Stockholm firms have received a fifth of European fintech investments since 2010
The Stockholm School of Economics report, An overview of the FinTech sector in the greater Stockholm Region, highlights that the Swedish capital accounted for 18.3 percent of all fintech investments over the last five years.
Firms in the UK received 37 percent of all fintech investments in the last five years, with London fintech companies taking the lion's share of this.
The three biggest fintech deals in Stockholm in 2014 were Klarna ($100 million), iZettle ($55.5million) and Trustly ($28.8 million).
In terms of employment, the industry is estimated to employ 4,600 full time employees (as of 2014), with fintech roles increasing by 44 percent from 2010 to 2013.
In the past two years alone, Intel Capital, Mastercard and American Express Ventures have invested in fintech companies in the Swedish capital. Meanwhile, local investors have also come to the fore, such as NFT Ventures, a specialty venture capital firm focused on fintech in the Nordics with Stockholm as its base.
Torbjrn Bengtsson, of the Stockholm Business Region Development said of the report: "This report highlights how fintech is rapidly growing in Stockholm. The city has so much going for it and to be the second most popular destination in Europe for this industry in the past five years is an impressive achievement. This growth will likely continue and even intensify in the years to come, enabling Stockholm to retain its position as one of the major fintech hubs globally."
Daniel Blomquist, partner at venture capital firm Creandum, added: "I think what makes Stockholm unique is that we have a high level of execution intelligence here. This combined with our bottom-up Scandinavian management style enables firms to successfully navigate the many uncertainties in today's financial services."
Stocholm is home to just 1.5 million people, making it nearly five times smaller than Greater London.
Since 2000, Sweden has produced six $1 billion tech companies (unicorns), including music-streaming service Spotify, which was founded at KTH Royal Institute of Technology.
Through KTH Innovation, the university is hoping to build and support the next generation of Swedish unicorn companies.