Stockholm's startup scene, Part 1: A conversation with Legora founder Max Junestrad

February marked my first trip to Stockholm where I had a series of chats with the great and good of Swedish tech.

So far, my work has appeared in Euronews and the Financial Times (and there is more to come).

But given that those proud publications (rightly) want reported features rather than long interviews with founders or my musings about Nordic tech, I decided to launch this newsletter for the lattter.

Over the next few weeks, I will share long form interviews with the founders of all of Swedish tech startups that you will want to hear from (except for Lovable, who turned me down 😦) as well as several clued-up VCs.

Once I've exhausted Sweden I'm coming for Europe's other tech hubs. Got a suggestion? Let me know here and I'll get on the Ryanair website.

But for now, I'm in my cabin on the Mälardrottningen and the river outside is frozen solid, and from time to time, ice skaters pass under the portholes.

It is 4 pm here in Stockholm and I am waiting for Max Junestrad, founder of Legora, to log on from San Francisco.

And here he is...

Legora's Max Junestrad: 'We are not here to come second'

(A few quotes from this interview appeared in the Financial Times on March 5.)

When AI giant Anthropic unveiled a legal plugin that would allow firms to automate tasks such as compliance, briefings and document reviewing in February 2026, the shares of publishers, legal data firms and software companies plunged on European exchanges. 

But as pundits began to predict the imminent death of software as a service (Saas) under the LLM juggernaut, one legal tech founder went the other way. Commenting on LinkedIn, Legora founder Max Junestrad congratulated Anthropic instead. 

“There is an important difference between a plugin and operating a collaborative, matter-centric, production-grade platform used by hundreds of the world's leading legal teams,” Junestrad posted just hours after the announcement and market reaction. 

If anyone could have been panicking about Anthropic wading into the AI legal tech boom, it could have been Legora, which hit a $1.8 billion valuation in October 2025 and - as of February 2026 - was reportedly in talks over a raise that would triple that to $6bn. 

It was before dawn Junestrad logged onto our video call from San Francisco, a place he finds himself in more and more as Legora fights for market dominance with its main American rival, Harvey. Legora already has an office in Denver and New York, and contracts with a slew of American corporate giants and law firms. 

“We are working with some of the largest American organizations, including some of the biggest law firms in the world, but also pharmaceutical companies, banks, insurers, construction, real estate companies, private equity firms, asset managers,” he said. 

“We are here to play. We are not here to build a European winner. We are here to build a global winner and a category leader. It's an enormous market, an enormous market. But we are not here to be second. Nobody works at Legora to be second.” 

And more and more people work at Legora. Every quarter since October 2024, says Junestrad, Legora has doubled in size. As they grew their headcount, they also grew revenue, with the result that the Swedish startup is now wildly profitable. 

“It's hectic - but for all the right reasons.” 

Legora has offices in Stockholm and London as well as in the US, and filling its ballooning headcount has not been without its challenges. While it has been relatively easy to fill engineering roles in Stockholm, Junestrad says, sales is harder 

“When you think about building a 100 to 200 person sales organization, with the skill set to go and compete on a global scale, that's much more prevalent in the US or even in the UK. And so we've had to look for talent for different roles in different places,” he says. 

“But we are very determined to keep as much of our engineering, product and design organization in Stockholm as we can.” 

Europe has its challenges, however - both big and small. It has been a source of frustration to Legora that notice periods in Sweden tend to be three months rather than one month in the UK - and often one week in the US. With its current rate of growth that means by the time a new hire is brought in, the company has doubled in size. 

Others have to do with the regulatory framework in Europe. European states have been quick to bring in regulations on data hosting, for example, that do not apply in the US. As a result, US legal techs have had a significant head start on their European rivals. 

“Our American competition had a year and a half head start because [the US doesn’t] care where the data gets processed. That's like trying to run a marathon, but you need to start an hour after the other competition,” Junestrad said. 

"GDPR is one of the biggest capital destructive legislative acts ever."

It is a shame, he says, because all the founders in Sweden right now building world-beating AI startups are pro-European, pro-Sweden, they want European tech to survive - and thrive - and for a new generation of European startups to become the next generation of world leaders, as Skype, Spotify and Klarna were the last. 

“I think most people actually haven't yet understood what profound impact autonomous and agentic AI will have. It's going to be massive, and for our region to have winners in this space will be crucial. Otherwise we will be under pressure to use tools and systems that we don't have full control over,” Junestrad said. 

He also criticises existing legislation, like GDPR: “One of the biggest capital destruction legislative acts that has ever been introduced,” he said. 

“It is not about being confrontational. I want to be constructive. We need to accept that and move forward. There's two types of risks: There is the risk of doing things and then there's risks of not doing things. And right now we're taking a lot of risk in not doing things. To me, when the world is changing this fast, that is even more dangerous.” 

Are you using data properly? Are you sure you are using data properly?

A couple of months ago an agency asked me to come in and give a talk on how to use data to tell stories, something I've done as a journalist for many years.

So many startups and agencies are sitting on vast amounts of data that journalists would love to get their hands on. They get the story, you get the credit. It is a no brainer.

And yet, so few people within these companies know a) what data they have that journalists want and b) how to pitch it to journalists in a way that makes them actually read their emails.

I can help with this.

Check out my website here and drop me a line if you're interested.

A fiinal thought...

... this is delightful.

Please like and share this newsletter if you're minded to do so, and reach out to me at any time with tips, stories, insights and gossip at ocrowcroft@gmail.com.