
Best Startups to Work for in Stockholm - gonsanchezs
https://www.seedtable.com/startups-stockholm
======
navidfarhadi
This is a fantastic list. Thank you for sharing.

I moved from the SF Bay Area to Stockholm around 6 months ago to do my MS in
computer science at KTH and I am still surprised by the amount of tech
startups here. At the KTH career fairs I have met with developers from some
very interesting startups that are eager to hire EU-based developers.

~~~
edpichler
Did you learn Swedish to do your MS? I am moving to there and thinking on do
an MS too.

~~~
navidfarhadi
No. Almost every MS program and course at KTH is in English, even for Swedish
students. Swedish students who are doing their MS are typically in a 5 year
degree program where you do your BS and MS combined. The first 3 years (BS
portion) is in Swedish and the last 2 years is in English.

~~~
edpichler
Excellent.

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drakonka
I am lucky enough to have lived and worked in tech in Stockholm for a little
more than six years now. I originally moved here specifically for the game
development industry and it is so nice to see it (along with tech companies in
general) continue to grow and evolve here. As an employee there is a vast
array of employer options and coupled with the work-life balance for me it's
pretty much the perfect place to live and work (if one can handle the winter,
of course).

~~~
chosenbreed37
Nice. Have you worked anywhere else in Europe? How does it compare to Berlin?
Are the salaries comparable with other major European cities? You say work
life balance is great but I hear it can be expensive to live there. What's
your experience? Is English widely spoken in offices or do people have to
learn Swedish in order to work effectively?

~~~
yakshaving_jgt
It is expensive to live there. If you're a programmer, you will live a far
more comfortable life living and working in Poland than you would in Sweden,
despite how much Swedes tend to look down their nose at the Polish.

I speak from experience.

If you're working a low/zero skill job, you would be far better off in Sweden,
although the market is extremely competitive.

Sweden has a major problem with housing, so you can forget renting an
apartment in a major city — you will spend roughly 18 years on a waiting list
to be able to rent anything in the centre of Gothenburg. This isn't hyperbole.

Just about everyone speaks English. Some younger people actually speak English
more correctly than a significant proportion of the English population in
England. Unsurprisingly, learning Swedish language and culture helps you blend
in. It's not a particularly difficult language anyway.

~~~
sebcat
> Sweden has a major problem with housing, so you can forget renting an
> apartment in a major city — you will spend roughly 18 years on a waiting
> list to be able to rent anything in the centre of Gothenburg. This isn't
> hyperbole.

You can forget a first hand contract from the municipal housing agencies.
Second hand contracts and/or private landlords still work - but watch out for
scams.

~~~
mariefred
> you will spend roughly 18 years on a waiting list

last I have read it's 10 years in Stockholm, in Åkersberga (less than an hour
north of Stockholm) it would be a few years
[https://www.armadafast.se/boende/bostadsk%C3%B6/k%C3%B6tider](https://www.armadafast.se/boende/bostadsk%C3%B6/k%C3%B6tider)

or you can buy for 2M SEK (200,000 Euro) a nice small house in a suburb and
pay the mortgage back over 50 years.

~~~
yakshaving_jgt
Yeah, it's different wait times for different areas. The 18 year figure I gave
was for central Gothenburg, like I said.

Where I was living — in Majorna/Kungsladugård — on average 2,400 people
applied to rent each apartment. This was back in 2012. This would be worse
now, given the refugee/migrant influx.

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rococode
I've often read that Stockholm, and Sweden in general, has great work-life
balance. This list seems super cool for folks who may be interested in (what
I've heard is) a more relaxed lifestyle while keeping some work excitement in
their lives from a startup environment. It's really interesting to see how
successful Sweden has been in pushing itself as a good home for startups.

Also, is the logo on this site messed up? It just says SEEDTAB for me without
the LE, like this:
[https://i.imgur.com/oEN7R2Q.png](https://i.imgur.com/oEN7R2Q.png). Kind of an
odd bug; even the actual .svg file it links to appears like that for me
([https://www.seedtable.com/img/logo.svg](https://www.seedtable.com/img/logo.svg)).
I would've thought it was intentional if not for the sliver of what appears to
be an L at the right end.

~~~
SeaSeaRider
You heard wrong. Sweden has one if the longest working weeks in the EU. Normal
work day starts at 8am.

Most stuff that you read about Sweden (ie stuff that gets shared on socisl
media) is false.

~~~
dmitriid
> Sweden has one if the longest working weeks in the EU. Normal work day
> starts at 8am.

We're talking about startups on a website mostly for programmers, right?

Programmers enjoy nearly free work schedule. I've seen people come at work at
7 in the morning and leave at three in the evening. Or come to work at 10 and
leave at 7.

Second, work-life balance is paramount in Sweden. No one will bat an eye if
you have to pick your kids early from kindergarten/school, go to a doctor's
appointment, take a day off because you're sick etc.

The government even tries to combat exploitative employers by making it
mandatory that employees take at least 20 days of vacation a year.

~~~
SeaSeaRider
“No one will bat an eyelid if you take a day off work.”

You forgot to mention that you WON’T get paid if you take a single day off
work, something that makes Sweden unique in the modern world?

Sweden is a great place to work in many ways, but there are severe problems
for people moving here to work if they are accustomed to other EU countries.

~~~
cjg_
That's only if you are taking sick-leave (and for the first day, then you get
some part of your salary), also Sweden got 25 days of mandatory paid vacation
days.

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_Microft
Nice list but the information and presentation seems a bit lacking.

First: it says _funded_ not _founded_ in 2018. I was surprised by the amounts
of money and employee numbers until I noticed that I had misread that.

It would be nice to know in how many rounds the amount of money was collected,
assuming that it is the total amount of funding and not valuation or revenue.

~~~
maaaats
Ah, I also read it as founded. Lots of the companies have been around for some
time now. Kry, iZettle, MatHem, Natural Cycles and Lifesum are examples many
people have known or used for years now.

And wasn't Tibber Norwegian? Hmm

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hsson
As a fellow Swede, I was surprised to find so many companies on this list that
I've never heard of before. Great read!

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mselivanov
Nice list. Though I'm pretty sure iZettle & Truecaller aren't founded in 2018,
both were founded much earlier.

UPD: finally got it, the companies were funded in 2018, not founded

~~~
yakshaving_jgt
Funded.

~~~
mselivanov
fixed

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lawn
Is there a way to filter or find out which support remote work without
manually going through them all?

~~~
gonsanchezs
Unfortunately not for now. But you can check this -
[https://medium.com/@rdutel/900-startups-hiring-remotely-
in-2...](https://medium.com/@rdutel/900-startups-hiring-remotely-
in-2019-a82fa3f96aa7)

Alternatively, you can use =importxml to extract all URLs on my site, and run
a VLOOKUP against the Remotive list.

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abhinai
I seriously did not know that Stockholm had so many well funded great
startups. This is impressive.

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ipoopatwork
> Natural Cycles: Enter your temperature into the app. Natural Cycles’ smart
> algorithm analyzes your data. The app will tell you if it's a red or a green
> day and whether or not you need to use protection to prevent pregnancy.

Recipe for disaster

~~~
troligtvis
Yes, there has been a lot of talk regarding NC actually!

[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/31/natura...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/31/natural-
cycles-tech-contraception-condoms-coil-pill-birth-control)

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vesinisa
The entry for company called "Peltarion" has UTF8 rendering issues. The
description reads "... AI applications â€“ at scale and at speed â€“ with the
..."

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z3t4
The dollar value seem to have been generated by random

~~~
gonsanchezs
No, Crunchbase public data. I also reach out to all companies suggesting they
can fix/clarify any inaccuracies, and update it as soon as they come back to
me.

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imartin2k
I apologize for this self-serving comment, but I consider it at least
potentially relevant for anyone who reads this thread:

I'm publishing a weekly curated newsletter about the Swedish tech scene:
[http://swedishtechweekly.com](http://swedishtechweekly.com)

Brief and straight to the point. Spend 3 minutes a week and you know
everything that's going on in tech Sweden.

~~~
gonsanchezs
subscribing now, thanks.

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edpichler
A question for Sweden specialists: what does Sweden do to attract talent, once
other European countries, apparently, pay better compensation, like Germany,
Switzerland, The Netherlands (the 30% rule), etc?

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RavlaAlvar
How hard would it be for a non-eu citizen to get a working visa in Sweden?

~~~
parski
I live and work as a developer in Stockholm. I have registered as an employer
and have been able to help people from abroad before by taking the fight with
the governmental authority handling immigration.

The visa situation is a bit borked right now since the EU was unable to
humanely handle the civil war in Syria so staying permanently isn't a given
anymore. Right now we have to make do with "for the foreseeable future".

Feel free to reach out to me at plata@plomo.se.

~~~
chosenbreed37
Where do I start if I want to look for jobs there? Are most jobs mainly in
Stockholm? Is it different in Gottenburg or Malmo?

~~~
mariefred
Linkedin probably. Stockholm has a lot of jobs, I don't know about Gottenburg
or Malmo but they are smaller places

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princejonn
I'm mostly surprised at finding some very well established companies here.
Should Paradox really be in the scope of "startup"? They have existed for 20
years by now...

~~~
aliswe
I think sam altman said that a startup is defined by its rapid growth rate
rather than its age. Dunno.

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lewisflude
I guess Spotify aren't really a startup anymore!

~~~
navidfarhadi
I just had an onsite interview at their HQ in Stockholm this morning. The
recruiter I spoke with in person mentioned their employee growth percentage in
the last couple of years and it was staggering. They absolutely are not a
startup anymore.

~~~
gonsanchezs
Yeah, Spotify is too big to fit the list.

~~~
dmitriid
How is Paradox Interactive a startup? Founded in 1999, with dozens of games in
its portfolio?

Same goes for quite a few other companies.

