Written by Lidia Vijga, Co-founder at DeckLinks
The journey to success can often be fraught with unexpected twists and turns in the world of startups. Techstars, one of the world’s best startup accelerators, recently made headlines for shutting down its program in Stockholm, leaving several promising startups in a precarious situation. Just a few weeks after joining the cohort, founders were confronted with the harsh reality of the program’s sudden suspension. However, in a surprising turn of events, Techstars Sweden has now reinstated the program in Stockholm and will continue with the current chapter.
It was decided that the the current cohort will continue in hybrid form but Techstars still intends to shut down its Swedish accelerator after the completion of this program. Founders will remain in Stockholm Techstars Accelerator and get support from some of the local Techstars mentors, as well as access the the accelerator’s network of managers across the world.
While this news is being covered in other startup tech publications, I’d love to take an opportunity to list all the resilient startups in the cohort who have experienced a true roller coaster of emotions from unexpected developments at Techstars Sweden.
Bob Makler (Techstars ’23) – Find a new home in a few clicks
Bob Makler is a mobile app that brings together all rental home listings from the major property portals in one place. The app disrupts the landlord-oriented market and acts as an agent, helping users find long-term rentals in London much faster.
Emigreat (Techstars ’23)- Manage your global team with ease
Emigreat is an international employee management software that helps companies navigate through the complicated immigration system and complex processes. This B2B startup empowers companies to take ownership of their employees’ relocation, stay on top of work permit deadlines, and legislative changes – all on one platform.
Freespeech (Techstars ’23) – Translate spoken content to multiple languages in minutes
What started as a side project to give an English voice to the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has become much more: a powerful AI tool. Freespeech is on a mission to make the most important and timeless content accessible to everyone by helping users transcribe, edit, translate, and produce voiceovers in multiple languages.
HEARTNET (Techstars ’23) – Solving fake and falsified medication
Every year, hundreds of thousands of Africans tragically lose their lives due to the use of counterfeit medication. To protect consumers, Heartnet developed a track-and-trace solution that carries provenance data from origination all the way through the supply chain. With this app, end users can confirm the proof of origin and identify counterfeits.
MoonAI (Techstars ’23) – Sound therapy app for women
Moonai is the first non-chemical solution for managing chronic menstrual pain. To help end users reduce menstrual pain symptoms, this tech startup has combined Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and neuroscience-based approaches with personalized relaxing sounds designed by music producers and scientists.
Qlerify (Techstars ’23) – Turn your domain knowledge into visual blueprints
Similar to Figma for design, Qlerify makes process modeling collaborative, accessible, and user-friendly, empowering non-techies with agile frameworks. By uniting stakeholders and enabling users to convert their domain knowledge into visual blueprints, Qlerify fosters collaboration and simplifies software development for better and faster results.
Scanbro (Techstars ’23) – Grow your business with onsite self-service stores
Scanbro is a self-service store provider that helps B2B industrial distributors grow their business by making vendor-managed inventory affordable with smartphone-operated lockers and warehouses. Its hardware and software solutions reinvent vendor-managed inventory, replacing costly vending machines with a shareable open network that benefits both distributors and their customers.
Sense App (Techstars ’23) – Save all your products you like in one app
Sense is on a mission to change and simplify the way we shop. With the Sense App, users can consolidate their favorite items from any physical or digital store in one convenient place. The app also makes it easy for users to sort all the saved items, so they can buy them whenever they are ready.
SkillMapper® (Techstars ’23) – Build learning journeys and share them with a community of learners
SkillMapper is revolutionizing e-learning by creating a community where lifelong learners share curated learning paths to help each other master a skill. Addressing the choice paradox, biased review systems and sub-optimal learning paths in education, SkillMapper offers a search engine and Chrome extension to streamline content discover and increase confidence in ed-tech purchase decisions.
Votemo (Techstars ’23) – Audience engagement tools for events
Votemo is an audience interaction tool designed for hybrid, virtual, and in-person events, as well as TV shows and corporate meetings. It offers polling and voting to engage audiences, chat and Q&A features for real-time participation, and animated reactions for emotional expression.
About Techstars accelerator
Established in 2006, Techstars accelerator was founded on three core principles: entrepreneurs building a brighter future, collaboration driving innovation, and great ideas coming from anywhere. Beyond managing accelerator programs and venture capital funds, Techstars fosters a thriving startup ecosystem in various cities by connecting startups, investors, and corporations. Techstars has invested in over 3,300 startups with a combined market cap exceeding $220.1B.