Scaling Europe
00:15:02 · Sebastian Johnson, Lukas Saari
[00:15:02] S0: Are are there American companies who are trying to expand into Europe and compete with you? [00:15:09] S1: Yeah. So I've been surprised by the fact that there's literally no... None of our US competitors have even tried to go into Europe. There's one company called OpenEvidence that is like a sort of Deca corn type of company now that does, like, chat GPT clinical decision support for clinicians. They expanded into Europe, but actually completely shuts down their operations in Europe a few months ago. So, like, if you go on to their website in Europe, you just get a, like, not available in Europe due to regulations type of page. So this being because they didn't adhere to the, like, regulations and certifications required in Europe. [00:15:44] S0: That's so interesting. So you really... That... Yeah. It's... I hope... When you look at some of the most successful companies who have come out of Europe, it's actually a lot of the time these companies have been able to use fragmentation as that moat, whether it's Revolut and cross border currency or Wise or even like eleven Labs with all the language stuff. It's like the the the inherent traits to Europe can often breed real amazing innovation.
00:15:44 · Sebastian Johnson, Lukas Saari
[00:15:44] S0: That's so interesting. So you really... That... Yeah. It's... I hope... When you look at some of the most successful companies who have come out of Europe, it's actually a lot of the time these companies have been able to use fragmentation as that moat, whether it's Revolut and cross border currency or Wise or even like eleven Labs with all the language stuff. It's like the the the inherent traits to Europe can often breed real amazing innovation. [00:16:06] S1: Yeah. And I think especially now with AI, they... It breaks down borders a lot. So, I mean, large language models are magical, so it works across languages. Right? Because you can now write code much quicker. It's also easier to handle the fragmentation and do a lots of integrations and so on. So, like many of the challenges that you had before are not as significant anymore, which also makes the case much more credible for like a European play now. And I mean, if you look in health care historically, there's almost zero success examples of companies in the health tech domain that have managed to scale across multiple countries in Europe. So also very proud and excited to be able to show that this is something that is possible also in Europe and hopefully be an inspiration for other European founders that you don't necessarily need to go directly to The US. There is also viability in going for other markets.
00:16:06 · Lukas Saari, Sebastian Johnson
[00:16:06] S1: Yeah. And I think especially now with AI, they... It breaks down borders a lot. So, I mean, large language models are magical, so it works across languages. Right? Because you can now write code much quicker. It's also easier to handle the fragmentation and do a lots of integrations and so on. So, like many of the challenges that you had before are not as significant anymore, which also makes the case much more credible for like a European play now. And I mean, if you look in health care historically, there's almost zero success examples of companies in the health tech domain that have managed to scale across multiple countries in Europe. So also very proud and excited to be able to show that this is something that is possible also in Europe and hopefully be an inspiration for other European founders that you don't necessarily need to go directly to The US. There is also viability in going for other markets. [00:17:00] S0: Amazing. And talk to me a bit about raising from the EU Scale-up Fund. You know, it's very new. They're making a lot of investments, or they've announced a lot recently with the exploration company, Mistral, Lovable, ICI. You know, they're they're investing in some amazing companies. They seem to be moving quickly, which is great. What was... What's been your personal experience kind of working with the team at EQT?
00:17:00 · Sebastian Johnson, Lukas Saari
[00:17:00] S0: Amazing. And talk to me a bit about raising from the EU Scale-up Fund. You know, it's very new. They're making a lot of investments, or they've announced a lot recently with the exploration company, Mistral, Lovable, ICI. You know, they're they're investing in some amazing companies. They seem to be moving quickly, which is great. What was... What's been your personal experience kind of working with the team at EQT? [00:17:21] S1: Yeah. Super positive. And, I mean, given that I'm from Stockholm also, I've been in contact with the EQT team for a longer period of time. For me, the Scale-up Europe Fund, which does the perfect match for what we're building and, like, the narrative and the brands that we're going for, they have, like, this perfect type of access and knowledge across Europe. So for me, they were, I mean, the number one choice in terms of who is it that I wanted to partner with. So I'm very happy that this is where we ended up. [00:17:52] S0: That's amazing. Look. You've now got this sort of cash chest, war chest, a 100,000,000 to deploy. Where are you gonna be investing that? Are you thinking about go to market in the markets you're already existing in? Are you gonna be expanding into new European markets? Is it gonna be product development? How does that look like over the next twelve straight months?
00:17:52 · Sebastian Johnson, Lukas Saari
[00:17:52] S0: That's amazing. Look. You've now got this sort of cash chest, war chest, a 100,000,000 to deploy. Where are you gonna be investing that? Are you thinking about go to market in the markets you're already existing in? Are you gonna be expanding into new European markets? Is it gonna be product development? How does that look like over the next twelve straight months? [00:18:10] S1: Yeah. So a lot into the go to market side in the various countries and just, like, accelerating and adding fuel to the fire to both the team size, but also the marketing activities and so on that we're doing across the years. And then on the product side, where I now feel very high clarity in terms of where we want to go and what we want to build, and it's, like, zero research risk, so to say. It's just like an execution risk and how quickly can we get there. So now also sort of standing up additional product teams and so on for developing additional of the key features that we want to do now in parallel. [00:18:43] S0: Amazing. And, yeah, Sweden continues to have this incredible moment. You know, last year was phenomenal. This year continues to be phenomenal. I'm gonna be in Stockholm next week, actually. What is it like? Is is is there still this feeling of excitement and momentum in Stockholm?
00:18:43 · Sebastian Johnson, Lukas Saari
[00:18:43] S0: Amazing. And, yeah, Sweden continues to have this incredible moment. You know, last year was phenomenal. This year continues to be phenomenal. I'm gonna be in Stockholm next week, actually. What is it like? Is is is there still this feeling of excitement and momentum in Stockholm? [00:18:58] S1: There's definitely lots of excitement going on in Stockholm still. And I think to me here, I see that Sweden is this almost like Goldilocks type of size country where it's sufficiently large to have enough, like, talent and aspiration and so on within it, but it's also sufficiently small that no one is building with just a Swedish ambition. You're building with a global ambition from day one. And I think if you are... Were to start in another country, say, like France, then that market is so big that you will likely be staying in your home market for a longer period of time. And then when you're going to expand, it's only The US that makes sense because other... All other markets are, like, the same size or smaller almost. So I think here, by virtue of us being from Sweden, we were building with an international ambition from day one. When we started going internationally, we didn't just go to one new country. We hired three country directors in parallel. So, like, we really built this into the camp... Like, company DNA and processes from day one.