How long can a country punch above its weight before someone needs to check the scales? For decades I’ve heard Sweden be called “small” or “scrappy”, usually in the same breath as describing one of our many economic knockouts. It’s time we moved up a weight class.
Our success is a tonic for all the European doomerism we’re reading at the moment. The typical analysis of our continent — low growth, little liquidity, endless bureaucracy — doesn’t apply to Sweden. Our 2026 growth forecast is more than double that of heavyweight countries Germany and France, at a fraction of their public debt level. Our inflow of FDI investments is the second largest in the EU. Nasdaq Stockholm attracted more IPO capital last year than any other European exchange. Swedish startups are on track to raise $5 billion in 2026, up from $3.2 billion in 2025, led by the vibe-coders at Lovable ($13.3 billion valuation), body scanners at Neko Health ($7 billion) and AI lawyers at Legora ($5.55 billion).
