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Newsletter #4

By 16 March 2023March 17th, 2023No Comments7 min read

In this newsletter, we spotlight SVB’s collapse, GPT-4’s launch, and its edge over ChatGPT. Delve into the top 5 reasons why OpenAI’s latest language model, GPT-4, revolutionizes industries with enhanced capabilities and human-machine synergy. (link) (written by GPT-4)

Top News

1. OpenAI released GPT-4 and it’s incredibly powerful. We highly recommend to read up on its capabilities. Watch the live stream release (link) and OpenAI’s blog post (link)

2. Linkedin founder Reid Hoffman wrote a book with GPT-4. An intersection between human and AI. Full book here (link)

3. Collapse of SVB – the second largest bank failure in the US since 2008. (link) US regulators shut down SVB but guaranteed companies could access all their deposits on Monday. (link)

4. HSBC saves SVB UK arm for £1 (link) and UK SVB is still offering loans to the tech sector. (link)

5. Are VCs to blame for what happened at SVB and what are the future implications? Founding partner of Seedcamp Reshma Sohoni, Pento COO Sabrina Castiglione and partner Chris Grew from law firm Orrick discuss with Sifted Talks. (link)

6. Easee’s electric car chargers sales are stopped in Sweden, concluded by the Swedish Elsäkerhetsverket. (link)

7. The next big thing with Kahoot! founder Johan Brand and Selvaag involves big investments in the property industry. (link)

8. Ex-Oda and Schibsted employees launch new product studio, Oschlo, to help companies with product development. (link)

9. Innovation Norway notices a drop in funding application (link)

10. Vivaldi browser will be available in Volkswagen cars (link)

Latest Funding Rounds

💸 Schibsted Ventures led 100 million SEK round in Swedish Saas company Ingrid (link) (link)

🪴 Hedvig raised 330 million NOK at a valuation of NOK 670 million. They’re doubling down on Sweden and shut down operations in Norway. (link)

💸 CoFounder and KLP raise an additional 60 million NOK for their fund. (link)

💻 Appfarm secured 60 million NOK led by Idékapital, Eviny Ventures and existing investor Arkwright X (link)

🌇 Unacast raised 30 million NOK from existing investors and new investor Australian proptech investor Taronga Ventures (link)

🍎 Lifeness, a cloud based health service designed for patients with obesity has raised 30 million NOK. Largest investors are Arctic Investment Group and state-owned Investinor. (link)

🏗️Equinor’s spinoff Nicoustic secured 25 million NOK with a combination of a convertible loan, equity and public grants from Fraunhofer, CoFounder and Equinor Ventures. (link)

🧣Villoid raised 24.7 million NOK led by Varner and others, valuing the company at 175 million NOK. (link)

🛋️ Heymat collects 20 million NOK from Investinor and Arctic Investment Group (link)

🌱 Auk raised 19.8 million NOK and their valuation was at 74.3 million NOK pre-money. (link)

🏡 Hayon raised 8 million NOK, with a valuation of 72.2 million NOK and passed 100,000 users. The round was led by Amedia with investors from Spacemaker, Askeladden and Nurx (link)

👗 Unconventional Ventures invests in Fjong for an undisclosed amount. (link)

🏫Trondheim based Leasi have won an innovation contract with Oslo municipality to create a rental and resource management system for the rental of equipment between 200 Oslo schools (link)

Latest on Talent

🌳 Bjørn K. Haugland has built the most powerful climate network in Norway (link)

🌏 Explore 189 remote jobs in the Nordics (link)

🇳🇴 Explore 93 open positions at Norwegian companies (link)

🤸‍♀️ Hanna Selvaag is the new investment manager at RunwayFBU (link)

💳 Frode Riis Andersen moves from Lunar to Kameo (link)

📖 Poption has closed down as planned (link)

🌟 Frida Rustøen promoted to Principal at Idékapital (link)

🤝 Umbrella launches an initiative Boardiverse to connect women with ethnic diverse backgrounds with boards of Norwegian companies (link)

🎙️ Avant Garde Search launches new podcast, first episode with Airthings CMO (link)

🌎 Meta cuts another 10,000 jobs (link)

Top News

1. OpenAI released GPT-4 and it’s incredibly powerful. We highly recommend to read up on its capabilities. Watch the live stream release (link) and OpenAI’s blog post (link)

2. Linkedin founder Reid Hoffman wrote a book with GPT-4. An intersection between human and AI. Full book here (link)

3. Collapse of SVB – the second largest bank failure in the US since 2008. (link)US regulators shut down SVB but guaranteed companies could access all their deposits on Monday. (link)

4. HSBC saves SVB UK arm for £1 (link) and UK SVB is still offering loans to the tech sector. (link)

5. Are VCs to blame for what happened at SVB and what are the future implications? Founding partner of Seedcamp Reshma Sohoni, Pento COO Sabrina Castiglione and partner Chris Grew from law firm Orrick discuss with Sifted Talks. (link)

6. Big turn of events at Meew. CEO, Armin Kavousi has been dismissed as Frihedsbrevet revealed his CV was not all true. (link) Meew’s board resigned and cancelled the company’s plans for IPO on the growth exchange Spotlight. (link)

7. Angella Invest wants to create Denmark’s largest community for female business angels and women who want to start investing in startups. (link)

8. Canadian Lynx Equity is on the look out for more Danish companies to acquire (link)

9. Only 0.1 % of investments in Denmark go to startups with only female founders says new analysis from Dansk Erherv (link)

10. Former Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt joins board of directors of the machine learning-based marketing platform Neurons (link)

Latest Funding Rounds

💸 17 companies from Incuba, based in Aarhus, raised more than 420 million DKK in 2022. (link)

🔔 Danish biotech company Gubra enters stock exchange, valuation not shared yet. Looking to raise 500 million DKK. (link)

🧠 Teitur Trophics closed a Series A of €28 million, led by Sunstone Life Science Ventures and Sound Bioventures, with new investors Industrifonden, Innovestor’s Life Science Fund & P53 Invest. (link)

🔬Biotech startup Chromologics raised €7.1 million from new investors Döhler Ventures and Thia Ventures. (link)

🏡 Venture fund Seed Capital invested 28 million DKK in Landfolk, founded by a team of entrepreneurs who worked at Airbnb. (link)

👩‍🔬 Cellugy, a startup focused on eradicating microplastics from cosmetics closed a round of 13 million DKK. (link)

🌿 Klimate has raised 5.6 million DKK in a bridge round led by the Footprint Firm, Antler, rockstart, Mølgaard Capital & Jørn Larsen. (link)

🧪 Biotech company Immunitrack received 5.5 million DKK from the Innovation Fund. (link)

✈️ Tryp.com has secured above €500.000 which brought the valuation of the company to €8.3 million. (link)

🦾 Shape Robotics will issue new shares and plans to collect an amount between 25 million DKK and 36.9 million DKK. (link)

🔆 UV clinical, disinfection solution for medical tubes, has raised 5 million DKK from individual investors. (link)

👗 Capsule, Copenhagen based clothing startup, closed a seed round of €600,000 backed by UNICO CAPITAL, Martin Lykke Suhr and The Aventures (link)

🏗️ Kobots receive a new investment from new investors Kirsten Winther, Ralf Astrup, Lorenz Technology and Cabinplant & Christian Poulsen (link)

🥬 Vertical Farming company Refarmed is bankrupt, due to the energy crisis as their costs in production increased by 23% compared to what they budgeted for. (link)

Latest on Talent

🌏 Explore 189 remote jobs in the Nordics (link)

🇩🇰 Explore 884 open positions at Danish companies (link)

🤝 Karina Rothoff Brix joins the investment board of The Aventures (link)

📌 INSCALE aims to make headhunting more accessible to scale-ups and SMB’s with its TaaS (Talent as a Service) model (link)

🌟 EU startups share a list of top VCs, Backingminds founder Sara Resvik has been listed among others (link)

⌨️ Job ads written by ChatGPT are on average 40% more biased than those written by humans (link)

🌎 Meta cuts another 10,000 jobs. (link)

📆 Mark your calendars! Find the hottest events in the ecosystem here.

Thanks for reading our newsletter! We’re always on the lookout for news in the Nordic startup scene, so if you have something to share, feel free to send an email to kimberly@meshcommunity.com.