Sweden’s ‘Silicon Valhalla’ Battles US Pull on Rising Startups

Sweden churns out more billion-dollar startups per capita than anywhere in Europe, but a lot of its rising stars are heading to the US, and calls are growing for deeper capital markets to help stop them.

In recent years, Daniel Ek of Spotify Technology SA and Klarna Group Plc’s Sebastian Siemiatkowski have publicly positioned a US listing as the natural next step in their companies’ expansion. That framing continues to influence a new wave of Swedish founders, many of whom see tapping US capital markets as a milestone on the path to global scale.