How Sweden built one of Europe’s hottest startup ecosystems
10:09 AM PDT · August 28, 2026
Sweden is perhaps one of the world’s hottest tech hubs right now. It has long been home to Spotify and Klarna, but this latest wave of companies — from legal AI startup Legora to vibe-coding tool company Lovable — has left everyone wondering what’s going on in one of the world’s happiest countries.
Sophia Bendz, a general partner at Cherry Ventures, stopped by Equity to break down the latest in Stockholm’s startup ecosystem. Her answer for why the country has produced so many buzzy startups: Being a founder is actually cool. When she worked at Spotify years ago, the cool thing was to become a banker or go into consulting. “Now, I think a lot of people optimize for creating stuff and optimizing for both sort of freedom and probably wealth.”
This year, the startup ecosystem has raised $2.8 billion in funding, according...
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