Stockholm Startup Forum gathers again – this time at our home base

On the morning of March 10th, the second Stockholm Startup Forum was held as key actors from across the ecosystem came together at Epicenter in Stockholm, the very community and innovation hub that also happens to be the home of Women in Tech Sweden’s headquarters. Women in Tech Sweden joined the conversation, just as we did in the first of the forums.

Built on research, driven by real conversation

The forum is grounded in a report commissioned by Stockholm Business Region and developed by Ramboll Management Consulting. Based on data from national and international sources, 25 in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs, investors, academics, incubators and public sector representatives, and benchmarking against leading European startup cities, the report gives a thorough picture of where Stockholm stands and what is at stake.

The conclusion is not pessimistic, but it is urgent. Stockholm has long been successful in building startups and tech companies, but the global landscape is shifting fast. Capital markets are less predictable, competition for talent is intensifying, and cities around the world are investing aggressively in AI, deeptech and cleantech. Stockholm cannot rely on past success. It needs a shared strategy.

The report identifies three core challenges for the ecosystem. 

1. Access to capital, where international ownership dominates and value increasingly leaves Sweden through early exits. 
2. Talent supply, where there is a significant shortage of tech specialists and demand for AI and deeptech competence outpaces what universities can produce. 
3. Fragmentation, where many initiatives exist in parallel without sufficient collaboration and a shared map of the ecosystem is still missing.

These are the challenges that Stockholm Startup Forum exists to work on, together.

The second meeting: talent takes centre stage

At the March 10th gathering, the focus was on one of the most pressing questions for Stockholm’s future: how to improve access to skills and competence so that innovative companies can start, grow and stay in the city. Participants came from across the ecosystem, including investors, hubs, communities, accelerators, academia, industry verticals and the public sector, reflecting the broad and cross-sectoral mix that Stockholm Business Region has designed the forum around.

Why this matters to Women in Tech Sweden

Women in Tech Sweden works to get more women into tech, as founders, as investors, as leaders. The challenges being addressed within Stockholm Startup Forum connect directly to our own work. When the ecosystem talks about talent pipelines, fragmentation and who gets access to what, we are talking about the same structural issues from different angles.

Elin Eriksson, Co-Founder of Women in Tech Sweden, was at the March 10th gathering:

“The discussions were refreshingly honest. We talked about a paradox that a lot of us recognise: Stockholm has open roles that can’t be filled, and at the same time people with real skills and experience who can’t get hired. A big part of that mismatch lands on people who don’t have Swedish as their first language. Right now, when companies are playing it safe, those are often the people who get screened out first — before anyone even looks at what they can actually do. If we’re serious about solving the talent challenge, we have to be serious about who we’re currently leaving out. That’s a conversation Women in Tech Sweden will keep pushing.”

A startup ecosystem that is truly strong draws on the full range of available talent. That is not a side agenda, it is central to the kind of ecosystem Stockholm is trying to build.

The next gatherings are already planned for. The conversation is just getting started.