Techarena 2026 – Day 2
- 11 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Last week’s Techarena 2026 conference and exhibition at the Strawberry Arena in Stockholm drew thousands of attendees. The event had a fantastic mix of speakers, panelists and fireside chats, discussing everything from how to accelerate Swedish tech innovation in AI, challenges of scaling internationally, navigating geopolitics, agree on AI legislation, get funded and attract the right talent.
As a follow-up to last week’s recap of Day 1, here are my top take-aways from Day 2:
"Go international" fast For Swedish startups, the local market is simply too small. The consensus among leaders from Voi, Lunar, and Kry is that you must think internationally early and fast. To compete globally, Nordic companies should lean into their cultural strengths: a relentless focus on design, UX, and aesthetics from day one, making sure the product doesn't just work, but "feels good."
"Marketing is back" – Storytelling matters
After the first day’s discussions centered around how to stimulate tech innovation, agree on AI policies and attract the right talent, I was glad that one of the panels on Day 2 highlighted that "Marketing is back.” Narrative matters for positioning – especially if you want to become a Category Leader. Brand building takes patience and consistent storytelling. Kry created its own category, noting that storytelling is a critical tool for differentiation. For Voi it was an "8-year grind" to establish urban mobility as a new category through storytelling on social media (securing attention and distribution).
The Zlatan mindset: No room for second place
Football icon Zlatan Ibrahimović was the main act during day 2. Everybody was eager to hear what he had to say after a long football career. His message to entrepreneurs was clear: aim for first place because second place is just "the first of the last". He emphasized that discipline and the people behind the idea are what ultimately determine success.
Scaling with "Agentic AI"
The TOP46 startup competition winner, Epiminds, showcased the future of work: building multi-agentic AI teams for marketing. Their platform aims to make world-class marketing accessible by using AI that can analyze, execute, and learn in real-time to enable decision-making based on massive amounts of data.
Hackathons as an innovation engine
A dedicated session with Innovationsledarna explored how to turn AI hype into repeatable innovation through hackathons. The key takeaway? Hackathons shouldn't just be "fun activities" or marketing hype; they must be structured to solve real problems that can actually be implemented, i.e. go from innovation intent to value. Think of hackathons as ”innovation sprints” in a funnel; you have the start of it and then progress in the funnel – it’s an innovation journey. To succeed, you need to involve finance early and measure "value generated," such as closing knowledge gaps, number of new patents, rather than just immediate ROI. I thought this was very interesting and gives me a new perspective on transformation journeys and how to build momentum.
Solving the "later-stage" funding gap
While Sweden has an exceptional ecosystem for starting companies and access to angel investors, there is a noted lack of later-stage investment focus across Europe. Founders were advised to build for the long term and maintain resilience from day one to navigate these funding hurdles.
Fixing the gender gap
Fixing the gender gap in education between boys and girls (female education) is the single most important thing we can do to solve poverty, stimulate innovation and improve the world, according to former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Executive Lunch & networking
Outside the main sessions, an Executive lunch provided great networking opportunities and interesting conversations about a range of topics: PropTech; AI and machine learning and how it can be leveraged to monitor and optimize visitor flows as well as predictive maintenance of escalators and elevators; Quantum Computing; AI-generared music; tech talent attraction and B2B Marketing in tech.
Buzzing show floor and meeting area
I loved the crowds and the buzz on the show floor and in the meeting area at Techarena! I had the chance to discuss Strategic Marketing, Employer Branding and ideas for the new Tech Forward podcast with Teknikföretagen, and catch up on Corporate Comms / PR / Public Affairs with industry veteran Stefan Nerpin. Thank you, Jonatan Arnlund (qte) for spending some time with me to discuss the challenges when scaling a tech company. I also got an introduction to the Mimer AI Factory, their large-scale super computing infrastructure and some interesting research going on at RISE.
Final reflections
I walked away after two days at Techarena feeling energized, inspired and with an expanded network of contacts in the tech industry. Three thoughts linger with me:
Building a sustainable tech business is a marathon, not a one-off sprint.
Scale-up success requires a blend of high-level vision and disciplined execution.
In terms of marketing, you need to know how to build trust, tell a story, be consistent, balance long-term market awareness and brand-building efforts with short-term sales activation, and understand the whole customer journey, from awareness to customer retention.
At SUNMICO, we specialize in turning full-funnel strategy into disciplined execution, helping you bridge the gap between "great tech" and "market leader." If you're looking to turn your tech innovation into a strategic growth story, let’s talk.
Text and photos: Mimmis Cleeren