Tobias Bengtsdahl: Partner at Antler on the state of Nordic Tech

0:00Tobias Bengtsdahl:Hello and welcome to the Scaling Europe show. I'm Seb Johnson. Thank you so much for joining me. If you like what you see, please like, comment, subscribe. The more engagement, the more visibility, the better guests I can get and the better coverage I can provide of the European tech ecosystem. I would also like to say a huge thank you to my sponsors, Checkout.com, one of Europe's leading fintechs, and it is where the world checks out. And SurrealDB, the multimodal database for AI agent, which is partnered with thousands of the leading organizations, including the likes of NVIDIA and Samsung. So if you like both of those, check them out in the links below.

0:32Tobias Bengtsdahl:Thank you very much. I'm here with Tobias from Antler. Tobias, can you give us a super quick intro into who you are and what you do? My name is Tobias and I'm a partner with Antler based in our Stockholm office and one of the partners of our fund here in the Nordics. Amazing. What is going on in Stockholm at the moment? It seems crazy from everybody who's not in that ecosystem. It feels like every week there's another funding round, another unicorn. What's it like in a city at the moment? I got to say, for me, who I might not look that old, but I've been more than 10 years now in Stockholm tech, which feels surreal to say, it is an incredible moment here, right?

1:14So 10 years ago, I joined my first startups. Budbee was the very first one, later a unicorn, a tech logistics company. But by then, almost nobody wanted to go into startups. It was a very different scene. It was not as much venture funding. I think the international funds were barely present here, etc. We had some early successes in Spotify and Klarna, but very, very early days. Right now, it's on fire. And what's happening? I mean, I would say three things probably. You have the fact that we are now on the third wave, according to me. So the first wave would be you have Skype, the very first tech unicorn from the Nordics and maybe from all of Europe.

2:01Then you had the second generation where Spotify and Klarna, who then made this generation now actually grow up with tech around them from when they were born. I mean, many of the ones who are running companies now were just born when Skype was founded. And then secondly, there's a belief in success here. I think Lovable is definitely at the moment has been the one who's been most vocal and most, Anton is always talking about building a trillion dollar company. But thanks to that success and obviously Legora, Tandem, others, we're actually believing in success. We think we can build great companies.

2:33And then thirdly, it is a great talent pool and it's always been. I mean, we've always had a lot of good engineering schools. KTH is one of the most well-known ones. But now that talent wants to go into startups. Like when you meet someone who's 23 or something in Stockholm now, they don't want to go to McKinsey or into investment banking. They want to build a startup. They want to be engineers. And that's just, all of that melts into this great, wonderful pot that is Stockholm at the moment.

3:00Tobias Bengtsdahl:And why do you think that is? What's changed? Is it the visibility of great founders like Anton who are like banging the drum for entrepreneurship? Like what is it that's convinced these early insane entrepreneurs or like soon to be entrepreneurs to not take the safe jobs, to not take the corporate route, but to kind of to take the harder route and to create something? I think let's do a micro and a macro answer. The micro answer is definitely that. And the fact that like people with the background of Sebastian at Klarna or Daniel at Spotify and now Anton at Lovable make it feel accessible, right?

3:35They are, none of them come from like a crazy background or they got a small million dollar loan from their parents. Like they've grinded their way there. And I think that's very, very, very important for everyone to feel like, I just graduated from KTH or whatever uni here in Sweden. I can also do this. And at the macro level, some people have highlighted this, the upsides i mean there's upsides of like a very capitalistic society where everybody gets incentivized and where there's no protection but the upsides of protection and having paid the university paid student loans all of this is that you can take so much risks especially in your early years in sweden you can just be so risk on and i think that's the that's what we're seeing

4:17Tobias Bengtsdahl:the benefits from right now i think that's really interesting is that the culture the the socioeconomic culture of, I guess, Sweden, Stockholm, I guess it kind of applies more broadly to the Nordics, kind of creates a culture where you encourage people, you allow them to take risks. That's super interesting. I haven't thought about it like that. Exactly. And you need to combine that with it still being worth it, right? So you have the tale of two countries right now. I don't want to talk badly about any other situation, right? But in Norway, leading up to their last election, There's been so much talk about how they have taxation on unrealized capital gains and how big of a problem that is and how that leads to less innovation, etc.

4:57In Sweden, even though we have a socialist setup where you get supported, etc., you still get a lot of benefits. So we still have, I mean, amongst the highest concentration of dollar millionaires in the world. But it's the balance of those two, right? So you can be risk-on and reap the benefits, and in between there you will pay a hefty amount of taxes, but you won't get unfairly taxed at least.

5:23Tobias Bengtsdahl:Yeah, so build a safety net to catch people if they fall and provide them kind of a launch pad, but also make sure that you encourage that innovation and don't punish people for creating something that is hugely, hugely valuable. I don't know if you wanted a political commentary, but we can talk about it. No, no, I mean, we actually, yeah, yeah. And, you know, it's so rare that the political comes into it. I mean, normally, especially when we have these conversations across Europe, it's critical, right? Because most of Europe being either regulation, like very pro-regulation or, yeah, not being pro-innovation enough, it's often a criticism of politics.

6:00Tobias Bengtsdahl:It's very rare that I get a take, which is actually, you know, the political situation in Sweden has enabled these entrepreneurs to take the risks, which I think is like an amazing point. and it's probably not something that a lot of other countries are doing as well. And my brother take everybody in is so obsessed. This is also a new thing in my view. This Europe versus US view comes up all the time and people post about moving to SF and how different it is. My take on all of the like talk about EU and all the things they're trying to do is just they should do less things. That would be optimal.

6:34We just want less involvement from the politics in that sense. They should make sure we have a good society, a well-functioning society but entrepreneurs don't want to fill out forms to get grants they don't want to do all of those things just to say that in this way just let them cook and great

6:49Tobias Bengtsdahl:things will happen right yes they're out of the way i guess and um yeah you've also got like a a really interesting background not just you know actually quite recently you've become an investor but for a long time you were building your own company um how are you finding that transition from building in Stockholm to investing in Stockholm? What's that change been like for you? I've got to say, so with my last company memo, I think we were at some point probably fastest growing consumer startup out of Europe, marketplace for celebrity videos. It was incredibly fun. And I think seeing now, and we have, of course, like a crazy pace.

7:26We went from zero to$100 million valuations in two years. Seeing now the even crazier pace that companies have now, you do really get the itching in your fingers you can really feel oh my god these guys are having so much fun because thanks to ai obviously you can build so much faster be leaner and everything um and i would say there's i would probably be bored to death if i were sitting at like more of a call it a classic seed fund and doing one or two deals per year and i would spend like all my days just reviewing decks so uh that wouldn't fit me but now at antler i mean i get to do a lot of the investments and i get to work very hands-on with those companies on those founders from day zero to one and that makes it fucking amazing for me sorry for swearing but that

8:12Tobias Bengtsdahl:makes it very very much fun and how is um you know and there's it's been famous for its day zero approach but given the growth of like ai tools and how quickly you're able to like build products ship create content to get distribution how is the day zero approach changed and i know that you You haven't been at Adelaide for that long, but what does day zero look like now, given the prominence of AI tools? Great question. I'm just coming up to my one and a half year anniversary, so I'm still very early. I can only compare to what I've heard about the past days, but I definitely do think if you compare for us or other early stage investors, five years ago, you could have a deck and you could race on a deck and have an idea about something to build and sell.

8:56But that almost never happens anymore. Or even for us, who's like the very, very early stage first ticket investor, I'm just build the easiest or like smallest version of this, get the first customers. So that's really what has changed. And that's thanks to obviously you can build it in Lovable, or if you are an engineer, you can build it with Cursor or Cloud or whatever so much faster. And also, I just think that's the mentality right now with the discussion around like what's a moat now that software is getting commoditized. It is just having the pace, right? It's who can have the pace. and if you don't show that pace in the beginning then i'm pretty unsure that you're going to be able to grow into pace later right so day zero now is all about build something ship something sell something then we'll invest basically interesting and then you know yeah and it's

9:43Tobias Bengtsdahl:always been quite hands-on so when you do invest when you're helping your companies what is the support or the advice that you're giving to these companies well i mean uh i've jokingly called myself the CEO of the CEO sometimes, but that's not to make it sound like I know more than them or anything. It's just that a CEO always has to push everybody else, right? And then I'm the one who comes and tries to push on the one thing that matters in an early stage startup, and that is traction, right? So they might be pushing their technical team or to ship something, etc. And then every week or even more frequently, I come and ask about how many customers have we closed?

10:18Like, are we actually growing? Are we seeing fraction? And of course, just one part of it is just pushing them on it that's i think a big part of the help and then it's of course also helping them and doing introductions and making sure they build the right structures and processes and everything but around growth and traction is definitely the most important piece got it and

10:37Tobias Bengtsdahl:what kind of um what's the kind of the makeup of the companies that you're seeing at the moment i think are you investing just in stockholm or is across nordics isn't it more broadly yeah so and to set up we have like i think it's 13 or so local funds and one of those is a nordic fund so we are I have offices in Stockholm, Oslo, Helsinki, and Copenhagen. I personally mostly work with our Stockholm-based portfolio, but I see everything across. Got it. And so, yeah, what's the makeup of the companies? You know, Europe is doing disproportionately well on the application layer. When you look at the data and also just like, you know, the biggest companies coming out of Europe, whether it's Lovable or Fixer, Lugora, they're often at the, yeah, application layer.

11:16Tobias Bengtsdahl:Is that what you're seeing as well? Are the companies at kind of day zero? Are you seeing a greater proportion of application AI companies? Yeah, for sure. I would say out of the flow that we're actively looking at, it's probably anywhere between 60 % to 80%, 70 % to 80 % application AI companies. To be absolutely frank, that's the vast majority, and it's just because the opportunities are so big, right? And then in the last 20%, 30%, it's not that that part is like foundational model AI. you barely see anything of that or close to nothing. The last 20-30 % is more just like other stuff in AI, right?

11:57Whether it's hardware or similar. Of course, hardware can have AI as well, but you understand how it looks like your application is.

12:04Tobias Bengtsdahl:Yeah, and what is particularly exciting at the moment? Are you looking for companies that are solving new problems in different ways? What is it that really, when you see a company and you're like, okay, this is a great company, this is super exciting? it's a great question for me i mean it always comes down to the founders and making sure the founders have some level of magnetism or like charisma that just makes you like oh my god i think one before i joined anter i spoke to one of our partners in europe who was the best indicator for him is if he couldn't go to bed without thinking about the founder he met earlier that day that sounds romantic i don't mean it like that that's the indicate number one indication right because they that person will have that effect on other people and that will compound to better sales, better hiring, better fundraising.

12:48So founders is number one. Secondly, on the type of companies, I just think now is such a ripe time to reinvent so many software businesses, right? And there's this talk about, oh, is software dead, etc. I still think software will be around and will use it, but there's so many legacy software players that will be replaced by a new generation now with linear teams, different capital structure, different pricing structures,

13:13Tobias Bengtsdahl:and that's really really exciting at the moment and how how is your experience you know being a founder how is that shaping the way that you are kind of approaching conversations with founders uh well you should ask the founders but i do think i'm pretty straightforward with them i i have this uh this kind of like nickname or whatever that i'm a startup therapist for many because now we talk a lot about like the very first part right meeting a founder and selecting and investing but then there's the relationship that stretches for ideally like 10 plus years into the future and what you know as a founder is that you will feel like shit and you will have huge challenges all the time like because you know when it's going great then one of your best hires leave to start a startup or when it's or that also happens when it's going poorly as well right which makes it even worse all of these things will continue to happen and honestly one of the few things uh or one of the most important things for a founder is just staying sane and staying in the game and staying on top of your priorities and just being like coming back to okay what we are doing makes sense okay i should do this task next i'm not getting just destroyed by the fact that someone is leaving the company you have a customer who's shurning and the fundraising is going worse than expected all of these things so just i try i think i'm just more straightforward i'm just actually helping on like call it the psychology side of all of those things yeah always been like uh yeah like uh providing a support network for founders and entrepreneurs who are going through i guess some of the challenges that you've already been through yeah and i mean between memo my last company and out there that was what i did like more or less full time i just said i can help you and of course i help with how to structure fundraisers how to do sales how to fill a company all of that but a lot of it is this like mental support and just like so many founders just needed a third party to the herd by because they didn't feel like they got that from it so they didn't have the right co-founder setup they didn't get it there or it was a problem in the co-founder setup and they didn't dare to go to their investors and then they did some somewhere where they can vent and get some feedback input on this situation and how do you find that i mean i imagine you know you make a lot of investments there's a lot of founders how do you find it kind of managing a big cohort or big group of entrepreneurs who all have the very struggles and difficulties i mean i guess that's like having a big family and having a lot of children you never hear someone who has like six or more children say that they stop caring about one of them right yeah it's the same for me you care about them all and i guess you just got to be obsessed right i was thinking this this saturday when it was the first of november right and i'm always pushing my companies like you should send your investor updates on the first be on top of it etc and then it's a Saturday it's the first of November there's a million things I could be doing I mean my email inbox just like waiting for updates and just sending texts immediately to those who send it like fuck yeah that's great that's how you should send an update that's awesome um just a very random example right um and more or less like yeah just just being very obsessive is probably the only answer to it yeah it makes sense you You know, when you live and breathe and you love this stuff, I guess you're able to just keep going and persevere.

16:35I wanted to get you... You have another angle to it, Seb, actually, which is I was at a lunch with a known, I call it growth investor, and he was going through his deals and how quickly they were sold, how quickly they went to DPI, and then he just kept referring back to what I do as like, well, you can do it the hard way, you can live like that, and you can have 10-year cycles until you get liquidity and stuff. And I was just sitting there like, yeah, everything you say makes rational sense, but I don't care. Like, I'm obsessed. I love this game. I love this space. I'll stay here. I'll keep doing this.

17:07You can show me, like, financial reasons to do something else. I'll never, I'll never bulge. I'll never change.

17:13Tobias Bengtsdahl:So this is it for you now. You think, you think, is this, this is the area that you found your kind of real passion point is early stage founders really go from zero to one? Yeah. i mean every everything every part of life is a hypothesis at the moment right and you have to be willing to change it and adapt but at the moment yeah i'm i'm i feel very much at home in doing this i love it yeah amazing no look i mean it must be great fun i think and it's such a it's a unique investment kind of like house almost because you are you do have that flexibility to work with so many entrepreneurs at such an early stage and be very hands-on right that's not something that most vcs get the opportunity to do um which yeah it must be great fun yeah but the flip side is also as i'm sure if you've spoken to other partners of answer is uh that you have to work a lot and you have to work fucking hard yeah so it's it it fits best for ex-founders as well who knows the grind and who can just be like yeah you have to be 24-7 on it if you're ever going to be supportive of this many companies and were you were you angel investing at all in your in your lead up to being at adload did you have a big history of doing angel investments um not a very big one but i did probably like 10 or 15 in the last two years of running memo um so i had some some expertise i mean the honest part is like i started in 2021 which was definitely the worst time ever uh and uh i mean it's ironic because everybody always like tag, like to make, show everybody how good of an angel investor you are, you name up who you angel invested with.

18:55Tobias Bengtsdahl:But to me, it's like, oh, I angel invested with Sequoia in my case in France. They're now gone, well, they got actually hired, but returned nothing to me as an angel investor. I've done like some YC cases, pre-day went to YC, none of those have gone on anywhere. So it's like more than like me being able to feel like, oh my God, I had such a successful angel portfolio. It showed me that all of the things that people say on the surface in venture, you should be very scared of. It doesn't matter that much who the co-investors are and all of that. What matters is this an enduring and stable company, especially in the hype's time as 2021 was and which arguably 2025 is now as well.

19:40Tobias Bengtsdahl:Are there any lessons learned from that period of investing that you are applying now now that we're back at the kind of peak of the market uh yeah just uh go back to your own fundamentals and do your own underwriting don't trust anybody else and i think yeah i think that's great with answer being a first ticket investor we we don't just tag along on others decision making we most often make investments on our own or with a trusted co-partner but we make our own decisions all the time um i think that's probably number one just like never outsource your decision making which unfortunately a lot of investors end up doing and you shouldn't yeah have your own thesis i guess and if you want to do that then you should invest in the funds instead so yeah absolutely well look to pass we're out of time but um thank you so much for joining me i'm actually about to speak to uh charles from strawberry so yeah yeah if you've got any questions let me know like i don't um but yeah another big you know stockholm super exciting company at the moment ask him how much he misses me okay you know him well do you all right um it's amazing to buy a second i'll definitely get you back on the show at some point like yeah i'm doing a yeah big series on stockholm at the moment i want to do some longer form interviews so um thank you so much for joining me and um yeah let's go soon i'm happy to host you whenever you're in town love it sounds good ciao thank you

21:11Thank you.