ABSTRACT
In 2015, The Financial Times referred to Stockholm as a “unicorn factory” (Ahmed, 2015), and FinTech is an important driver in the Swedish innovation ecosystem. A small country relative to other European markets, Sweden has been punching above its weight in the FinTech arena. Between 2010 and 2015, Stockholm-based companies received 18 percent of all private placements in FinTech companies across Europe (Invest Stockholm, 2015). Furthermore, Sweden has over eight FinTech investments for every million inhabitants. This compares with 5.2 investments for every million inhabitants in the UK, which had the highest total investment during the corresponding period, according to Atomico (De Lange, 2016). Clearly, venture capital (VC) is an integral factor in Sweden’s FinTech success. This chapter contains an introduction to VC and a discussion of factors that in general make a successful venture capitalist, as well as a more specific discussion on VC in the Nordics and Sweden. The chapter will also provide some detail on which segments are being financed, average deal sizes, and notable FinTech deals, as well as some important sector trends.
