The organizations behind
Sweden Startup Nation

The initiative is led by BLING, FUHS, the Swedish Higher Education Institutions' Innovation Office and SISP, which together represent over 100 Swedish research and innovation environments from across the country.

  • BLING is a network that supports entrepreneurs from underrepresented groups through free
    incubation, networking and capital. The goal is to democratize entrepreneurship and create a more inclusive business community.

  • Föreningen Universitetsholdingbolag i Sverige, FUHS, is an association in which the Swedish university holding companies are members. The association monitors the development of university holding companies in Sweden and internationally.

  • There are twelve innovation offices in the country, which are tasked by the Ministry of Education with, among other things, increasing the use of research.

  • SISP is the trade association for Sweden's incubators and science parks. Its members run regional innovation environments that support startups, scaleups and established players in developing innovations for a sustainable society.

  • "Sweden lacks an independent national organization that continuously collects and presents data on how we as a nation are performing in terms of startups and scaleups, something we see other countries doing successfully. To strengthen our competitiveness, we need to be more data-driven and by connecting data with insights from the innovation ecosystem, we can improve how we support startups and scaleups during their critical growth journeys."

    Lisa Ericsson
    CEO KTH Holding and representative
    for FUHS in the project

  • "BLING works to promote diversity and inclusion in the Swedish business community and innovation system. We look forward to contributing to this in Sweden Startup Nation. Collected data will give us better tools to highlight and support startups from underrepresented groups."


    Deqa Abukar
    Founder of BLING

  • "In Sweden, we have world-leading research in several areas and we top various rankings, for example when it comes to the number of qualitative patents. However, we could be even better at commercializing and starting more successful growth companies to get this research out into society in a scalable way, where it makes a real difference. By collecting data on the companies coming out of universities, we can better understand their challenges and gain insights that will increase the number of research-based startups that make it all the way from lab to scaleup."

    Niclas Nilsson
    Director of Innovation at LU Innovation at Lund University, Representative of the Swedish University Innovation Office

  • "Through Sweden Startup Nation , we are creating a unified platform to generate and disseminate knowledge about startups and scaleups from all over the country, as well as insights into what is required for these to have the best conditions to grow in Sweden. This will not only benefit the entrepreneurs, but also strengthen Sweden's position as a leading innovation nation. We also welcome other actors with similar goals to get in touch to explore collaboration opportunities and together create even greater impact."


    Ulrika Malmqvist
    Chairman of the Board of SISP and CEO
    of Movexum in Gävle

Steering group

Anders Nilsson
CEO, Ideon Science Park

Filip Almeida Tideman
Technical Project Manager/Product Manager, SISP

Sasan Shaba
VP Philanthropy & International Cooperation,
SISP

Deqa Abukar
Founder, BLING Startup/Capital

Lisa Ericsson
CEO KTH Holding

Stina Lantz
CEO, SISP

Ellinor Bokedal
Director Strategic Communications & Policy, SISP

Niclas Nilsson
Head of LU Innovation

The team

  • Lisa Ericsson

    Steering Board Member

    CEO of KTH Ventures (formerly KTH Holding AB) and founder and head of KTH Innovation. With over 25 years of experience in commercializing research and building innovation environments, she has a central role in strengthening Sweden's innovation capacity through data-driven policy development.

    LinkedIn

  • Deqa Abukar

    Steering Board
    Member

    Founder of BLING Startup and BLING Capital, an award-winning investor and social entrepreneur working to democratize entrepreneurship and uplift underrepresented groups within the startup ecosystem.

    LinkedIn

  • Niclas Nilsson

    Working Steering Board Member

    Director of Innovation at LU Innovation, Lund University. With 20+ years of experience in research and innovation, much of it in global industry and at the interface between academia, startups and established business, he focuses on increasing the number of research-based startups reaching the market.

    LinkedIn

  • Adnan Yousuf

    Data Intelligence Lead

    Co-founder of BLING Startup and experienced investor. Specializing in data analytics and business development, he works to empower startups through insight-driven development and inclusion.

    LinkedIn

  • Viktoria Westerberg

    Community &
    Events Manager

    Project manager and representative of FUHS in Sweden Startup Nation. With experience as a management consultant, project manager and entrepreneur, she has a background in business development, sustainability investments and innovation management.

    LinkedIn

  • Stina Lantz

    Working Steering
    Board Member

    CEO of Swedish Incubators & Science Parks (SISP) and co-founder of Ignite Sweden. Background as an entrepreneur in media, ICT and medtech. Within Ignite, she has worked with over 1300 startups to create commercial collaborations between startups and customers in the private and public sectors. Stina is one of the initiators of Sweden Startup Nation.

    LinkedIn

  • Sasan Shaba

    Manager & Steering
    Board Member

    VP Philanthropy & International Partnerships at Swedish Incubators & Science Parks (SISP) and former COO of Ignite Sweden. With 15+ years of experience in the innovation system working globally to help startups commercialize their solutions. Founded and run several companies and a family office. One of the initiators of Sweden Startup Nation.

    LinkedIn

  • Ellinor Bokedal

    CSO Ecosystem
    & Innovation Policy

    Policy Manager at Swedish Incubators & Science Parks (SISP) with extensive experience in communication, strategy and innovation promotion. Ellinor works to strengthen the conditions for Swedish startups and scaleups by influencing policy and promoting collaboration between academia, business, the public sector and civil society.

    LinkedIn

  • Filip Almeida Tideman

    Product Owner
    & Data Lead

    Leading the effort to collect and analyze data to create insights that strengthen Sweden's startup ecosystem. Filip has a broad background in innovation-driven business development and technical project management.

    LinkedIn

  • Katarina Bennich

    Communications Manager

    Head of Communications with extensive experience in brand building in innovation-driven and international environments. She is responsible for spreading knowledge about startups and scaleups and their crucial role in Sweden's future competitiveness.

    LinkedIn

  • Jonathan Ahlbom

    AI & Data Lead

    Develops intelligent solutions to analyze and support startups within Sweden Startup Nation. As a serial entrepreneur with extensive experience in building technology companies, products and teams, he combines technical expertise with strategic thinking to improve decision making within the ecosystem.

    LinkedIn

  • Freja Wikstrand

    Project & Data Analyst

    Turning complex data sets into insights that strengthen Sweden's startup ecosystem. With a background in statistics and mathematics as well as experience analyzing educational data, she has developed an ability to communicate statistical conclusions in an accessible way. Her work focuses on identifying trends and opportunities for growth through data-driven analysis.

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