Gabriel Vasquez, a companion at Andreessen Horowitz, just lately revealed he took nine flights from NYC to Stockholm in a single 12 months. Whereas his visits included stops at firms like Lovable — the place he posted from its workplace — the journeys had been additionally about discovering future Swedish unicorns earlier than they cross the Atlantic.
This all got here to mild when news emerged that a16z had led a $2.3 million pre-seed round into Dentio, a Swedish startup that makes use of AI to assist dentists’ practices with admin work. Whereas this can be a small examine for a agency that simply introduced new funds totaling $15 billion, it confirms that U.S. VCs are actively in search of deal stream outdoors of the U.S., even with out native workplaces.
Stockholm is a pure cease for a16z, which beforehand achieved important 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 had been coming from.
“We spend lots of time creating a deep understanding of particular markets and realizing the place innovation is rising. In Sweden, that has meant intently monitoring ecosystems like SSE Labs — the startup incubator of the Stockholm Faculty of Economics — and the businesses popping out of it,” Vasquez informed TechCrunch.
Like fintech big Klarna, authorized AI startup Legora, and e-scooter firm Voi, Dentio is an alum of SSE Labs — 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 Faculty of Economics) and KTH (Royal Institute of Expertise), then joined the incubator with further backing from KTH’s Innovation Launch program. They tackled an issue near dwelling: Li’s mother, a dentist, had informed them how admin work detracted from medical care.
The trio intuited that they may leverage LLMs to assist individuals like her — an concept that additionally they validated along with her and her colleagues. This led them to Dentio’s preliminary product, a recording instrument that makes use of AI to generate medical notes. Nevertheless it’s solely a matter of time earlier than AI scribes change into a commodity product, and Dentio must show its worth to dentists so that they aren’t tempted to change suppliers when that occurs, Afrasiabi stated.
Potential rivals embrace fellow Swedish startup Tandem Well being, which raised a $50 million Series A spherical final 12 months to assist clinicians with AI throughout a number of medical specialties. Dentio, in contrast, focuses completely on dentists, but it surely believes it may well nonetheless attain the size VCs count on via worldwide growth
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June 23, 2026
“Now we’re a crew of seven individuals, and we predict that it’s potential to construct a unified means of dealing with administration throughout Europe, and perhaps even all around the world,” Afrasiabi stated. Whereas Europe’s healthcare techniques are fragmented, they share similarities, and Dentio’s assumption is that what works in Sweden might work elsewhere within the EU.
Dentio prominently options its “Made in Sweden” branding and emphasizes that “all related information is processed in Sweden and Finland in compliance with Swedish and EU regulation.” It indicators information safety to privacy-conscious European prospects. Nevertheless it 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 buyers,” Afrasiabi stated. Whereas the crew was heads down constructing, the phrase unfold out. “I believe it was principally via referrals and other people speaking to one another that the information received all the best way over to the U.S.,” he stated.
This wasn’t happenstance: a16z has eyes world wide so as to spot these firms as early as native funds may, Vasquez stated. “In Sweden for instance, we partnered with high founders overseas like Fredrik Hjelm, founding father of Voi, and Johannes Schildt, founding father of Kry, by turning them into scouts and mapping one of the best 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 just 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 telephone, and finally, Silicon Valley is a way of thinking.”
Correction: This story initially acknowledged that a16z is an investor in Lovable owing to an modifying error.
