This report presents statistics on formal venture capital (VC) investments in Swedish companies in the period 2014-2023. The statistics are based on data from the Swedish Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (SVCA) in collaboration with Invest Europe.

Summary

The data use funds’ own classification of portfolio companies into broad sectors and development phases (seed, start-up, other early stage and later stage venture). The statistics are broken down between three types of VC fund: Swedish government funds, Swedish private funds and foreign funds.

Since the data are updated and revised each year, the numbers presented in these annual statistical reports from Growth analysis (Tillväxtanalys) may differ. For reasons of systematic non-response and confidentiality, it is not possible to identify and follow up all portfolio companies.

VC investments have declined sharply in 2023

During the period 2010–2017, the average annual investment volume was 2.2 billion SEK, with the lowest investment volume down to 1.5 billion in 2015. In 2018, there was a significant increase in investment volumes that stabilized in 2019. In 2020–21, investment volumes continued to increase sharply. We saw a slight slowdown in 2022, but with continued high investment volumes. This trend has now been broken. VC investments in 2023 have dramatically decreased from a total of 9.6 billion to 4.4 billion in 2023.

Reduced VC investments in 2023 are due to both reduced Swedish private and foreign investments

In 2023, Swedish private funds invested a total of SEK 2,003 million (- 55%), foreign funds invested SEK 1,971 million (- 58%) and state funds invested SEK 442 million (- 22%). We can conclude that both Swedish private and state funds' VC investments have decreased significantly in Swedish portfolio companies in 2023. In relation to the focus of VC investments on investment phases, we see above all significantly reduced investment volumes in the expansion phase. SEK 992 million less has been invested in the launch phase and SEK 3,638 million less in the expansion phase in 2023. Foreign investments in portfolio companies have been higher than Swedish private and state funds in the seed and launch phases. Swedish private funds have invested the most in the start-up and expansion phase compared to other funds. The investment pattern between the funds is relatively similar compared to the previous year, but the volumes are clearly lower in 2023 than in previous years.

ICT remains the most popular investment sector in 2023

The three largest sectors ICT (Information and Communication Technology), Life Sciences and Financial Services) accounted for 78 percent of total VC investments in 2023. The corresponding figure was 83 percent in 2022. We continue to see dominance of VC investments in ICT (Information and Communication Technology). Overall, we have a significant decline in VC investments in all sectors, but especially in the life sciences and business and industrial products sectors. This negative change in VC volumes has contributed to ICT's industry share becoming increasingly dominant.

Broken down by sector, we find that SEK 2,323 million or 53 percent of total investments went to ICT and SEK 418 million or 9.5 percent went to investments in Life Sciences. This can be compared to the previous year when SEK 2,209 million or 21 percent of investments went to Life Sciences in 2022. It is the reduced interest of both foreign and Swedish private funds to invest that is behind the declines in VC volumes in ICT and Life Sciences. In addition to this, we have had a clear trend over four years of reduced interest in investing in the Consumer Products industry. This has meant that the share of investments in the Consumer Products industry has fallen from 28 percent (2020), 19 percent (2021) to 4.8 percent in 2022 and 2023.

The same negative trend break with regard to Cleantech investments in 2023

In 2018, Swedish state funds accounted for virtually the entire investment volume in Cleantech. The positive development that we saw in 2019 with increased investment volumes from foreign funds slowed down in 2020, but in 2021 and 2022, investment volumes continued to increase significantly. In 2022, investment volumes totaled SEK 1,587 million. In 2023, we see a dramatic decrease in investments in Cleantech. The positive investment trend has thus been broken in 2023, with reduced investments from both Swedish private and foreign investors. In 2023, a total of SEK 495 million was invested in Cleantech.

A significantly lower proportion of portfolio companies received VC investments for the first time in 2023

In 2023, 58 (24%) of portfolio companies received VC investments for the first time. This is significantly lower than the previous year (32%). This means that the proportion of VC investments in new portfolio companies was 8 percent lower in 2023 than the year before. Companies receiving VC investments are largely led by men Despite an overall problem and uncertainty about access to data and results, there are significant gender differences in the distribution of VC investments in companies led or owned by women or men. The uncertainties in the results are alleviated by the fact that the various studies point to similar differences in the distribution between men and women with regard to where the venture capital investment ultimately ends up. The results from our study show that 2.5 percent of VC investments have been matched to companies that are actively owned only by women (275 million SEK). 3.7 percent of VC investments have been matched to companies that have had only women as operational managers.