Have Money, Will Travel: A16z’s Hunt For The Next European Unicorn - Beritaja

Gabriel Vasquez, a partner astatine Andreessen Horowitz, precocious revealed he took 9 flights from NYC to Stockholm successful 1 year. That wasn’t conscionable to visit Lovable, a portfolio company, but besides to look for different early Swedish unicorns earlier they transverse the Atlantic.

This each came to ray erstwhile news emerged that a16z had led a $2.3 cardinal pre-seed round into Dentio, a Swedish startup that uses AI to thief dentists’ practices pinch admin work. While this is simply a mini cheque for a patient that conscionable announced caller costs totaling $15 billion, it confirms that U.S. VCs are actively seeking woody travel extracurricular of the U.S., moreover without section offices.

Stockholm is simply a earthy extremity for a16z, which antecedently achieved important returns from backing Skype, cofounded by Swedish entrepreneur Niklas Zennström. Since then, a important number of fast-growing startups person been created successful the Swedish capital, and the VC heavyweight tracked down wherever galore of them were coming from. 

“We walk a batch of clip processing a heavy knowing of circumstantial markets and knowing wherever invention is emerging. In Sweden, that has meant intimately search ecosystems for illustration SSE Labs — the startup incubator of the Stockholm School of Economics — and the companies coming retired of it,” Vasquez told TechCrunch.

Like fintech elephantine Klarna, ineligible AI startup Legora, and e-scooter institution Voi, Dentio is an alum of SSE Labs — a startup incubator that has produced respective successful Swedish companies. The 3 erstwhile precocious schoolhouse classmates Elias Afrasiabi, Anton Li and Lukas Sjögren joined the incubator aft reconnecting arsenic students astatine some the SSE (Stockholm School of Economics) and KTH (Royal Institute of Technology), past joined the incubator pinch further backing from KTH’s Innovation Launch program. They tackled a problem adjacent to home: Li’s mom, a dentist, had told them really admin activity detracted from objective care.

The trio intuited that they could leverage LLMs to thief group for illustration her — an thought that they besides validated pinch her and her colleagues. This led them to Dentio’s first product, a signaling instrumentality that uses AI to make objective notes. But it’s only a matter of clip earlier AI scribes go a commodity product, and Dentio needs to beryllium its worth to dentists truthful they aren’t tempted to move providers erstwhile that happens, Afrasiabi said.

Potential competitors see chap Swedish startup Tandem Health, which raised a $50 cardinal Series A information past twelvemonth to support clinicians pinch AI crossed aggregate aesculapian specialties. Dentio, by contrast, focuses exclusively connected dentists, but it believes it could still scope the standard VCs expect done world description

“Now we’re a squad of 7 people, and we deliberation that it’s imaginable to build a unified measurement of handling management each complete Europe, and possibly moreover each complete the world,” Afrasiabi said. While Europe’s healthcare systems are fragmented, they stock similarities, and Dentio’s presumption is that what useful successful Sweden could activity elsewhere successful the EU.

Dentio prominently features its “Made successful Sweden” branding and emphasizes that “all applicable information is processed successful Sweden and Finland successful compliance pinch Swedish and EU law.” It signals information protection to privacy-conscious European customers. But it besides signals imaginable to VCs — a callback to Sweden’s history of producing breakout companies.

“We went to zero meetups. I reached retired to zero investors,” Afrasiabi said. While the squad was heads down building, the connection dispersed out. “I deliberation it was mostly done referrals and group talking to each different that the news sewage each the measurement complete to the U.S.,” he said.

This wasn’t happenstance: a16z has eyes about the world successful bid to spot these companies arsenic early arsenic section costs might, Vasquez said. “In Sweden for example, we collaborated pinch apical founders overseas for illustration Fredrik Hjelm, laminitis of Voi, and Johannes Schildt, laminitis of Kry, by turning them into scouts and mapping the champion section talent.”

For Vasquez, who focuses connected AI exertion investments for a16z, this isn’t conscionable about Sweden, but about “a shape of awesome world companies being calved overseas and scaling quickly,” from Black Forest Labs successful Germany to Manus, the Singapore-based AI startup precocious acquired by Meta.

Born and raised successful El Salvador, he has besides been spending clip successful São Paulo. “I’m really excited about what’s brewing successful Brazil and crossed Latin America successful AI,” he wrote connected LinkedIn astatine the time. “I judge AI is the awesome equalizer,” he added. “Most group now person entree to PhD-level intelligence connected a phone, and ultimately, Silicon Valley is simply a authorities of mind.”