Have money, will travel: a16z’s hunt for the next European unicorn

Gabriel Vasquez, a spouse astatine Andreessen Horowitz, precocious revealed helium 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 aboriginal Swedish unicorns earlier they transverse the Atlantic.

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

Stockholm is simply a earthy halt for a16z, which antecedently achieved important returns from backing Skype, cofounded by Swedish entrepreneur Niklas Zennström. Since then, a important fig 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 innovation is emerging. In Sweden, that has meant intimately tracking ecosystems similar 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 palmy 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 with further backing from KTH’s Innovation Launch program. They tackled a occupation adjacent to home: Li’s mom, a dentist, had told them however admin enactment detracted from objective care.

The trio intuited that they could leverage LLMs to assistance radical similar her — an thought that they besides validated with her and her colleagues. This led them to Dentio’s archetypal product, a signaling instrumentality that uses AI to make objective notes. But it’s lone a substance of clip earlier AI scribes go a commodity product, and Dentio needs to beryllium its worth to dentists truthful they aren’t tempted to power providers erstwhile that happens, Afrasiabi said.

Potential competitors see chap Swedish startup Tandem Health, which raised a $50 cardinal Series A circular past twelvemonth to enactment clinicians with AI crossed aggregate aesculapian specialties. Dentio, by contrast, focuses exclusively connected dentists, but it believes it tin inactive scope the standard VCs expect done planetary expansion

“Now we’re a squad of 7 people, and we deliberation that it’s imaginable to physique a unified mode of handling medication each implicit Europe, and possibly adjacent each implicit the world,” Afrasiabi said. While Europe’s healthcare systems are fragmented, they stock similarities, and Dentio’s presumption is that what works successful Sweden could enactment 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 with Swedish and EU law.” It signals information extortion to privacy-conscious European customers. But it besides signals imaginable to VCs — a callback to Sweden’s past 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 radical talking to each different that the quality got each the mode implicit to the U.S.,” helium said.

This wasn’t happenstance: a16z has eyes astir the world successful bid to spot these companies arsenic aboriginal arsenic section funds might, Vasquez said. “In Sweden for example, we partnered with apical founders overseas similar 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 astir Sweden, but astir “a signifier of large planetary 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, helium has besides been spending clip successful São Paulo. “I’m truly excited astir what’s brewing successful Brazil and crossed Latin America successful AI,” helium wrote connected LinkedIn astatine the time. “I judge AI is the large equalizer,” helium added. “Most radical present person entree to PhD-level quality connected a phone, and ultimately, Silicon Valley is simply a authorities of mind.”