Sweden Has the Defense Tech Ideas – Scaling Them at Home Is the Problem – Techarenan News

Sweden Has the Defense Tech Ideas – Scaling Them at Home Is the Problem  Techarenan News

Sweden’s defense, space and deep tech sector has never had an easier time attracting capital, according to the panel “Defense, Åke Nordlander, Director General of the Swedish Export Credit Agency (EKN); Daniel Ljunggren, CEO, MilDef; Martin Wänblom, CEO, GKN Aerospace Sweden; Josefin van der Meer, Program Manager civil-military innovation, Vinnova. Image cred: Camilla Svensk/Techarena. Sweden’s defense, space and deep tech sector has never had an easier time attracting capital, according to the panel “Defense, Space & Deep tech – Sweden’s next export success?” at Techarena in Almedalen 2026, but nearly everyone on stage agreed that turning good ideas into scaled-up Swedish businesses, not raising money for them in the first place, is where the sector actually loses ground.

Åke Nordlander, Director General of the Swedish Export Credit Agency (EKN), called it the “Swedish innovation paradox”: Sweden ranks among the world’s most inventive countries by patents per capita, but slides sharply down the ranking once the task shifts to scaling and commercializing that innovation. He framed it as a European problem, not just a Swedish one. The EU’s newly launched Scaleup Europe Fund is a start, he said, “but that alone won’t be enough”, and said EKN itself is examining whether to raise the share of bank risk it currently covers on loans to smaller exporters, since deals still stall on