Y Combinator in Stockholm: The Evening at TAK

On April 29, Y Combinator hosted an event at Stockholm Waterfront Congress Centre with Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston, co-founders of Y Combinator, Gustaf Alströmer, General Partner, Max Junestrand, CEO of Legora, and Christina Gilbert, Visiting Partner at YC.

Over 3,000 people applied to attend. 1,200 got a spot.

The programme covered the Silicon Valley advantage for early-stage founders, AI startup strategy, B2B enterprise sales, and fundraising. Paul Graham’s core argument: spend time in Silicon Valley to learn, then come back and build at home. The evening’s clearest proof of that thesis was on stage – Max Junestrand, co-founder of Legora, YC-backed and building in Stockholm.

Swenode.AI was one of two organisations hosting official afterparties. Bridging the Nordic and Silicon Valley ecosystems is what Swenode.AI was built to do – and an evening like this, where those two worlds are literally in the same room, is exactly the kind of moment we exist to facilitate.

150 hand-picked founders, investors, and engineers moved from Waterfront to TAK – everyone from Anton Osika, co-founder of Lovable, to some of the most promising startups in the Nordic ecosystem right now.

Minna Sandberg, CEO of Swenode.AI, reflected on the evening:

“TAK was packed – 150 handpicked founders and VCs, out of 1,200 who raised their hands to be there. A few hours earlier, Y Combinator had said it plainly: go to Silicon Valley to learn, then come back to Europe and build. Be the big fish. And here I am. Looking at Max and Anton, the two founders that proved that this is possible.”

The YC event summary and Paul Graham’s talk are published on the YC Startup Library.

The event was made in collaboration with Y Combinator, in partnership with Wilson Sonsini, Dell Technologies & Legora, and powered by Inception Fund & Google