CW+ Premium Content/CW Nordics

In 2020, a Stockholm startup called Checkin.com processed more than 18 million sessions from users in 165 countries. This has recently been followed up with private funding worth €2m, which quickly became oversubscribed as a host of leading Nordic investors flocked towards the company. As far as this being another Nordic startup success story, it’s simply the latest example of regional innovation going global. But deeper than that, it’s also another success story for the “Klarna academy”. Speaking with any member of the Stockholm tech ecosystem, you’re never likely to be far from a unicorn graduate – a former member of those Skypes and Spotifys who are now taking the reins of their own brainchild. But to what extent do these founders attribute those former table-topping experiences to the success of their burgeoning new ventures? In Checkin.com’s case, CEO and co-founder Kristoffer Cassel, who founded the company together with another Klarna veteran, Alexey Kuznetsov, believes “experience” is indeed the key word, but mostly in ...