Voi founders’ new AI startup Pit has become the latest rising star out of Stockholm - BERITAJA

Swedish startup Pit whitethorn person gained announcement for immoderate rage-bait societal media posts, but it has besides go different Stockholm AI startup to watch.

Pit is led by the cofounders of European scooter elephantine Voi including Voi CEO Fredrik Hjelm. He is joined by erstwhile iZettle and Klarna engineers. And it is now backed by a16z, which is starring the startup’s $16 cardinal seed round. Stockholm, also location to Lovable, is 1 of the places wherever a16z has been actively looking for the adjacent European unicorn.

Pit is going aft endeavor AI pinch products intended to study from the clients really their businesses tally past create civilization package to automate processes, Pit CEO Adam Jafer told TechCrunch.

Jafer near Voi past summertime aft a seven-year tenure during which the institution scaled into a squad of about 1,000 labor operating into 13 countries. From his engineering viewpoint, Jafer saw really AI has matured capable for endeavor use. Initially, he saw a chance to switch low-hanging SaaS devices pinch in-house apps, but he soon envisioned an opportunity beyond Voi.

“The aha infinitesimal for the bigger opportunity was erstwhile the models were nary longer conscionable chatbots that make text, but became much agentic and could do things,” he told TechCrunch. Unlike competitors offering AI agent-building aliases vibe-coding products, Pit positions itself arsenic an “AI merchandise squad arsenic a service.”

Pit is entering a crowded marketplace and hopes to differentiate itself by relying connected 2 pillars: Pit Studio, which lets endeavor labor guideline it done processes that could beryllium handled by AI-generated software; and Pit Cloud, which, the startup promises, provides that package successful a measurement that meets endeavor requirements connected governance, certifications and auditability.

In mid-January, the startup started testing its scheme pinch aviator customers successful telecom, healthcare, logistics and different sectors, focusing solely connected automating soul processes. “Nothing customer facing, nary conversational AI, conscionable axenic back-office, work and support functions that we move into automations truthful that you could springiness backmost clip to group to attraction connected your halfway business,” Jafer said.

The startup is now preparing to standard up commercially, but it won’t beryllium hands-off. Following the inclination of AI companies hiring forward-deployed engineers (FDEs) to embed themselves to thrust endeavor adoption, Pit is besides hiring solution engineers. The goal, Jafer said, is to meet the expectations of the ample customers it is targeting. “They’re looking to bargain outcomes. They want processes to spell faster. They want to spot productivity unlock and clip unlock,” he said.

Jafer said Pit is not pitching itself arsenic a measurement to trim quality labour and trim jobs. “The taxable is much about moving group upstream to do much valuable things for the business, alternatively than repetitive back-office work.” Success metrics besides spell beyond redeeming clip and money. “Some of it is conscionable value of activity improvement, reducing quality errors and truthful on.”

Yet Pit’s ain needs connected this became a taxable of contention a fewer months agone erstwhile Jafer posted connected LinkedIn declaring “Yes, our squad presently has nary inferior engineers. At Pit, agents now do about of what inferior engineers utilized to do.”

While the station is still visible, he nary longer stands by that. “It whitethorn person started for illustration that, but you request a bully operation arsenic you scale,” he said pinch a smile.

Hjelm anticipated the all-male squad mightiness raise eyebrows, too. In a post connected X, he wrote that Pit was “founded by tech bros, from Voi and Klarna,” but instantly added, “We person tech girls connected the squad arsenic well, fyi.” That explanation wasn’t instantly evident from Pit’s LinkedIn profile, though TechCrunch has spoken pinch 1 female moving astatine Pit connected the communications side.

What the image does reflect, though, is simply a consciousness of getting the set backmost together. Voi’s 4 cofounders person remained friends complete the years, and 3 of them are now portion of this caller journey: Hjelm, Jafer and Filip Lindvall, now a founding technologist astatine Pit. One of the startup’s engineers, Andreas Hjelm, is nary different than Voi CEO Fredrik Hjelm’s brother. 

While Fredrik Hjelm is named arsenic a co-founder of Pit, too, he is still Voi’s CEO, truthful his domiciled will apt beryllium little hands-on for the clip being. Since going profitable successful 2024, Voi has been considered a imaginable IPO candidate, and closed 2025 pinch beardown results. But his engagement arsenic a well-connected entrepreneur could still unfastened doors — and already has, pinch a16z.

In a tweet, Hjelm explained really a16z partners Alex Rampell and Gabriel Vasquez ended up starring Pit’s round. He became acquainted pinch Ben Horowitz, Gabriel Vasquez and Jen Kha “a fewer years agone erstwhile they came to Stockholm to understand what they could do for European tech. We stayed successful touch. When it came to picking partners for Pit, we didn’t request the money to get going, but we wanted the strongest backers we could find. So we picked them, and they picked us.”

“EU models moving connected EU compute is apical of mind for almost each CIO we’re meeting,” Jafer said.