What if Scandinavian startups don’t need Y Combinator?

When The Exchange wrote about Sweden’s startup scene on the finish of final month, we stated we’d revisit the Nordics this week. Well, a promise is a promise.

But after spending hours watching YC’s Winter 2023 Demo Day pitches this week, we additionally couldn’t assist however attempt to join the dots: Are Scandinavian startups making waves at Y Combinator? Turns out, not likely. And that’s truly fascinating.

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Two: That’s the variety of startups in YC’s newest batch with places of work in Denmark, Norway or Sweden, in response to knowledge from the accelerator itself. And but, these three nations create greater than their justifiable share of startups in comparison with their bigger European friends.

If you add up the truth that rival accelerators 500 Startups and Techstars have given up on their Stockholm packages, a sample begins to emerge. Could or not it’s that Scandinavian startups simply don’t need worldwide accelerators, thanks very a lot?

A quantity disconnect

That there have been so few Scandinavian startups in YC’s newest batch might be informal. YC usually insists it invests in founders, not concepts; presumably, this additionally implies that it doesn’t give plenty of thought to workplace places. As a outcome, the variety of startups from a selected nation can differ fairly a bit from batch to batch.