Stockholm-based Ark Kapital has revealed a strategic rebranding, adopting the new name Gilion, as part of its global expansion initiative.
According to the firm, this transformation marks a strategic shift towards becoming a universal growth platform, aiming to redefine how the next generation of tech companies secure funding and foster business growth.
An “everything growth” platform
“Gilion”, a term derived from combining “giga-” and “-illion”, is inspired by the British billion nomenclature. This name reflects the volume of data generated daily by tech companies. With the help of AI, Gilion aims to harness this data to comprehend, optimise, and finance growth.
The platform provides real-time analytics, precise forecasting tools, and access to non-dilutive funding, presenting a complete growth experience for founders and revolutionising the way businesses expand.
Henrik Landgren, co-founder and CPTO at Gilion says, “We are building Gilion to give founders across the globe access to everything they need to grow faster – from growth tools all the way to financing. Now, we’re ready for the next phase and to start rolling it out globally.”
“When a company connects to Gilion, they plug into the best AI-models that growth analytics has to offer – a DNA test for your growth. Once connected, they can get access to a new form of non-dilutive funding, on par with or as a complement to VC, that has never been available to them before,” adds Landgren.
Despite the perception of machine learning and AI as cutting-edge, they have already demonstrated success for over a decade at industry leaders like Spotify, Google, and Facebook, contributing significantly to their growth.
Gilion, with its “everything growth” platform, aims to establish a new benchmark for evaluating growth in both founders and investors.
The platform anticipates that AI-driven decisions, relying on refined data, will soon become the norm for funding and credit decisions, fundamentally altering the approach to entrepreneurship and investments.
Helping founders build lasting companies
Gilion offers access to insights on the past and future performance of tech enterprises. Through its real-time analysis, the Gilion Scores, and predictive tools, Gilion facilitates access to long-term, non-dilutive loans of up to €10M.
The firm says, “We also believe founders need a worthy complement to equity funding, in the form of credit. Banks have historically struggled with assessing credit strength in a not yet-profitable company, but with the same growth forecasting models it is now possible.”
“Any standard tech company has over a trillion data points which tell the truth of their future financial strength if machine learning is done right. Hence we are on a mission to equip founders with what they need to build lasting companies.”
In 2023, Gilion expanded its capital pool to €400M, specifically committed to bolstering European founders and tech companies.
Oliver Hildebrandt, co-founder and CEO at Gilion says, “We are proud of what we’ve already achieved under the Ark Kapital banner, this year alone we went live in Germany and Finland, grew the team to roughly 80 employees and introduced hundreds of companies to our growth forecasting tools.”
“With one of the biggest non-dilutive capital pools, we are already well positioned to support European founders, but we intend to expand the pool to cover the US and the UK in the near future,” adds Hildebrandt.
Gilion is currently operational in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Germany (via subsidiary).
The company, established in 2021, was founded by serial entrepreneur Oliver Hildebrandt, veteran banker Axel Bruzelius, former VP of Analytics at Spotify, and former founding partner of EQT Ventures, Henrik Landgren.
Gilion is supported by investors including LocalGlobe, Creandum, Annika Falkengren, Lombard Odier, SEB, John McCormick, and seven unicorn founders from Epidemic Sound, IZettle, Small Giant Games, Supercell, King, and Qonto.
01
Code to AI: How Le Wagon is training product builders who can adapt to a moving tech landscape