Gabriel Vasquez, a companion at Andreessen Horowitz, lately revealed he took 9 flights from NYC to Stockholm in a single yr. Whereas his visits included stops at firms like Lovable — the place he posted from its workplace — the journeys have been additionally about discovering future Swedish unicorns earlier than they cross the Atlantic.
This all got here to mild when information emerged that a16z had led a $2.3 million pre-seed spherical into Dentio, a Swedish startup that makes use of AI to assist dentists’ practices with admin work. Whereas it is a small test for a agency that simply introduced new funds totaling $15 billion, it confirms that U.S. VCs are actively in search of deal movement exterior of the U.S., even with out native places of work.
Stockholm is a pure cease for a16z, which beforehand achieved vital returns from backing Skype, cofounded by Swedish entrepreneur Niklas Zennström. Since then, a major variety of fast-growing startups have been created within the Swedish capital, and the VC heavyweight tracked down the place lots of them have been coming from.
“We spend a whole lot of time growing a deep understanding of particular markets and understanding the place innovation is rising. In Sweden, that has meant carefully monitoring ecosystems like [SSE Business Lab] — the startup incubator of the Stockholm College of Economics — and the businesses popping out of it,” Vasquez instructed TechCrunch.
Like fintech big Klarna, authorized AI startup Legora, and e-scooter firm Voi, Dentio is an alum of SSE Enterprise Lab — a startup incubator that has produced a number of profitable Swedish firms. The three former highschool classmates Elias Afrasiabi, Anton Li and Lukas Sjögren joined the incubator after reconnecting as college students at each the SSE (Stockholm College of Economics) and KTH (Royal Institute of Expertise), then joined the incubator with extra backing from KTH’s Innovation Launch program. They tackled an issue near house: Li’s mother, a dentist, had instructed them how admin work detracted from medical care.
The trio intuited that they might leverage LLMs to assist folks like her — an concept that additionally they validated along with her and her colleagues. This led them to Dentio’s preliminary product, a recording device that makes use of AI to generate medical notes. But it surely’s solely a matter of time earlier than AI scribes grow to be a commodity product, and Dentio must show its worth to dentists so that they aren’t tempted to change suppliers when that occurs, Afrasiabi mentioned.
Potential opponents embody fellow Swedish startup Tandem Well being, which raised a $50 million Collection A spherical final yr to help clinicians with AI throughout a number of medical specialties. Dentio, against this, focuses completely on dentists, however it believes it may well nonetheless attain the size VCs anticipate by way of worldwide growth
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June 23, 2026
“Now we’re a workforce of seven folks, and we expect that it’s potential to construct a unified approach of dealing with administration throughout Europe, and perhaps even everywhere in the world,” Afrasiabi mentioned. Whereas Europe’s healthcare techniques are fragmented, they share similarities, and Dentio’s assumption is that what works in Sweden may work elsewhere within the EU.
Dentio prominently options its “Made in Sweden” branding and emphasizes that “all related knowledge is processed in Sweden and Finland in compliance with Swedish and EU legislation.” It indicators knowledge safety to privacy-conscious European clients. But it surely additionally indicators potential to VCs — a callback to Sweden’s historical past of manufacturing breakout firms.
“We went to zero meetups. I reached out to zero traders,” Afrasiabi mentioned. Whereas the workforce was heads down constructing, the phrase unfold out. “I feel it was largely by way of referrals and folks speaking to one another that the information acquired all the way in which over to the U.S.,” he mentioned.
This wasn’t happenstance: a16z has eyes world wide in an effort to spot these firms as early as native funds may, Vasquez mentioned. “In Sweden for instance, we partnered with prime founders overseas like Fredrik Hjelm, founding father of Voi, and Johannes Schildt, founding father of Kry, by turning them into scouts and mapping the most effective native expertise.”
For Vasquez, who focuses on AI utility investments for a16z, this isn’t nearly Sweden, however about “a sample of nice international firms being born overseas and scaling rapidly,” from Black Forest Labs in Germany to Manus, the Singapore-based AI startup lately acquired by Meta.
Born and raised in El Salvador, he has additionally been spending time in São Paulo. “I’m actually enthusiastic about what’s brewing in Brazil and throughout Latin America in AI,” he wrote on LinkedIn on the time. “I imagine AI is the nice equalizer,” he added. “Most individuals now have entry to PhD-level intelligence on a cellphone, and in the end, Silicon Valley is a frame of mind.”
Corrections: This story initially acknowledged that a16z is an investor in Lovable owing to an enhancing error. The identify of SSE’s incubator has additionally been corrected.
