Keeping hold of tech talent can be a battle for European companies, but the CEO of Swedish vibe-coding startup Lovable says it’s not always a one-way flow to Silicon Valley.
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Anton Osika said that what he considers a Swedish trait — long-term thinking and “building for the coming decades” — is attracting some talent away from the US.
In a Bloomberg interview that aired Friday, Osika said this longer-term mindset, paired with what he described as Sweden’s tightly knit, low turnover, team-first culture, is luring some Swedish tech workers back from Silicon Valley and London.
Some return, he said, because they “miss the way that we think about being here for the long term and everyone caring about the team performing really well, being very well-knit together,” a work ethos he said is embedded in Swedish culture.
Scaling fast from Stockholm
Lovable, which launched in November 2024, reached $100 million in annual recurring revenue — a metric that reflects predictable subscription income — within just eight months.
It surged by more than 30%, from $300 million to $400 million in a single month, Lovable’s chief revenue officer, Ryan Meadows, told Business Insider’s Ben Bergman.
Speaking to Bloomberg, Osika described the company’s trajectory as “hypergrowth,” a pace he said remains relatively “uncommon” in Sweden.
He added that momentum is bringing foreign tech leaders to Stockholm — in some cases, relocating with their families.
“We’re in this for the long term,” he said, adding that Sweden’s strong capital markets and deep talent pool are helping the company “punch above our weight.”
However, Sweden has struggled to retain many of its biggest tech successes.
A McKinsey report from last August found that more than 70% of the country’s unicorns, startups valued at $1 billion or more, ultimately leave Sweden, typically through foreign acquisitions or listings abroad. Two of Sweden’s most notable tech success stories, Klarna and Spotify, both opted to go public in the US.
What Europe can learn from Sweden
Osika said that Sweden’s other strength is the support new talent receives from the next wave of entrepreneurs.
“It’s a lot of how previous founders help the new generation of founders,” Osika said. “Of course, there’s a lot of this in Silicon Valley — and there’s also that here in Stockholm.”
Swedish startups are also forced to think internationally from day one because the domestic market is small, pushing founders to build for global scale almost immediately, which he said is different for some of the larger European countries.
Still, Osika said Sweden could move faster, especially in public-sector tech innovation.
“I would like to see ambition and urgency from leaders, political leaders, and institutional leaders to reimagine what is possible,” he said.
“I think this urgency could be higher in Sweden,” he said, adding: “I think it’s lacking in Europe at large, for sure.”
