Dear friends,
Welcome to the Wellstreet Journal, summer edition! 📰 If you are new to the Wellstreet newsletter, this is our monthly update from the team and our portfolios, where we also share some external news that we think you shouldn't miss!
🔔We hosted a special edition of the Wellstreet Launchpad with Google for Startups in our new office in Gothenburg for our local portfolio companies. We extended it to additional entrepreneurs from the region so we could meet some new faces and get acquainted with local business ideas and innovation.🚀
The fireside chat with Juni co-founder and CEO Samir El-Sabini was a definite favorite!🔥The companies heard him talk about Juni’s impressive investment journey. In the current climate where entrepreneurs may face tougher competition when it comes to grabbing investors' attention, the key takeaway from the session was that being an entrepreneur is not a regular 9h to 5h job. Be prepared to work 24/7 for several years ahead. Entrepreneurship is not about how much you can achieve but how much you can achieve in the context of a time frame (the shorter the time frame, the more impressive the achievement).
Read more about the event, the program and the speakers here. Huge thanks to all attendees, facilitators, mentors and speakers. It was a privilege to work with you all!
🔔 SHIFT CAPITAL is over! As a partner to the Shift initiative, Wellstreet participated actively in the competition organized by Bling Startups and Breakit.
In the last steps, we were happy to host the Gothenburg edition of the semifinal. Wellstreet was part of the jury, that in the end selected 13 startups to move on to the final. Six of the finalists managed to assure investors that they would have a great future. They will have a happy (and very busy) summer!🐝
🎉 Congratulations to all participating companies, investors and organization members!
Fresh out of the oven!
🔔 We proudly welcome to the portfolio our latest investment, Sisterly Tribe! 💥
🧘 The Gothenburg-based yoga and wellness brand Sisterly Tribe is growing fast; the company has the value of sustainability at its core and focuses intensely on customer experience. Wellstreet has experience investing in this industry (i.e., ICANIWILL) and is thrilled to be part of the company's next phase, a global expansion. Besides Wellstreet, serial entrepreneur Alexander Hars also participated in the investment round.
Portfolio News
🦿 We know we are biased, but Anatomic Studios had the coolest booth at the OTWorld fair in Leipzig, the world’s largest and leading industry conference when it comes to prosthetics. Företargarna also listed them as one of the young Swedish innovative ideas.
🛒 Brink Commerce’s event before D Congress, Pre Congress, was a success. It gathered a fantastic crowd of e-commerce specialists who listened to Albin Johansson (Axel Arigato founder) and Peter Lindholm (former Co-CEO and Co-founder of Frontier Car Group), who talked candidly about their entrepreneurial journeys. Brink also welcomed a new Head of Customer Success, Johan Afséer.
💶 Congratulations to DanAds! After the company’s successful launch in the US market, the European Investment Bank (EIB) believes in its success in Europe. They backed DanAds with a loan facility of €8 million. They also participated in one of the world’s largest adtech conferences, AdMonsters’ OPS in New York, alongside several of their clients – SoundCloud, Roku, The Atlantic, Fandom, and many more. They sure deserved those drinks afterward!
👾 The CEO of Svensk Digital Handel interviewed Gamifiera's CEO Wilhelm Sporrong at D Congress, who welcomed to the stage some of their clients to discuss the evolution of customer relations in e-commerce. His talk was summarized in an article on Market.se. You can always improve on your loyalty strategy, just like Bonti, which is a brand already well known for the benefits of its membership, and that now will double down on the experience with the help of Gamifiera and Voyado. To discover what the future of customer experience and loyalty holds, listen to Wille on the podcasts Heja Framtiden, Detaljhandelspodden and Framtidens Ehandel!
🚸 A joint project to inspire a more circular life. That’s what Hyber, together with Matsmart and Sellpy, set out to do with Cirkulära Familjen, a mini-series that will follow a family with children who will try to become more circular in everyday life. They are currently looking for families that want to join the challenge, so spread the word and apply!
🛥️ Follow X Shore CEO Jenny Keisu in this walkthrough of their Eelex boat. She also joined other electric companies, Cake, Heart Aerospace and Einride at Einride MESH - it’s really inspiring and encouraging to see that so much progress is being made within the electric vehicles industry.
Portfolio News
🔗 Through the partnership with Enable Banking, Aura Cloud has made Open Banking an integrated part of their modular core banking platform. Read about this partnership here and what it means for customers.
🤝 Esgaia is happy to welcome a new customer, Terra Alpha, which will count on excellent service to manage and follow their ESG engagement processes. Also, they were shortlisted for the ESG Insight Awards by A-Team Group. Please access the survey and vote for them here to show your support, latest 5th of July!
👋 Maintract has a new board advisor, and it is a heavy name in the fintech industry! Welcome Knut Frängsmyr!
📰 Pensure offers a seamless solution to pension administrators. CEO Mikael Claesson talked to VA Insight and explained that pensions should be simple.
💳 Steven has partnered up with Enfuce for the issuance of a Mastercard payment card: the world's first card for shared expenses! Some features are real-time notifications when you use the card and you get to decide which bills to split or not. You can read more about the new Steven card here.
⬥ Although we don't know what the future holds, it seems startups may be facing a much tougher climate ahead when it comes to fundraising. Q1 already showed a slower investment trend and everyone is bracing for the Q2 reports. TechCrunch mentioned that Silicon Valey’s Y Combinator is advising its portfolio to “plan for the worst”, now that startups are facing a serious downturn and are required “to navigate a sharp reversal after a 13-year bull run”. Things may not be so bleak, but better safe than sorry. ⚠️🤔
⬥ There’s one e-commerce that is not suffering, though. So, how did “China’s Shein become more valuable than H&M and Zara combined?” 🤑 And given legitimate sustainability and ESG concerns, will it last?
⬥ Our chairwoman Caroline Farberger shared her view about diversity and inclusion with Svenska Dagbladet: it is the core of the Swedish businesses' long-term competitiveness.🙏
⬥ Netflix was all over the news for a while. In this article, DanAds analyses the announcement that they will start offering ad-supported streaming subscriptions. 🎬
⬥ The EU has passed new rules that force big tech to moderate illegal content, which doesn’t seem to be the direction Elon Musk wishes to drive Twitter, if he actually takes over.
Help our companies grow their fantastic teams and get in touch if you know anyone who could be a great fit for any of these roles. 💻
⬥ Zalster needs a new star to be their Digital Marketing Specialist.
⬥ Aura Cloud is offering a great opportunity to join the rising fintech as Chief Technology Officer.
⬥ Esgaia is looking for someone to boost Sales Development.
⬥ Brink Commerce needs a VP / Country Lead Commercial UK. Also, keep an eye on the other positions they are offering.
⬥ DanAds keeps growing, so they need a dedicated newsletter to show all of the open positions! 😅
⬥ Textual also has a few open positions, check them out!
That’s all from us this month. 🌞 We hope you take some time to re-charge this summer and plan for what might be a very different business and investment landscape come the autumn.
Please reach out to us at contact@wellstreet.vc with your thoughts and comments, we’d love to hear from you and answer your questions about this or previous issues!
