Swedish steel disruptor Stegra quietly backs AI startup: "It's an interesting story..."

While struggling battery giant Northvolt scrambles to secure fresh funding, fellow green tech company Stegra (formerly H2 Green Steel), backed by the same Swedish investment firm, Vargas, is quietly making moves of its own.

Impact Loop uncovered its new AI venture when we read about fledgling startup Bardo Technology raising 5.8 million SEK in capital, and spotted that the firm had just one investor besides the founders: Stegra. That’s right – the steel industry disruptor has put some serious cash into the tech business. 

We’d already fixed an interview with Henriksson about Stegra (more from this soon), and when we brought it up during our chat he seemed pleasantly surprised by our discovery:

"It's an interesting story," he said but declined to elaborate, referring us instead to Karin Hallstan, Stegra's head of media relations, who sat in on the interview and suggested we touch base later.

Unknown AI Startup

Naturally, we wanted to share our scoop with you ASAP, so since Stegra was being so tight-lipped, we did some digging on Bardo Technology ourselves.

The company is creating a platform that leverages AI to automate carbon footprint tracking and reporting. Founded in February, Bardo Technology brings together a team of Swedish entrepreneurs with backgrounds in tech and consulting: Carl-Johan Westring, who previously held senior roles at the global education company EF Education First and consulting giant McKinsey; serial cofounder Oskar Klingberg; seasoned CTO Erik Sandström; and Ingemar Rask, who most recently served as Chief Product Officer at Swedish fintech startup Bokio, which offers automated bookkeeping solutions.

In short, the startup aims to offer companies an automated, data-driven tool to track and report their emissions impact in real time.

But that’s about all the public info available – the company has no website or LinkedIn page. Our intel comes from a job ad they posted in September, which reads:

"Our solution is designed to integrate seamlessly with existing corporate systems, enabling unmatched tracking and optimization of carbon emissions."

No Comment – for now

When Impact Loop reached out to co-founder Oskar Klingberg by phone, he expressed a willingness to share more but not just yet.

But the same week he dropped a few more hints about the project at Techarena Zero – one of Stockholm’s biggest tech and sustainability conferences – which, naturally, Impact Loop was also attending. In a panel discussion on AI and sustainability, Klingberg he confirmed some key details about Bardo Technology:

"[We’re] Sprung out of Stegra which is the new name of H2Green steel, working with big corporations"

He also said:

“We have an idea of helping big corporations to completely understand [their] footprint by totally understanding the granular data – to build that granular data set we think that’s missing today. We think the current way of understanding the total footprint is really broken."

According to Bolagsverket, Sweden’s official company registration office, Bardo Technology is now valued at 69.9 million SEK (around €6 million or $6.5 million USD), with Stegra holding a 9.3% stake.

Bardo Technology has promised a full interview with Impact Loop soon – we’ll keep you posted when we know more!

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Additional reporting by Maddy Savage