2000 reasons to celebrate

Ignite Sweden surpassed the milestone of 2000 tailored matchmaking meetings with the 80+ meetings that took place at an event took place at Kista Science City two weeks ago.

– It’s great to be here and celebrate these 2000 meetings. There are many startups with high technology and smart solutions who struggle to find customers in Sweden. Ignite Sweden is a fantastic program that makes it possible for startups to find customers in the country, which is crucial to ensure that our startups stay and scale up here in Sweden. This program and these collaborations are also changing the business culture, processes and mindset so that startups become a natural player and a key component of our innovation system when larger companies think about how to solve their challenges, says Marie Wall, responsible for startups at the Ministry of Enterprise and Innovation. 

These meetings, which have involved a total of 98 corporates and 342 startups, have initiated 50 collaborations since our program started in 2017. In this way, our program contributes to our amazing Swedish startups to get business in Sweden.

– Reaching 2000 meetings is a huge milestone. But what is even more encouraging is that we are starting to see long term results of the first commercial pilot projects initiated by our matchmaking program. And the curve is exponential. If the statistics continue to develop in the same way, these 2000 meetings means at least 100 new innovative and commercial partnerships between large companies and innovative startups in 12 months time, says Stina Lantz, Ignite Sweden’s Program Manager. 

– I think Ignite’s goal is completely accurate. Large companies need innovation. The innovation is in startups. Startups need business. We have made a number of very interesting corporate contacts through their matchmakings. Many of these leads have developed in a positive way and we hope that many of them will convert to orders during the upcoming year, says Mattias Josephson, CEO of the startup Epishine.

Ignite Sweden in numbers

Tailored meetings since April 2017: 2000+
Matchmaking events: 31
Countries were these events have been held: 2 (Sweden and Germany)
Commercial collaborations: 50
Follow-up processes: 700+
Startups engaged: 342
Corporates involved: 98

About our program

Ignite Sweden is a program aimed at catalyzing commercial partnerships between innovative startups and large companies. The national initiative is led by THINGS, STING, LEAD, MINC and Uminova in collaboration with SISP. Ignite is co-funded by Vinnova, Energimyndigheten and Tillväxtverket. 

Since its start in spring 2017, Ignite Sweden has organized matchmaking events all over Sweden connecting over 342 startups with 98 corporates, resulting in more than 2000 meetings and most importantly 50 commercial collaborations.

Learn more about our program on www.ignitesweden.org.