Sunday Swedish Startup News: Spotify, MAG Interactive and Niklas Zennström
Each Sunday, we bring you Swedish technology companies who’ve been written about, or mentioned by larger international press. This week, Spotify becomes the world’s “richest startup”, Nokia invest in Swedish gaming company MAG Interactive and Niklas Zennström’s Atomico closes their latest fund.
Spotify becomes world’s ‘richest start-up’ with $4 bn valuation
“Online music-streaming service Spotify has reportedly raised $250 million in a new funding round, making it one of the world’s most richly capitalized start-ups valuing it at more than $4 billion.”
Nokia Growth Partners invests $6M in Sweden’s MAG Interactive, maker of Ruzzle
“MAG Interactive is a Swedish app maker that branched into games with the launch of Ruzzle 18 months ago. It resonated with gamers, and now it has been downloaded more than 45 million times. The investment shows that, in the wake of SoftBank and GungHo Entertainment investing $1.5 billion for a 51 percent in Helsinki’s Supercell, gaming is still a hot sector in Europe.”
Atomico to spend $476-million on startups outside Silicon Valley
“Ten years ago people thought you had to be in Silicon Valley to build a global technology business. That is no longer the case,” said Atomico founder Niklas Zennstrom, a Swedish entrepreneur who co-founded Skype, a web phone service which was sold to Microsoft Corp for $8.5-billion in 2011.”
Read the entire article here