Four of the current hottest early-stage Nordic fintechs tell Tech.eu their 2025 plans, fears, and changes they would like to see in the startup ecosystem. Tech.eu spoke to VCs, and experts in the region to tell us their nominations for the hottest early-stage fintechs across the Nordics right now.
Jacob Houlberg, co-founder, Signal, an intelligence platform for data-driven investors, said:
"Throughout 2024, Nordic fintechs have seen a surge in early-stage funding activity, with seed and Series A rounds drawing increased attention, with former VC backed operators and second time founders heading some of the most hyped cases."
The four that came out on top, according to our experts, were Oslo-based SaaS subscription startup Cardboard; Copenhagen-based automated ledger startup Light; Helsinki-based B2B SaaS startup Inven and Stockholm-based bank-to bank payments fintech Atlar.
On the agenda
So, first up, what is on their agenda for 2025? Expansion, expansion, expansion in short. Jonathan Sanders, founder and CEO Light, says its focus is on expanding its commercial efforts and scaling the Light team globally.
Likewise, Vidhi Kumar, co-founder and CGO, Cardboard, says its focus is on growing its existing market share as well as entering new European territories this year.
Cut from the same cloth is Atlar, whose marketing director Louis Emmerson, said its 2025 plans are to grow its bank integrations and expand its products set with more tools to help businesses manage money. Not to be outdone, Niilo Pirttijärvi, CEO & co-founder, Inven, says its 2025 goal is to expand into new markets and gobble up more customers.
Biggest fear for 2025
And what are the biggest fears of our quartet of startups for 2025? For Sanders, Light’s biggest challenge is being able to grow the team while maintaining the “speed and quality our customers expect”.
Meanwhile, economic fears are on the radar of the other three. Kumar says Cardboard is cautious about how the broader European economic outlook might impact future fundraising and client acquisitions.
Emmerson cites economic uncertainty as something that can make it harder for startups to “to move fast and focus on building” while Pirttijärvi cites economic concerns impacting the stability of the financial sector on its client growth.
What is to change?
And finally, we asked our startups what one change they would like to see in the startup ecosystem. Kumar says Cardboard, which is Norway-headquartered and is not part of the EU, would like to see the government adopt more startup-friendly policies.
He said:
As a Norway-based company, we’ve faced challenges due to proposed exit taxes and the taxation of working capital.
We hope to see more startup-friendly policies adopted, which would not only benefit Cardboard but also strengthen the overall innovation ecosystem in Norway.”
Meanwhile, Sanders is calling on Nordic startups to speed up inter-country connections.
He says:
We think something really fascinating is happening in how startup ecosystems connect - or sometimes don't connect - across regions. Having offices in both Copenhagen and London, plus partners in the US, we’ve gotten to see this up close.
What's interesting is that Nordic startups often have this amazing foundation - great talent, solid tech, innovative thinking - but they tend to wait a bit too long before building those crucial bridges to other major tech hubs.
These cross-regional relationships, whether they're with partners, investors, or potential customers in places like London, New York, or San Francisco, can really change how a company thinks about its potential from day one. By the time many companies start making these connections, they're kind of playing catch-up.
In a similar vein, Emmerson says Atlar would like to see more European startups embracing a global perspective early on.
Emmerson says:
Atlar was founded in Stockholm, Sweden and one of the strengths of Scandinavian companies is that they tend to adopt an international outlook from day one. We have to, given our relative smallness.
A more connected tech scene across Europe would help our startups continue to thrive.
And finally, Pirttijärv says Inven would like to see “increased investment in Nordic startups and the EU. While the region is known for its innovation, particularly in AI, there remains a significant funding gap compared to the U.S. and the EU”.
Would you like to write the first comment?
Login to post comments