI-developing country.

On software, the piece asks whether AI means a "SaaSpocalypse" or a "RenaiSaaS". Early in the year, several large US-listed SaaS stocks fell sharply. A Stripe Economics report, also covered by the Financial Times, says 72,000 non-AI SaaS companies are growing revenue 30% in 2026, having adopted AI and moved from per-licence pricing to usage- and outcome-based pricing. The author doubts this holds for everyone: simple wrappers must merge or sell, and multiples for SaaS without stickiness have fallen. Zendesk co-founder Morten Primdahl says large SaaS firms face pressure to cannibalise their own core business.

Other items include a UK package of startup-friendly tax measures, such as a 10% capital gains rate on founders' gains up to a lifetime cap. A simulation by Peblinge Ventures' Michael Brandt Rasmussen finds that one krone in a 30-year venture portfolio, split 50/50 between direct investments and funds, grows to 13 kroner against 10 in the stock market. The newsletter also covers Anthropic's coming IPO, with a 318-page prospectus and investors expected to put in over 500 billion kroner. It mentions AI solving hundreds of maths problems and the prospect of AI agents disrupting banking. Minister Martin Lidegaard says US firms get more than eight times as much venture capital relative to economic size, and the author awaits a fund-of-funds model for growth capital.