Stockholm is now the second largest FinTech Hub in Europe

Stockholm’s FinTech (Financial Technology) scene is more than just Klarna. In the past five years, Stockholm-based companies received 18 percent of all private placements in FinTech companies across Europe. The numbers show that Stockholm continuously, year after year, attracts almost one fifth of the overall FinTech investments in Europe.

Stockholm is thus now one of the EU’s biggest hubs for FinTech investments, and it is the city in Europe that has attracted the second most investments over the last five years, according to the research report “Stockholm FinTech – An overview of the FinTech sector in the greater Stockholm Region” launched today, written by the Stockholm School of Economics in collaboration with Stockholm Business Region Development.

“Financial technology is a growing sector not just in Stockholm, but also globally. What we’re seeing now is that Stockholm has become known as a hub for innovation with high-level execution skills available - both from a technical and from a business perspective. As a result, Stockholm is now attracting considerable international capital,” says Torbjörn Bengtsson, Business Development Manager, Stockholm Business Region.

2014 was a milestone for investments in Stockholm-based financial technology companies. During the year, 15 investments were made in Stockholm-based financial technology companies, amounting to a total of USD 266 million. In turn, the investments that were made in FinTech comprised 32 percent of the total investments made in privately owned Swedish companies in 2014.

"Stockholm has attracted a large number of Europe’s investments in FinTech year in and year out, which is quite remarkable given that its financial ecosystem of accelerators, incubators, and niche investors is not as well developed as that of other European financial centers,” says Robin Teigland at the Stockholm School of Economics.

Stockholm is home to numerous successful tech start-ups that have challenged existing business models and consumer behavior, such as Skype, Spotify, Mojang, King, Klarna, and iZettle. In fact, Stockholm has the highest venture capital investment per capita in Europe, and no city in Europe has produced more unicorns per capita, i.e., 1 billion dollar businesses, than Stockholm, making it a city that performs way beyond its size.