Sting Day 2018 took place on May 16th, gathering a record number of investors and offering inspiring speakers combined with energetic one-to-one matchmaking.

400 exclusively invited people were present at Hotel Birger Jarl when Sting gathered its network of promising startups and most of Europe’s leading investors for the annual Sting Day event. A total of 180 investors from 15 countries participated, along with 65 selected startups. The theme for this year’s event was sales and growth.

“The fact that this year’s event attracted a record number of investors is a receipt that Sting Day has established itself as one of the most important meeting spots for startups and international investors. Our goal is to offer opportunities for qualified meetings that can lead to long-term and valuable relationships over time, said Pär Hedberg, founder and CEO of Sting, about the high interest for Sting Day.

After an introduction, when Pär Hedberg was welcomed by the robots Marissa, played by Furhat, and Yumi from ABB, Niklas Adalberth, founder of Norrsken, took the stage. In a conversation with Sting’s Karin Ruiz, Niklas reflected on his ambitions for Norrsken and his view of how young tech companies can help make the world better with their technology. This session was followed by sales pitches from five startups, to a panel that took the role of the pitching companies’ dream customers.

In parallel with the important speed meeting session between investors and startups, two inspiring fireside chats took place on the main stage. The audience got to listen to Wendy Tan White, founder of British website building platform Moonfruit, and Hannah Meiton, Chief Growth Officer at Soundtrack Your Brand, who shared experiences on finding successful sales strategies as a startup and how to build successful teams.

During the final session on stage, a panel comprised of the seasoned investors Grant Allen, ABB Technology Ventures; Susana Quintana Plaza, next47; Sara Resvik, Industrfonden and Christian Nagel, Earlybird, weighed in on how investors can contribute to revenue growth in their portfolio companies. The panel was moderated by Miriam Grut Norrby, Partner at Alfvén & Didrikson, and ended with five investor pitches from capital-seeking companies.

The winners of the pitch competitions were announced during a prize ceremony that kicked-off the dinner. The award for “Best sales pitch” went to Patrik Nilsson of Ortrud Medical and the price for “Best investor pitch” went to Joakim Sjöblom of Minna Technologies. The day ended with an inspiring dinner speech by Stina Ehrensvärd, founder of Yubico. The company, that began its journey at Sting’s incubator at KTH, is now on track to become Sweden’s first “unicorn” with a female CEO. Stina finished her presentation by saying that one must dare to believe in her dreams. It was a perfect end to a wonderful day.

A warm thank you to our main partner ABB and other event partners Visa, Tillväxtverket, Verisure and Almi Företagspartner.