The Swedish Climate Startup Map has been launched

Climate startups are playing an increasingly important role in tackling the global environmental crisis by creating sustainable solutions to reduce emissions and conserve resources. The Swedish Climate Startup Map aims to give these promising companies a visible platform to increase their chances of finding customers, investors, and talent.

“Sweden has a strong position when it comes to climate tech,” says Karin Ruiz, Deputy CEO of the Stockholm-based incubator Sting. “By showcasing these climate solutions on both a national and global scale, we can also accelerate their adoption and maximize the impact of these solutions.”

SISP’s Interim CEO and Ignite Sweden’s Program Manager, Stina Lantz, emphasizes the importance of supporting climate startups during the current economic crisis.

“We see that startup investment, especially in the early stages, is decreasing,” she says. “Investors seem to be worried about putting their money into very uncertain areas such as deeptech. At the same time, corporations aren’t prioritizing long-term collaborations that can eventually bring climate value to the table in around five years.“

“The Swedish Climate Startup Map comes as an answer to this difficult situation. We need to promote these innovations that are crucial for our planet to help them access the investment they need for growth.”

Initiated and Led by Swedish Incubators

The Swedish Climate Startup Map was initiated by Sting in 2020 as part of their project Startup Climate Action, funded by Vinnova, to showcase innovative startups working towards creating change and solving our many climate challenges.

“We decided to relaunch the project to support the many great startups with solutions that address both climate change and the energy transition and help these innovations come to market and scale,” explains Karin.

The initiative is now led by Chalmers Ventures, Dalarna Science Park, Ignite Sweden, LEAD, SISP Swedish Incubators & Science Parks, and Sting.

“At our incubator, there are many companies striving to bring environmental sustainability to the forefront with solutions to our society’s challenges,” says LEAD’s Business Operations Manager, Martina Hegestig.

“We hope that the Swedish Climate Startup Map will boost the reliability of their solutions, as well as the companies’ visibility among potential customers and investors both in Sweden and worldwide.”

This joint project is made possible by the national initiative Omställningslyftet, co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund, Tillväxtverket and Vinnova, and the Sustainable Energy Action, funded by Energimyndigheten.

Curated According to Sustainability Criteria

The 108 companies featured in the Swedish Climate Startup Map develop scalable innovations that have sustainability as their main focus area. The full version of the map will be launched in March 2023, with the addition of seven more categories.

“In our screening process, we use nine criteria related to environmental sustainability to assure that the companies’ solutions are truly contributing to a positive impact on our environmental systems,” explains Linda Hagman, PhD in Environmental Management and Engineering and Process Developer at Ignite Sweden, who leads the group behind the process.

The first version focuses on startups with innovative solutions for the energy transition.

“We are facing an energy crisis and energy is a hot topic globally, which is why we decided to prioritize startups within renewables, energy efficiency and management. We will continue to add more Swedish climate startups from other areas in the upcoming updates of the Map,” says Karin.

Energy Startups Take Focus

One of the startups featured in the Swedish Climate Startup Map is Rebase Energy, an open and collaborative platform to forecast, simulate and optimize distributed energy systems.

“By leveraging energy modeling, we can ensure that the energy transition is executed in the most optimal way,” explains CEO Sebastian Haglund. “It is great that attention is given to new solutions that can contribute to a decarbonized energy system.”

Renbloc’s founder, Gustaf Svensson, believes that exposure is essential for startups. The Sting alumni company enables sustainable transparency by showing the true source of energy consumption and its corresponding CO2 emissions.

“For companies and future partners looking at the startups listed on the Map, it should serve as an inspiration for the many different ways they can make their processes more sustainable. We also see this as an opportunity to explore other startups out there and check if there are any interesting startups to collaborate with.”

Mimbly’s Natalie Waller also hopes the initiative will help them make relevant connections with key players within the local startup scene who are also driven to create genuine sustainable impact.

The Chalmers Venture’s company creates sustainable laundry solutions, with less water, microplastics and CO2 emissions. “A focus on energy is naturally incorporated into our innovation process. We can make an impact on a consumption level, working on how it can be optimized with smart solutions.”

A Win-Win For Startups and Their Customers

“Many of our customers are facing big challenges now when electricity costs are skyrocketing, while at the same time there is more and more pressure to reduce one’s environmental impact,” says Eva Vollmer, Head of Customer Success at DAZOQ.

The LEAD company is a cloud-based energy management system that helps industries track and visualize their energy consumption in real-time and identify where they can save energy in their production.

Eva admits that the overload of information is a challenge for their customers’ search for relevant partners that can help them become more energy efficient.

“By visualizing startups that contribute to climate action, the Swedish Climate Startup Map does not only help us as a startup, but also established companies, and thereby the environment and the society.”

“It also gives us hope to see so many startups with climate action as their mission. It shows that we are not alone and that there is a lot of potential out here, which inspires and motivates us to continue working towards the mission we all share and strive for,” she concludes.

Click here to explore the Swedish Climate Startup Map