Have money, will travel: a16z’s hunt for the next European unicorn
Gabriel Vasquez, a companion at Andreessen Horowitz, lately revealed he took 9 flights from NYC to Stockholm in a single 12 months. That wasn’t simply to go to Lovable, a portfolio firm, but in addition to search for different future Swedish unicorns earlier than they cross the Atlantic.
This all got here to a mild when information emerged that a16z had led a $2.3 million pre-seed spherical into Dentio, a Swedish startup that makes use of AI to assist dentists’ practices with admin work. Whereas it is a small examination for an agency that simply introduced new funds totaling $15 billion, it confirms that U.S. VCs are actively searching for deal movement outdoors of the U.S., even without native places of work.
Stockholm is a pure case for a16z, which beforehand achieved important returns from backing Skype, cofounded by Swedish entrepreneur Niklas Zennström. Since then, a major variety of fast-growing startups have been created within the Swedish capital, and the VC heavyweight tracked down the place a lot of them have been coming from.
“We spend plenty of time growing a deep understanding of particular markets and realizing the place innovation is rising. In Sweden, that has meant intently monitoring ecosystems like SSE Labs—the startup incubator of the Stockholm College of Economics—and the businesses popping out of it,” Vasquez advised Naijatrend.
Like fintech giant Klarna, authorized AI startup Legora, and e-scooter firm Voi, Dentio is an alum of SSE Labs—a startup incubator that has produced a number of profitable Swedish firms. The three former high school classmates Elias Afrasiabi, Anton Li, and Lukas Sjögren joined the incubator after reconnecting as college students at both the SSE (Stockholm College of Economics) and KTH (Royal Institute of Know-how), then joined the incubator with further backing from KTH’s Innovation Launch program. They tackled an issue near the residence: Li’s mother, a dentist, had advised them how admin work detracted from scientific care.
The trio intuited that they may leverage LLMs to assist individuals like her—a concept that additionally they validated along with her and her colleagues. This led them to Dentio’s preliminary product, a recording software that makes use of AI to generate scientific notes. But it surely is solely a matter of time before AI scribes grow to be a commodity product, and Dentio must show its worth to dentists so that they aren’t tempted to modify suppliers when that occurs, Afrasiabi stated.
Potential rivals embody fellow Swedish startup Tandem. Well-being, which raised a $50 million Collection A spherical final year to help clinicians with AI throughout a number of medical specialties. Dentio, in contrast, focuses completely on dentists; however, it believes it may possibly nonetheless attain the dimensions VCs count on via worldwide enlargement
“Now we’re a crew of seven individuals, and we expect that it’s attainable to construct a unified manner of dealing with administration throughout Europe, and perhaps even all around the world,” Afrasiabi stated. Whereas Europe’s healthcare techniques are fragmented, they share similarities, and Dentio’s assumption is that what works in Sweden might work elsewhere within the EU.
Dentio prominently options its “Made in Sweden” branding and emphasizes that “all related knowledge is processed in Sweden and Finland in compliance with Swedish and EU regulation.” It alerts knowledge safety to privacy-conscious European clients. But it surely additionally alerts potential VCs—a callback to Sweden’s historical past of manufacturing breakout firms.
“We went to zero meetups. I reached out to zero traders,” Afrasiabi stated. Whereas the crew was heads down constructing, the phrase unfolded. “I believe it was principally via referrals and folks speaking to one another that the information traveled all the way over to the U.S.,” he stated.
This wasn’t happenstance: a16z has eyes around the globe with a purpose to spot these firms as early as native funds possibly would, Vasquez stated. “In Sweden, for instance, we partnered with prime founders overseas like Fredrik Hjelm, founding father of Voi, and Johannes Schildt, founding father of Kry, by turning them into scouts and mapping one of the best native expertise.”
For Vasquez, who focuses on AI utility investments for a16z, this isn’t nearly about Sweden; however, it is about “a sample of nice world firms being born overseas and scaling rapidly,” from Black Forest Labs in Germany to Manus, the Singapore-based AI startup lately acquired by Meta.
Born and raised in El Salvador, he has additionally been spending time in São Paulo. “I’m actually enthusiastic about what’s brewing in Brazil and throughout Latin America in AI,” he wrote on LinkedIn at the time. “I imagine AI is the nice equalizer,” he added. “Most individuals now have entry to PhD-level intelligence on a telephone, and in the end, Silicon Valley is a mind-set.”
