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Home » Skåne-based Sprinkle wants to be a publicist’s best friend
Sprinkle ad image, rooftop view over city
Sprinkle ad, view of city
To enable expansion Sprinkle has located all development in Malmö. Behind are entrepreneurial visions, strong wills, and not least – a successful first business year.
Dog lying on floor at Sprinkle office
The office in Malmö, where Sprinkle has focused all development.

Skåne-based Sprinkle wants to be a publicist’s best friend

Sprinkle has created a widget for websites to help maximise content and make the visitor want to stay on the site. To enable expansion of the startup, all development is located in Malmö. Behind are entrepreneurial visions, strong wills, and not least – a successful first business year.

– It was a good match; he had a clear product vision, and I had a clear business vision! From there, it has been a crazy journey to get to where we are now.

In the office at Media Evolution, Magnus Hultman describes his first meeting with Johan Unger, one that led to the birth of fast growing startup business Sprinkle in the spring of 2013.

Johan and Magnus at the Sprinkle office

Magnus Hultman with Johan Unger outside the office at Media Evolution.

Magnus and Johan outside the office at Media Evolution.

 

CEO Magnus Hultman describes himself as offspring of the Framfab era. He participated in the launch of Instadia in Sweden, a disruptive company focused on web statistics that made a mark in several industries and was sold to American business Omniture, now better known as Adobe. Magnus then carried on as founder and CEO of Smartclip Nordics, and as an angel investor.

Johan Unger, on the other hand, is the young entrepreneur who, while studying, was one of the founders of Qulart. He already had a clear interest in helping users to find quality online content, and with Magnus’ experience and investment opportunities, they could develop Sprinkle.

Creating user-based content

The startup offers a widget that websites put below their posts, recommending suitable content to the user. The recommendations are based on criteria such as what is popular, what the visitor has clicked on previously, and what is trending on social media. The primary source of income is sponsored content, and partners include Disney, Red Bull, HBO, Showtime and ABC News.

– The site itself gets more hits, more return visitors clicking on more ads, and the publicisers get more use for their content, including that from the archive. That is particularly important now that editorial resources are dwindling for all newspapers and media conglomerates, says Magnus.

Co-workers interacting at Sprinkle-office

Sprinkle has created a widget for websites to help maximise content and make the visitor want to stay on the site.

 

Challenges for a growing startup

It’s full steam ahead for Sprinkle. The operations generate 600 million recommendations, and a turnover of over half a million SEK per month. They have 13 employees in Malmö and Stockholm, and a recently opened office in Oslo.

– We actually started in Stockholm, but had a mega problem with recruitment, explains Magnus. The large companies hoovered the market for developers, and created sky-high starting salaries. So in order to be able to develop the product, we decided to move all development to Malmö. Skåne is an extremely technology intensive region, and it is easy to find good developers. King did the same; they couldn’t develop in Stockholm, so they opened an office here in Malmö.

Desk at window at Sprinkle office

Sprinkle's office is located at the innovation arena Media Evolution in Malmö.

 Sprinkle sits in premises belonging to Media Evolution, the media industry’s innovation arena, and is making plans for further recruitment. It has also entered an international round of investment, and has just brought in main investor Spintop Ventures, which entails an investment of 1.1 million euro. A dream investor would be a large, global media name, like Oprah, muses Magnus.

That aside, foreign expansion is by far the most important challenge right now, he says:

– In an industry as dynamic as media, with its extremely fickle behaviour, we have to work a little bit smarter than everyone else. We aren’t content with being the biggest in Sweden and the Nordic countries; we want to be the biggest in the world.

Local networks and international investors

Important people from Malmö’s startup scene Johan mentions Malmö Startups, which has created an open climate with entrepreneurs helping each other, and an open source way of thinking. He also mentions Benjamin Page and Michael Hoy from Invest in Skåne, business developers who split their time between the region and the office in Silicon Valley.

 – We were at Nordic NEXT, incredibly well done! says Magnus. Even the investor from London thought that it was of an international standard. What they do will generate investment here.

What is needed to attract more investment to the region?

– More people engaging in building a startup community, with meetings and events, says Johan. But it has to be done bottom-up.

Magnus believes in supporting initial financing to prove the validity of an idea, and helping with research to see what market potential there is in a certain area.

Johan says that it is important to introduce development early in schools, at ages 10-12.

– And say that young entrepreneurs can come to us if they want any help! he adds.

Read more about how Invest in Skåne can help you develop your company here

Facts about Strossle

Malmö-based Strossle has created a widget for websites that helps maximise content. The business was founded in 2013 by serial entrepreneurs Magnus Hultman and Johan Unger. Sprinkle is a member of innovation arena Media Evolution, and also has offices in Stockholm and Oslo.

Read more about Strossle

Facts about Nordic NEXT

Nordic NEXT is an annual conference initiated by Invest in Skåne. The purpose is to increase foreign investors’ interest in regional technology businesses, and to strengthen relations between foreign and Scanian investors.

Read more about Nordic NEXT

Facts about Malmö Startups

Malmö Startups is a community for the promotion of networking and collaboration, for helping new entrepreneurs to get a foot in in the business and the region, and for highlighting and marketing what is going on in the startup area externally as well. Founded in Malmö as 2013 ended and 2014 began, backed by all of the startup businesses. Skane.com and Malmö Startups have a collaboration for monitoring and spreading what is going on on Skåne’s exciting startup scene.

Follow the network in social media via @malmostartups and #malmostartups.


Wednesday, 14 March, 2018 - 01:42
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