Scaling Europe
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.
00:19:56 · Sebastian Johnson
[00:19:56] S0: And I I think that's, yeah, so true for The UK as well. You know, we had so many amazing fintech unicorns that were built and scaled at the same time as Revolut, but the vast majority of them just stayed laser focused on The UK market. Well, Revolut had that mentality and have seen incredible success. You... You're often bucketed into this cohort of companies, is like Sana, Lovable, Legora, you know, this generation of sort of AI native companies coming out of coming out of the city in the country. Is that a fair cohort? Do you see yourself... You know, from the outside the rest of Europe, you look like a a tight group of phenomenal founders. Does that... You know, do do you see each other frequently? Is there a sense of real community among Swedish founders? Is that a real thing, or is that just a bit of romanticization from the rest of Europe?
00:20:39 · Lukas Saari, Sebastian Johnson
[00:20:39] S1: Yeah. I mean, it's definitely a small ecosystem. I had dinner with the founders of two of those three companies earlier this week. Okay. So, I mean, we're definitely close to each other. We connect regularly. I'm super inspired by those journeys as well. I think that for me as a founder, the other companies that I draw the most inspiration from are those that are, like, building in the same cohort or maybe are, like, one year ahead and so on. They're taking, like, Legora that are building essentially the same company that we are doing, but they're doing it in another vertical in legal instead of health care and so on. So I think it's also incredibly valuable to just have these, like, sparring partners so closely available. [00:21:15] S0: Yeah. Amazing. Must be must be such a powerful thing to have. Well, Lukas, a huge congratulations to you and the team on this amazing round. I love to see a European company in Europe for Europe, backed by Europe. Couldn't be happy for you and the team. [00:21:28] S1: Yeah. Let's go Europe. Thanks, Sam. [00:21:30] S0: Let's go, man. Thank you very much.