Sweden has the research - but lacks customers and technological optimism
This is part of Sweden Startup Nation's interview series with startup founders and investors, which aims to highlight systemic failures and improve conditions for Swedish startups.
When David Sonnek describes the challenges facing Swedish deeptech companies, he does so with 25 years' experience of the interface between research and capital. Today, he heads Navigare Ventures, a venture capital company within the Wallenberg Foundations' ecosystem that invests in research-based technology companies. His message is crystal clear: Sweden must get better at being its own first customer, otherwise we risk losing the industrial breakthroughs of the future to other countries.
"It's almost embarrassing how many of our portfolio companies get their first customers from the US," he says.
A researcher in the world of capital
The journey began at Ericsson in the 1990s. There, David Sonnek evaluated both startups and internal R&D projects on behalf of Ericsson. It became a natural path into venture capital, a world where his research background became a unique strength. After several years as head of SEB Venture Capital, among others, he took the step in 2021 to start Navigare Ventures, with the mission to fill a critical gap in the Swedish ecosystem: the financing of research-based companies with a long path to market, but great industrial potential.
"We don't just invest in deep tech in general, but specifically in companies where the key product is the result of academic research. That's where the truly disruptive innovations happen."
Sweden's biggest obstacle: no one wants to buy first
When asked to identify the biggest obstacle for Swedish deeptech startups, Sonnek does not hesitate.
"It's not capital. It's customers. Or rather - the lack of them."
He describes how their US counterparts often get their first customers through federal programs, public research institutes or forward-looking procurement of new strategic products. In Europe, this contrasts with regulations that make innovative public procurement difficult.
"We lack government demand for new technologies. This means that our best companies get customers in the US - and eventually move there."
At the same time, according to Sonnek, the early support system in Sweden is highly competent but unfortunately underfunded.
"GU Ventures, KTH Innovation, LU Holding and others - they are fantastic. But they could do so much more with more capital. Chalmers Ventures has greater resources through the Chalmers Foundation. The capacity they have should also be available at more universities."
A capital with patience
Navigare Ventures is different from many other VCs. With funding from the Wallenberg Foundations, they don't have the same time pressure or demands for quick returns. This makes it possible to invest in breakthrough technologies, even when the journey to market can take a decade.
"We have the opportunity to be long-term. But we are also limited by the general technological and future skepticism that sometimes characterizes Swedish and European industry."
Sonnek describes a Sweden that is a world leader in managing profitable stagnation - but worse at believing in the new.
"We've become good at acquiring, consolidating, streamlining. But we make the same short-term demands on an exciting new platform technology as we do on yet another security company. There is too much financial management and too little technology and future optimism."
Collaboration that works - and what's missing
In the feasibility study for Sweden Startup Nation , Sonnek participated as one of the most important voices of the investor perspective. According to him, it is clear what is needed:
"We need strong national storytelling. Other countries have managed to package their innovation environments with great precision. We must dare to build a story about why it is smart to invest in Sweden."
He particularly highlights the importance of interaction with public capital.
"I'm very fond of government investors - university holding companies, Almi Invest, Industrifonden. They coach and prepare the companies in a way that we private actors don't have the time or the money to do. They make it possible for us to invest and build on."
A future built on light and proteins
When Sonnek looks ahead, he sees a technological horizon that still feels like science fiction to most people:
"We believe in a broad impact of quantum technologies in ICT, seeing how AI becomes a partner in research and product development, seeing new materials that sense, count and change. How to do calculations with light, solve logic problems with proteins or store data in DNA. We are there now."
But for Sweden to take the lead in deep tech, it is not enough to simply follow the trends.
"We need to capture the really exciting research breakthroughs before they become mainstream. That's where Sweden excels - in basic research."
The missing role models
Sonnek believes that Sweden needs more role models, researchers who have become entrepreneurs and shown that groundbreaking research can become large-scale companies.
"Mathias Uhlén at KTH and Ulf Landegren in Uppsala. They are incredibly successful at combining cutting-edge research with commercialization. We need to lift them up and inspire others to follow the same path."
And he ends with a reminder:
"Thirty years ago, I would have laughed if someone had told me that Sweden would become a leading startup nation. But we became one. Now it is important not to stop there."
