[HN Gopher] Swedish tech startups and scaleups
___________________________________________________________________
Swedish tech startups and scaleups
Author : imartin2k
Score : 129 points
Date : 2022-08-14 11:09 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.swedishtechnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.swedishtechnews.com)
| forthelastime wrote:
| schiptsovgithub wrote:
| mongol wrote:
| Fun list to scroll through. I had no idea about most of these
| startups, although some where familiar. For example, I saw
| Grafana Labs in the list. And Klarna is not exactly a startup any
| longer...
| mrweasel wrote:
| That's okay, many of them aren't tech companies either. I
| didn't scroll past C, and I already seen a transport company, a
| car rental company and a fitness subscription.
|
| Just because a company uses computers in some form, doesn't
| make them a tech company. I know many retailers who are just
| that: retailers, who use pretty sophisticated software and
| employ a ton of developers, but they aren't tech companies and
| would never claim to be one.
| arketyp wrote:
| Not exactly a scaleup either...
| imartin2k wrote:
| Creator of the list here. For some of the companies on the
| list the label "startup or scaleup" is debatable ofc. But I
| often find it not to be a clear-cut thing in those cases.
|
| I tried to use a mix of "criteria" such as company age,
| whether it acts like a startup/scaleup (rapid innovation,
| invests heavily in growth, needs external funding to get
| going), whether it's covered intensely by the startup-focused
| tech media etc.
|
| To me, Klarna ticks those boxes.
| arketyp wrote:
| I agree, was just being witty. Impressive list -- cheers!
| imartin2k wrote:
| Thanks! Fortunately, I have been using the same structure
| in all my 171 previous weekly newsletter issues. So while
| it was a huge amount of copy & paste, the mental work was
| fortunately limited. Still I do feel exhausted now.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Yeah, Klarna is rather more of a 'scale-down' recently.
| kensai wrote:
| Where is Paradox Interactive?!
|
| Aaah. Not a startup anymore.
| imartin2k wrote:
| I am the creator of this list. I chose to exclude gaming
| studios, because I don't really cover them in the newsletter,
| and have not really any good overview of that sector either.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| A shame, because IMO Sweden has one of the better gaming
| start up scenes in the world as well.
| sandebert wrote:
| Might you perhaps be the Swedish musician Solar Fields,
| who also made the music for the game Mirror's Edge?
| ramigb wrote:
| I have no idea if he is or he is not who you are asking
| him, but it's super impressive that you can recognize a
| musician name from working on a game. Respect for that
| sir a lot of musicians would appreciate that.
| sandebert wrote:
| Thanks, but to be fair I also have a couple of his
| albums. :-) (https://www.allmusic.com/artist/solar-
| fields-mn0000645543)
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| I am not, only a fan of his music. Sorry to disappoint :)
| sandebert wrote:
| Not disappointed, just grateful you replied - thanks!
| [deleted]
| humbleferret wrote:
| What a great list.
|
| Are there any Swedish incubators similar to Y-Combinator that are
| facilitating startup growth?
| mankz wrote:
| Sure:
|
| https://sting.co/ https://www.abi.se/ and lots more listed at
| https://www.sisp.se/medlemmar
| Jolter wrote:
| There are a few but nothing at the scale of yc, obviously.
| danadalis wrote:
| Antler
|
| https://www.antler.co/
| Jamie9912 wrote:
| Isn't Spotify from Gothenburg?
| dotcoma wrote:
| No, AFAIK they are from Stockholm. Crunchbase also say they are
| from Stockholm.
| Shaanie wrote:
| Yes, Spotify is from Stockholm. Though they do have a
| Gothenburg office.
| archydeb wrote:
| I heard that Sweden's high income tax actually incentivised
| startups, because the only way to get _seriously_ wealthy was
| through capital gains.
|
| Does anybody know whether that's true?
|
| If so, it really undermines the narrative that is somewhat
| dominant in Britain, that high income tax will disincentivize
| entrepreneurship and innovation etc etc
| teknolog wrote:
| It is broadly true that you cannot accumulate wealth from
| salary income as the salary bands are massively compressed.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| Even without the tax angle isn't this generally true? Except in
| very rare cases of becoming CEO of an MNC or something.
| cpach wrote:
| You have a point - however, do you know what SWEs in the big
| US cities earn theses days, working for "FAANG"? (Or Stripe,
| Square, etc.) It's not very uncommon to have a yearly
| compensation of 500-600k or more (USD).
|
| In Sweden, very very few SWEs earn more than 80k/year.
| pazx wrote:
| I live in Sweden and most SWEs I know earn 6000usd or
| 72k/year after only 5 years.
|
| Earning above 100k is not uncommon.
| cpach wrote:
| _"Earning above 100k is not uncommon."_
|
| OK, I believe that. Still a bit from a really good US
| salary though.
|
| Did you meet many SWEs that had a total compensation of
| >5 MM SEK/year?
| Shaanie wrote:
| Earning over 80k SEK per month is uncommon. Not unheard
| of, but uncommon.
| INTPenis wrote:
| I'm just a layman when it comes to all that but as someone who
| was raised in Sweden and lived here all my life I feel like the
| safety net that the government provides plays a huge role in
| people feeling free to start their own business, or their own
| band.
|
| When you know you won't become homeless due to a failed venture
| it becomes easier to take a chance on something.
| kkielhofner wrote:
| This is very accurate. While other Nordic and European
| countries also have strong social safety nets (certainly
| compared to the US) Sweden seems to have captured something
| special.
|
| For a country with roughly the population of the Chicago
| metropolitan area Sweden punches well above their weight in
| everything from startups to pop culture influence[0] to the
| point where the referenced article calls Sweden "the
| unofficial capital of pop music".
|
| Turns out when you have a safety net it's a lot easier to
| make the jump to forming your own startup vs the US where if
| you leave your job the first step is to figure out how to get
| healthcare (and pay for it). In the US you're much closer to
| complete ruin if you leave a job to pursue your wild startup
| idea.
|
| [0] - https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/this-is-
| pop-n...
| waspight wrote:
| I have heard that Stockholm is the Silicon Valley of Europe
| as well so Sweden is going strong I guess.
| RestlessMind wrote:
| > Turns out when you have a safety net it's a lot easier to
| make the jump to forming your own startup
|
| I think you are overindexing on the safety net part.
| Here[1] is a chart of startups per capita in Europe.
| Looking at "startups per 1M inhabitants", Estonia has 1100+
| while Germany has only 250 in spite of having a great
| safety net (apparently).
|
| Same article also shows that Sweden has 1769EUR VC funding
| per capita, when Finland has only 854EUR and Denmark/Norway
| don't even show up on the chart. All 4 countries have
| similar cultures, no?
|
| And let's not even talk about Saudi Arabia which spends a
| lot on social safety net but I haven't seen much
| entrepreneurial or artistic exports from that country (oil
| doesn't count).
|
| I believe "forming your own startup" requires a lot of
| ingredients - ecosystem or flywheel (see: Silicon Valley),
| funding for risky bets (see: USA), a bit of hunger,
| education levels, culture of risk taking etc etc.
|
| [1]
| Southworth wrote:
| I've done a bit of international work around startups and
| government policy, as well as lots of checking out
| various "startup"/entrepreneurial endeavours around
| MENA,US and EU.
|
| Safety nets, be that a psychological one ( the US with
| the American dream ) or a welfare angle (sweden, Norway
| etc) but what seems to be truest or at least in my
| observation is the psychology of the country in terms of
| its approach to supporting startups of all flavours
| matters more. This means,broadly, it being considered an
| acceptable and successful route of learning business and
| is not a hyper risky endeavour.
|
| In stable global north countries, it was, historically,
| considered a radical act to not join a big national or
| even multinational company. Hell, the terminology of the
| description tells you the sense of import that we held
| for the the large beasts of industry.
|
| This all radically shifted with the advent of software,
| games, websites, SaaS, PaaS etc etc.
|
| It was perceived, over the last 40 years, no longer risky
| to be in computers, but very wise, and a smart move.
|
| With this rise of the geeks, then came adjacent
| entrepreneurial activity, fancy coffee shops, better
| food, etc
|
| Now,this has probably played out one way or the other on
| every country.
|
| What I have seen, is that entrepreneurs are more present
| and more numerous than ever, but there are numerous
| obstacles in their way.
|
| Import limits, sending money internationally, basic
| banking, travel restrictions, gender limitations,
| sexuality limitations, freedom of the press, dictatorial
| governance with a lot of religion as the policy.
|
| These are the limiting factors to growth. Investors will
| always invest, we can derisk it somewhat with tax breaks,
| but money makes money.
|
| Ultimately what's designs a great startup ecosystem is
| excellent people making excellent things with or without
| government assistance and working together, as a cohesive
| unit to celebrate and champion making cool shit for
| money. Be it coffee, be it BBQ, be it software, be it
| yoga.
|
| Independent businesses require a state that trusts its
| people, and the people trust the state.
|
| Germany is an odd example, but from my experience with
| German entrepreneurs is the risk tolerance of Germany
| investors is very very low. So it's get customers then
| get money. However, that said, Germany has produced a few
| good businesses so perhaps there's a method!
|
| It can never be one size fits all when it comes to
| creating the perfect environment, much like gardening,
| you've got to work with the strengths of the plot, the
| soil, the weather etc.
|
| However, if we all think we should replicate the valley
| on our respective locations then we're truly missing the
| strengths and values of our communities.
| tored wrote:
| Agree, if you examine Swedish modern history since the
| industrial revolution you will find that Sweden has
| always produced lots of startups (or the equivalent in
| the old days) with both low taxes and high taxes, with a
| welfare state and without.
|
| High taxes and a welfare state do of course have some
| role to play (positive and/or negative), but as you say
| there other important parts that probably matter more.
|
| One thing we can say empirically is that Sweden have had
| it difficult to create large sustainable companies from
| startups like it did hundred years ago, Spotify is a
| notable exception.
| xvedejas wrote:
| I know for many the top concern is healthcare costs; however,
| for me it is rent. Does the Swedish welfare system do
| anything that would help with rent for startup founders? Or
| does that still contribute as much risk as it would be
| elsewhere?
| pazx wrote:
| The swedish welfare system will give you around 2000usd in
| unemployment every month, depending on previous salary
| xvedejas wrote:
| If you're a founder of a startup working full-time and
| unable to pay yourself a salary yet, can you receive
| unemployment? (Maybe you would count this as
| "underemployment"?) What if you left your previous job
| voluntarily?
| sofixa wrote:
| In France, yes. You can apply to get the money you would
| receive in unemployment benefits as an initial capital in
| your startup (for paying yourself or for other expenses).
| alkonaut wrote:
| No but there are grants you can receive for starting
| companies that lets you pay yourself a low-ish salary for
| 6 months when starting up. This was extended to 12 months
| during COVID I believe, unsure what it is now.
| pazx wrote:
| Income tax is 30-33% up to ~4500usd/month, for everything above
| it is 50-55%. Capital income tax is 20-30% depending on the
| type of capital.
| alkonaut wrote:
| I don't know anyone who started a business and did so to be
| wealthy to be honest. Sure it's always a nice side effect but I
| think all the people I know who started businesses would answer
| "yes" to the question "do you want to do this even if you never
| make more money than as an employee".
| dazc wrote:
| Look at Ireland, low corporation tax (we won't even force you
| to pay it at all if you're big enough) and a booming economy -
| producing feck all.
|
| If it wasn't low taxes that achieved this then what was it?
| andsoitis wrote:
| Taxes are a part of the story, but neither the whole story
| nor sufficient on its own. There are other countries with
| lower corporate taxes, but with a worse economy.
|
| Other things it's got going for it is a highly educated
| English-speaking population, geographically favorable
| location between Europe and the US, which, together with the
| favorable tax policies, makes Ireland especially useful for
| American tech and pharmaceutical companies.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| Stock options are taxed as salary income when excercised
| though.
| petestream wrote:
| I would say it is true but more the entire environment. ~15
| years ago in Sweden it was relatively easy to become middle
| class. It was for its time accessible and affordable to have
| things like education, housing and a family. At the same time
| it was relatively hard to become upper-middle class because of
| progressive income taxes, career paths and overall competition.
| That meant there were a relatively large number of people
| capable of starting and joining startups with low opportunity
| cost of doing so. Which also meant there were more startups who
| were interested in building something that is viable long-term
| rather than to cash out quickly.
|
| (This isn't really true anymore but that is a different story)
| catears wrote:
| My understanding, as a Swedish native, is that income from
| labour is taxed rather high (i think 70%+ for income over a
| certain amount). However, capital gains are taxed comparatively
| low. The two most common ways tax either 30% of the profit, or
| 1-3% of the annual total value (ish, I don't know the exact
| numbers and they are probably changing from year to year).
|
| How the incentives play out you have to ask someone else about
| tough ;)
|
| Edit: Got curious and looked up income tax. Turns out I was
| slightly wrong, Income is regularly taxed around 55% for really
| high income, but if you also count in VAT ("moms" in swedish)
| you get ~70% taxation.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Top marginal rate of tax paid by the employer is 55.5%.
| Employer pays some payroll taxes too but those usually aren't
| included when comparing income tax. As a rule of thumb it
| costs the employer $1.50 to pay someone $1
| perbu wrote:
| It is pretty interesting to see, though. Sweden has a lot of
| "old money" and they seem to quite happy letting then keep
| it.
| jacobr wrote:
| The Swedish welfare state involved a lot of compromise and
| give and take. The system benefits workers in some areas
| and capital owners in others.
| hoschicz wrote:
| You can't add 55+25 like that; VAT is 25 % of the 45 % left
| over. So maximum total marginal tax rate is 66.25 %
| jollybean wrote:
| It's still uncompromisingly brutal in the minds of most
| people.
|
| The 'Swede' I know best (Doctor) left for that reason.
|
| The argument most often used is 'But I Get Good Services' -
| which I'm suspicious of because 1) well, you could just
| keep the money and spend on the services you want, instead
| of the services the state chooses for you and 2) there's
| incredible efficiency in private institutions. I don't see
| any government in the world ever making a good 'Spotify'.
| Despite it's flaws, it's nice to have 'music when I want
| it'.
|
| In short, probably thinks like 'Healthcare for Everyone'
| (though maybe not socialized entirely) and better
| retirement comp. are really good ideas and should be
| universally applied (much as we now know that 'central
| economic planning soviet style' is a bad idea).
|
| But 2/3's to the State is just a gigantic amount.
|
| Even a small adjustment such as '15% must go towards your
| Healthcare Insurance' and then let people pick plans, or,
| 10% must go to a 'Retirement Savings Plan' (of which some
| of it cannot be withdrawn until 65 and some of it pooled)
| might even be beneficial.
|
| I think that would start to create some social nudging
| functions (i.e. payment for Healthcare) while being a bit
| more fair (i.e. service quality sometimes proportional to
| money put in).
|
| And maybe the 66% kicks in, but at some much, much higher
| rate, like over 1M in income.
|
| Finally, we don't seem to account for just 'organizational
| intelligence' which I think is the biggest difference.
|
| When I see the lunches Swedish kids get I don't think 'they
| are rich' I think 'they are smart'.
|
| Lunches, esp. mostly vegetables do _not_ have to be
| expensive, I think the whole 'burgers and tater tots' you
| see in USA is just stupid, lazy thinking.
|
| Just being a bit creative with the menu, a bit
| conscientious with the process, and esp. having children
| help quite a bit would help. Any school kid can do
| 'something' and past age 8 they can wash veggies, help
| clean up, sweep. They do this in Japan for a lot of things,
| why can't we? I suggest children can even learn to prepare
| certain kids of veggies responsibly.
|
| Since a lot of education is kind of just 'daycare' why not
| give them some _responsibilities_ as well? I mean, it 's
| like a 'win win'.
|
| The remaining meal functions can be done by a staff.
|
| We can't avoid inherent costs in things but I suggest there
| is _enormous_ upside in being intelligent about things in
| 'whatever' systems: Drugs, Incarceration etc..
|
| My minimal exposure to Swedish startups is that they have
| _way_ better communications - they present their concepts
| using language, visuals, way ahead of others. This despite
| Swedish formal education system flailing a little bit
| behind others (that 's a complicated thing). p All of that
| said I 100% agree that 'safety net' will improve the
| likelihood of participation 'early stage' startups, not
| sure what it means beyond that stage.
| jacobr wrote:
| > I think that would start to create some social nudging
| functions (i.e. payment for Healthcare) while being a bit
| more fair (i.e. service quality sometimes proportional to
| money put in).
|
| An interesting definition of "fair" - in Sweden the
| principle is equal health care prioritized according to
| who needs or benefits most from the care, not how much
| you pay. If you see it from that point of view, tax is
| not a transaction where you pay for the services you
| receive. You pay for the _society_ you receive, which
| includes people in general being more healthy, not just
| yourself.
| jollybean wrote:
| Most people would reject the idea that someone works hard
| all of their life gets the same healthcare that someone
| who does nothing.
|
| Most people are somewhere in the middle, but there
| absolutely are people do nothing and people who are
| always being constructive, some in powerful ways.
|
| A society in which 100% of resources would be allocated
| in that manner (basically communist) would completely
| fall apart.
|
| I think 'same treatment Healthcare' is actually a bit of
| a hard-socialist idea that happened to make it's way
| through society historically (because it needed to have
| some socialization) but that will ultimately fail, it's
| on the edge in Canada right now as they are discussion
| private options.
|
| In much the same way I think fully-private healthcare is
| a failure.
|
| For the later (fully private) we have to understand the
| mechanisms are not the same as for regular products or
| even food etc. - there are existential issues which
| create gigantic asymmetries. So there must be heavy
| regulation and likely socialization in certain aspects.
|
| But the converse is still true: 'everyone the same' is a
| disaster for most of the economy, it's also maybe not
| such a good idea for healthcare.
|
| FYI - in Sweden the are Private Clinics.
|
| In Canada, where I am from, we have pretty crazy laws,
| some of those most limiting in the world.
|
| It's _illegal_ to provide private services for all but a
| minority of issues.
|
| Just consider that: a mechanic can fix your Mazerati, but
| it's illegal for them to fix your arm.
|
| In practice - there is filtering. 'Important People'
| somehow manage to get good access, like Sports Stars,
| politicians. Actual Doctors/Hospitals are not owned by
| the government (as they are in UK) so they are selective,
| but the billing rates are theoretically the same.
|
| On the other end, you may or may not get the surgery
| depending on if you're an alcoholic/smoker etc..
|
| Due to all of this there are very, very weird asymmetries
| in Healthcare all over the place, notably Doctor's guilds
| controlling access to their domain, pricing insanity in
| the US for actual services, insane drug prices due to IP
| laws and lobbying, inability of governments to innovate
| effectively. One weird artifact of the later is how much
| we have to depend on the advancements of other nations.
|
| The NGO style they have in the US is an interesting model
| as well.
| [deleted]
| codethief wrote:
| No idea about the situation in Sweden but generally speaking
| I'd say it depends a lot on whether "income" in "income tax"
| also includes capital gains.
| Jolter wrote:
| It does not, in Sweden.
| geysersam wrote:
| Don't know any country where it does. In Sweden it certainly
| doesn't.
| LtWorf wrote:
| It doesn't but they are taxed the second you sell them off.
|
| So cool... you're rich but if you actually want to use the
| money it is taxed.
| kevinak wrote:
| Actually... Sweden has a large loophole for extremely
| rich people. Stick it all in a "Capital Insurance"
| product and pay a low yearly tax on the amount, rather
| than the gains.
|
| It kind of makes Sweden into a low tax haven if you're
| only living off capital.
| pazx wrote:
| Income tax and capital gains tax are two different things
| and two different rules sets. In Sweden income tax is max
| ~56% while max capital gains is 30%.
| kevinak wrote:
| Don't forget to add the "totally not income tax" aka
| arbetsgivaravgift at another 30% :D
| peyton wrote:
| The only thing that incentivizes startups is access to capital.
| You need rich people.
| petestream wrote:
| Most of the inherent cost of a startup is salaries (offices
| usually second). Most of salaries goes for paying for housing
| (with market rate and education usually being the other major
| costs).
|
| Say you have two startup environment. One where it is
| affordable with housing, education and most people could try
| to start a startup and another where those things are
| expensive and few can. Which one requires more capital and
| which one is more successful?
|
| Investments are something you get when attractive companies
| are being created. Not something that creates attractive
| companies in itself. Plenty of countries have plenty of rich
| people but most don't stand out in terms of successful
| startups.
| varispeed wrote:
| This grinds my gears as this attitude essentially reinforces
| the serfdom in the society. If you are born into a working
| class you will remain working class.
|
| The salaries are taxed in a way that a worker cannot easily
| save money to start their own business, they need to beg
| bankers for a loan or go cap in hand to the rich people - and
| oh be sure they'll have to give shares to the business.
|
| In the UK we used to have a nice route for workers to build
| up their start up fund - basically you could create a company
| and sell your (and your co-founders) services to other
| companies. You could pay yourself a small salary or dividend
| or both to be able to cover rent, bills and day to day
| outgoings and in a year or two you could have amassed
| sizeable capital while gaining expertise. As an example, if
| you wanted to sell Kubernetes based SaaS product, you could
| have offered Kubernetes maintenance services etc and learn
| what kind of pain points corporations have and then work on
| incorporating solutions into your start up offering. Problem
| is that government believed it was a tax avoidance and closed
| this route (IR35). Now you can still offer services, but you
| are getting taxed on revenue which has no advantage over just
| being an employee and taking forever to save money.
| dazc wrote:
| The Gov't believed it was tax avoidance for the simple
| reason that it was.
|
| It is still possible to build a business in the UK the old
| fashioned way of working hard and making personal
| sacrifices.
| varispeed wrote:
| Government was never able to prove it was a tax
| avoidance. If you wanted to draw all the money from the
| company you would pay broadly the same tax as an
| employee. The only angle that one may consider as
| avoidance was that the client wouldn't have to pay
| employer's NI - but given the freelancer services were
| charging considerably more than employees, that wasn't an
| incentive either and they weren't employees, so it
| shouldn't apply either. Basically tax avoidance angle is
| a red herring and based on research it was the best
| carrier for this law to gain public acceptance plus it
| could paint freelancers in a bad light. The real reason
| this was adopted, was that big consultancies had a hard
| time competing with freelancers - they offered better
| price and expertise and as it happens a lot of government
| members and party members have vested interest in these
| corporations.
| missedthecue wrote:
| Exactly. How many tech startups today are funded directly or
| indirectly by successful founders and tech workers? Is 90%
| understating it?
| tommiegannert wrote:
| You could also run pools via institutional funds. Why do we
| need rich people?
|
| I'd think the rich people is a side-effect of successful
| pooling in finance. If you can get away with fees of >1% for
| "just" finding PE deals, that sometimes ramps up profits
| really fast.
| marsven_422 wrote:
| robalni wrote:
| What's up with all these two-dimensional solid color people
| graphics that often have unrealistic colors or body shapes? I see
| them _everywhere_. Here are a few examples from the list:
|
| * https://metry.io/img/metry-product-information.png
|
| * https://norban.se/assets/img/front-page/section-1/room_7@1x....
|
| * https://nordtechgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/undrawd...
|
| * https://www.nuvoair.com/_nuxt/img/home-enterprise-img.97f461...
|
| * https://sanitation360.se/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/puff_pro...
|
| * https://securifid.se/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/kvinna-locki...
|
| * https://www.sinch.com/sites/default/files/styles/medium_hq/p...
|
| * https://workamo.com/img/hero-image.png
|
| * https://www.airmee.com/images/icon_airmee_delivery-fresh.png
|
| * https://www.budid.se/images/video-min.png
| sgt wrote:
| I have a friend who looks exactly like that. Tiny head, huge
| body.
| vimy wrote:
| I really dislike this graphical style. It's been a couple years
| now so I hope something else will replace it soon.
| robalni wrote:
| This site has some more interesting graphics:
| https://www.gamifiera.com/
| jollybean wrote:
| It's just a marketing meme.
|
| It's actually really hard to get photos of real people in
| positions and context you want, and, there are so so many
| mitigating factors when there is more realism.
|
| Cartooish characters radically simplify everything. Even things
| like DEI - not enough 'People of Colour' , that can be changed
| instantly.
|
| One could just remove all of that and be judicious about the
| use of 'people' (Apple does that - not a lot of 'people' in the
| docs etc.) but then you lose the 'human connection'. People
| 'relate to' People.
|
| Once a few companies start doing it the 2cnd then 3rd tier
| follow for reasons they may not understand (copying happens a
| lot, it's just like 'benchmarking', it's 'easier' and 'safer').
| 4th tier never cared.
| lancebeet wrote:
| This art style is called "Alegria" or "Corporate Memphis".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Memphis
| pluijzer wrote:
| I've pasted 150 items of this list to OpenAI and let it figure
| out what my username would be as a Swedish startup, the answer is
|
| Pluijzer (Stockholm, social enterprise that develops innovative
| solutions for a plastic-free future)
|
| So guess I have to start doing that ...
| carlbarrdahl wrote:
| What are the 80/20 pareto efforts in terms of reducing plastics
| today? For example in cities and oceans as target areas.
| wongarsu wrote:
| In terms of reducing plastic pollution, the big things imho
| would be garbage collection for 3rd world countries (in many
| places "dump it in the river" is the only viable solution),
| biodegradable fishing nets, and more waste-fired power plants
| for plastics we can't efficiently recycle.
| eandre wrote:
| Founder of Encore here (on the list). Great to see so many
| wonderful companies represented. Sweden is a great place to start
| a startup these days.
| dijit wrote:
| I'm starting a subsidiary of a start-up in Germany in Sweden.
|
| It's not my experience that Sweden is a great place for
| startups, the bureaucracy is extremely hit/miss. Setting up tax
| information for example is really difficult as a non-Swedish
| speaker and even tripped up my Swedish speaking friend (who is
| a project coordinator on the new Skane hospital: so she's
| somewhat aware of the tax system). How much of your daily work
| will be administration, how much will be selling services, how
| much money will you make do you estimate; you must give us an
| estimation: if it's too far off then we will fine you!
|
| Information in English is... scarce, but gives the illusion of
| being available.
|
| Hiring is also very complicated, you have to be very explicit
| in your contracts because anything not spelled out immediately
| falls in favour of the employed; which is nice, but as a novice
| employer that's very scary, because I don't know everything
| obviously.
|
| What in your mind makes you think it's a good place?
| pazx wrote:
| All of these things are easy if you know how to do them. But
| if you have never done them, it takes some time to learn. My
| advice is get an external accountant to do this for you, only
| takes a few hours and they can teach you everything you want
| to know.
| raverbashing wrote:
| What makes you think that setting up a subsidiary is a "DIY"
| thing anywhere, especially if you don't speak the language?
|
| (Sweden is still probably easier than Germany, though that's
| a low barrier tbh)
|
| Edit: good to know about the UK
| dijit wrote:
| Because I did it in the UK and it was very much a DIY
| thing.
|
| 14GBP to Companies House, extra 10GBP to reserve the right
| to your name.
|
| File your books every year, expect to be audited randomly
| for a few years.
| eandre wrote:
| But you need a UK bank account, which requires a officer
| with a registered address in the UK. We were lucky our
| investors were UK-based otherwise it would have been a
| nightmare. Then you need to argue HMRC valuation
| discounts if you want to issue EMI options, which are
| only valid for 3 months, so you need to do it repeatedly.
| And then EMI option schemes are 15+ pages long contracts.
| Sweden has an equivalent stock option scheme that's ~2
| pages, in comparison.
| varispeed wrote:
| Aren't EMI options basically a scam? I never understood
| why company cannot just give an employee real shares. I
| was at a start up a couple of years ago and was promised
| these. Basically every month CEO had a new excuse that
| HMRC this or HMRC that. After a year and a half I decided
| to leave, because I understood I would never get any of
| that. Now when I see company offering EMI shares it is a
| clear red flag for me. E.g. if you offer PS50k in EMI
| shares just pay a lump sum instead and I can put this on
| my ISA tracking fund or just give real shares in the
| company.
| IneffablePigeon wrote:
| EMI gives both tax advantages and means you owe no tax
| when being offered the option. 50k as a lump sum would be
| taxed as income (so, fairly heavily). 50k in shares might
| attract a similar tax bill to be paid directly by the
| employee far in advance of any chance of recouping the
| value of the shares.
|
| EMI itself is not a scam. Whether a company follows
| through on giving you the options in a reasonable
| timescale is another thing, and whether the shares are
| eventually worth anything is another again. As with all
| things startup option/share related, consider it a
| lottery ticket with an unknown chance of paying out.
| varispeed wrote:
| So this is a sort of HMRC sanctioned tax avoidance
| scheme. Given that they are in a business of enacting
| retrospective taxes, I wouldn't trust that they are not
| going to change their mind down the line and ask for an
| extra tax.
|
| That being said, PS50k after all the tax is still better
| than PS0 and if the PS50k was paid as a one off bonus,
| you could pay it into SIPP without paying tax.
|
| I remember when I asked them why I cannot get normal
| shares? They said that EMI will be better for me because
| I will save on tax. I said, why if I want to pay tax, it
| pays for our schools, hospitals, why should I be taking
| the advantage? So they said that the board don't want to
| do that, because it will create "a legal issue" when they
| will be looking for next round of investments.
|
| So if any future employee reads that, if a company insist
| on EMI shares and don't want to give you real shares or
| money upfront, then jump the ship!
| dijit wrote:
| > But you need a UK bank account,
|
| Sure, I assumed this because you need that in any country
| you operate a legal entity.
|
| > which requires a officer with a registered address in
| the UK.
|
| This is the same in Sweden too
|
| > Then you need to argue HMRC valuation discounts if you
| want to issue EMI options, which are only valid for 3
| months, so you need to do it repeatedly. And then EMI
| option schemes are 15+ pages long contracts. Sweden has
| an equivalent stock option scheme that's ~2 pages, in
| comparison.
|
| You have more experience than me there, I never had this
| as a problem to solve so you could be right.
| eandre wrote:
| AFAIK in Sweden you need a managing directory who is
| resident in the European Economic Area (EEA), not
| necessarily in Sweden.
| dijit wrote:
| You must have at least one legal representative, usually
| a director, in Sweden.
|
| You can apply for temporary exemptions, but they are
| temporary and you are supposed to have good reason.
|
| There's no explicit requirements that any particular
| position must be held in Sweden, you can be a VD in the
| EEA for example, but you still need at least one legal
| responsible person to be domiciled.
| pazx wrote:
| No you don't, it is very clear. Within EEA, not in
| Sweden. I work in accounting and we just solved this for
| a Spanish client without any initial employees in Sweden.
| eandre wrote:
| We've set up a UK subsidiary so I can relate, but the process
| in Sweden was approximately 10x simpler: more automated, less
| bureaucracy, less ongoing admin work when the company is up
| and running.
|
| As with all countries there are definitely things you need to
| learn. We relied on our lawyers to draft employment
| agreements because we were already using them as part of our
| seed fundraise. There are companies like Pocketlaw
| (https://pocketlaw.com) that provide solid, standard
| agreements that you could use.
| erispoe wrote:
| Do you have resources on the simplest way to establish a
| startup in Germany?
| idlehand wrote:
| There is an abundance of experienced engineers who are
| willing to work for less than an entry-level engineer in the
| US. Wages are very low even in Stockholm. Great if you want
| to build a tech startup.
|
| Unfortunately the employment law is written in support of
| factory workers, not knowledge workers. So many employers are
| very cautious when hiring because a non-performing employee
| is very expensive to get rid of, as long as they have been
| employed for 6 months or more.
| torginus wrote:
| dudul wrote:
| Can you explain why?
| idlehand wrote:
| Unfortunately taxes are high. 20.6% corporation tax and 30%
| capital gains tax.
| kzrdude wrote:
| 20.6% is lower than Denmark, Austria, Germany, France,
| Netherlands, Belgium, etc. It's on the lower end, while not
| being lower than the UK and of course not Ireland (considered
| a semi tax haven).
| ninjin wrote:
| Starting 2023 it will be lower than the UK as well for any
| business above GBP 250,000 when HMRC bumps that rate to
| 25%. Heck, I would argue that even 20.6% is not that
| different to the current 19% across the board in the UK.
| varispeed wrote:
| If you are reinvesting money in the company (especially
| at a start up stage), Corporation Tax is the least
| important tax. More important is how much employees cost
| and UK is up there with the highest taxed countries in
| the world. If you want to pay workers more than peanuts,
| the tax take is more than 50% on a salary (when including
| Employer's NI).
| LtWorf wrote:
| How many of those are actually "contracted for the development"
| by a company in Malta?
|
| The swedish startup I used to work for was setup in this way to
| scam taxes.
| jsty wrote:
| The "contracted for development" setup is common amongst multi-
| territory IP-heavy businesses. You choose a country to hold all
| the IP and have other locations sell development services to
| that country's legal entity.
|
| You can do it to fiddle around with tax, but it's separately
| quite sensible to hold all your IP in a single region & entity
| to minimise the complexity - otherwise you'd have every
| territory licensing IP to every other territory, a.k.a an
| absolute mess.
| LtWorf wrote:
| There was no "multi territory", it was a shitty startup with
| a bunch of people sitting in a room and sharing the office
| with another startup that was also owned by kinnevik (swedish
| VC). It was set up that way to not pay taxes in case it would
| ever make money.
| bazhand wrote:
| I joined Proxify (on the list) recently and was pleasantly
| surprised to find a quite vibrant tech scene. As someone who
| followed the more traditional startup hubs like Amsterdam, Berlin
| or Dublin, I've found that there are many gems in the Nordics.
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