MVP Development in Stockholm, Sweden

Climate Tech / SaaS

A Stockholm climate tech startup (two co-founders — a sustainability consultant from EY with 8 years of corporate ESG reporting experience, and a backend engineer from Spotify, SEK 6M pre-seed from Norrsken Foundation and climate angels) wanted to build an MVP for automated carbon accounting. The EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) was creating mandatory carbon reporting for 50,000+ European companies starting in 2024 — most of which had never measured their carbon footprint. The founders had validated with 40 Swedish companies (SMEs with 50-500 employees) who faced CSRD reporting requirements but lacked the tools, expertise, and budget for Big Four consulting engagements (€50,000-€200,000 per report). They needed an MVP that demonstrated automated carbon calculation, showed compliance with GHG Protocol standards, and secured pilot commitments from 10+ companies.

We built the carbon accounting MVP in 9 weeks: (1) Data integration: the key insight was that 80% of a company's carbon data already existed in their financial systems — bank transactions, invoices, and expense reports reveal energy purchases, travel, logistics, and procurement. We built integrations with: Swedish bank APIs via Tink (the co-founder's network included Tink alumni), Fortnox (Sweden's dominant SME accounting software — 450,000 companies use it), and invoice parsing via OCR for suppliers not in the automated flow. (2) Emission calculation engine: financial transactions were classified into emission categories (GHG Protocol Scope 1, 2, and 3) using an AI classification model trained on 50,000 labelled transactions. Each transaction was mapped to emission factors from verified databases (Swedish Energy Agency, DEFRA, ecoinvent). The calculation engine handled Swedish-specific factors — Swedish electricity grid is 95% fossil-free, so Scope 2 emissions in Sweden are much lower than European averages, and the tool correctly applied location-based vs. market-based methods. (3) CSRD reporting: automated generation of CSRD-compliant sustainability reports including emissions by scope, year-over-year comparisons, emission intensity metrics (per employee, per revenue), reduction targets and progress tracking, and data quality indicators (showing which figures are calculated from actual data vs. estimates). Reports generated in both English and Swedish. (4) Dashboard: clean, Spotify-inspired design showing total carbon footprint (tCO2e), breakdown by scope and category, monthly trends, top emission sources (ranked), and reduction recommendations (AI-generated suggestions based on the company's emission profile). (5) Collaboration: multi-user access with role-based permissions. CFO, sustainability lead, and department heads could each see relevant views. (6) IMY compliance: financial data processing with strict purpose limitation and security. Bank API data processed in-memory and not stored beyond emission calculations.

MVP launched in 9 weeks. Pilot: 15 Swedish companies onboarded in the first 2 months (8 SMEs, 4 mid-market, 3 enterprise subsidiaries). Automation: 75% of emissions data was automatically calculated from financial integrations — the remaining 25% required manual input (mainly Scope 3 supplier data). This reduced carbon accounting effort from 6-8 weeks (manual consultant approach) to 2-3 days. Cost comparison: Big Four carbon accounting engagement: SEK 400,000-SEK 1,500,000. External sustainability consultant: SEK 150,000-SEK 400,000. The MVP platform: SEK 3,000-SEK 15,000/month depending on company size. At annual subscription of SEK 36,000-SEK 180,000, the platform was 3-10x cheaper than alternatives. CSRD compliance: all 15 pilot companies generated CSRD-compliant reports. 3 companies used the reports in their actual CSRD submissions (verified by their auditors). The audit verification was a critical validation — it proved the tool generated reports that passed third-party scrutiny. Accuracy: automated calculations matched manual consultant calculations within 5% for Scope 1 and 2, and within 12% for Scope 3 (Scope 3 is inherently estimated — 12% variance is within accepted tolerance). Retention: 14 of 15 pilot companies converted to paid plans (93% conversion). The one non-conversion was an enterprise subsidiary that needed group-level consolidation not yet built. Revenue: SEK 1.2M ARR after 3 months from 14 paid customers. NPS: 72 (exceptional for B2B SaaS). User quote from a CFO: "This is the Fortnox of sustainability — it just works." Seed round: raised SEK 40M (approximately €3.5M) with EQT Ventures leading. Investors cited: CSRD regulatory tailwind (50,000+ companies needing this tool), the 93% pilot conversion, the Fortnox integration (distribution channel — Fortnox app marketplace), and unit economics (low marginal cost per customer once integrations are built). Development cost: SEK 900,000 (approximately €82,000). Time: 9 weeks.