How can Swedish innovation contribute fully to Swedish growth?

The Acceleration Office is now presenting a proposal for a market-based Acceleration Fund of 10 billion kronor, with the state acting as the anchor investor on the same terms as private investors. The fund is intended to finance the industrial upscaling of new technologies in Sweden and the Nordic region, and will be able to invest in funding rounds starting from SEK 200 million. It is proposed that the fund’s management be contracted out to Saminvest.

We at SISP believe this is a good proposal and are particularly pleased that the Acceleration Office has highlighted investment in new technology – FOAK (First of its kind) – as being of particular importance; this is something we also emphasised whilst working on the proposal.

Across Sweden, innovation hubs support new companies on a daily basis with technology that can make a real difference. But for many, it is not the idea or the expertise that is the bottleneck; it is the capital required to go from being promising to a global leader – and to be able to do so here at home.

– When there is a lack of capital, we risk Swedish innovations being scaled up elsewhere. We want to see our research results scaled up to industry and exports with Sweden as the base. This is critical for our future competitiveness,” says Ellinor Bokedal, adding: “However, we can see that there is still a shortfall of between 30 and 200 million, so we look forward to more initiatives that bridge the entire gap.”

Read the press release about the Acceleration Fund here.