Stockholm represents Scandinavia as the second largest FinTech Hub in European comparison

Stockholm is one of EU’s biggest hubs for FinTech investments and the city has attracted the second most investments in Europe over the last five years, says a report published today by Stockholm School of Economics and Stockholm Business Region Development.


View over Stockholm’s Old Town

Stockholm’s Fintech scene is a total sum of more than just Klarna, says the report called “Stockholm FinTech – An overview of the FinTech sector in the greater Stockholm Region”. Based on the Europe-wide comparison, during the past five years Stockholm has received a total of 18,3% of FinTech investments in the region.

“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 from the Stockholm School of Economics.

According to the report, especially 2014 was a milestone for Stockholm-based financial technology companies. During the year, fifteen investments were made in Stockholm’s FinTech companies reaching a total sum of $266 million. Three biggest deals were worth over $100 million in total, as Klarna received an investment of $125 million, iZettle $55,5 million and Trustly $28,8 million.

Performing beyond its size?

As these are interesting numbers from Stockholm, the city is well-known as the home of numerous successful tech startups. Now the city gathers another title after having already the highest amount of venture capital investment per capita in Europe as well as having produced the most unicorns per capita in Europe.

While Stockholm seems to be performing beyond its size, the Business Development Manager of Stockholm Business Region, Torbjörn Bengtsson emphasizes that the phenomenon of growing FinTech sector is a global trend.

“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 Bengtsson.


Timeline of FinTech development in Stockholm

Have a closer look at the summary of the report here.