While Europe’s main monetary hubs, reminiscent of London, Frankfurt, and Paris, grapple with a chronic drought in public listings, the Stockholm Stock Exchange is main the continent as the most popular market for preliminary public choices. Companies listed in Sweden’s capital have raised practically $2 billion up to now in 2025 — greater than eight instances the amount seen in London and considerably outpacing monetary facilities in Madrid, Zurich, and Frankfurt, in response to a CNBC calculation of FactSet information. The upcoming high-profile listings from residence safety large Verisure and Nordic lender NOBA have additionally highlighted a pattern that specialists say is the results of a decades-long course of . The Nordic nation’s success is, for probably the most half, attributed to a deeply ingrained nationwide “equity culture”, a various pool of home capital and a supportive regulatory framework. It has one thing that “you won’t find anywhere else in Europe,” stated Jens Plenov, head of fairness capital markets (ECM) at DNB Carnegie. Plenov’s funding financial institution led the multibillion-dollar IPOs for Asker Healthcare and recreation growth firm Hacksaw earlier this 12 months. A significant driver of Sweden’s IPO growth, Plenov defined, is an “ecosystem of local capital that invests in local equities and is very IPO savvy.” This home capital offers a basis for offers of all sizes. “If you look at the average retail investor, there’s a much larger proportion of people’s wealth invested in the public stock markets,” stated Kasper Dichow, head of ECM, funding banking & equities at Nordea. “Sweden stands out in Europe.” Dichow’s crew is concerned within the upcoming IPOs of NOBA and Verisure. Culture boosted by coverage About 70% of family wealth amongst Swedes is held in fairness, in comparison with the European Union common of 59%, in response to Eurostat statistics. Sweden’s Ministry of Finance has additionally recommended that seven in 10 of its residents maintain funding funds straight, and so they hold solely about 10% of their monetary belongings in money or financial institution deposits — the bottom degree in Europe. “If you were in Stockholm, you’d talk to your taxi driver, and he will tell you about his latest investment,” stated Plenov. “There’s a culture. There’s an ecosystem that’s built around it.” This cultural publicity in the direction of acceptance of the relative threat inherent in equities, in comparison with bonds, has been achieved via a long time of presidency coverage. “I think it starts with the regulation, and that then drives the culture,” Nordea’s Dichow stated. “It’s very much driven by a supportive regulatory environment.” The first Swedish mutual funds had been launched in 1958, in response to Fondbolagens förening , the Swedish funding fund affiliation. But it wasn’t till 20 years later that the introduction of tax-incentivized financial savings funds kick-started the present phenomenon. By 1990, there have been 1.7 million fund financial savings accounts in a rustic of then simply over 8.5 million individuals. More lately, the introduction of the Investment Savings Account in 2012 has additional cemented the behavioral shift towards investing in equities. In distinction, many pension funds within the United Kingdom have de-risked their portfolios attributable to regulation and a few, reminiscent of ITV ‘s $2.36 billion fund, don’t maintain any shares, in response to FactSet information. In Sweden, the results of the multidecade course of has been a robust home funding ecosystem. “Since long Sweden maintains a particularly active equity market in a European perspective, with high participation of both Retail and Family Office investors, as well as institutional capital managing savings and pension assets,” stated Nicklas Fharm, head of fairness capital markets at SEB. Fharm led the IPO for funding holding firm Roko earlier this 12 months. A mature ecosystem Beyond a keen public, the environment friendly IPO course of in Sweden has additionally benefitted from years of constant deal circulate. For occasion, IPOs usually characteristic using “cornerstone” buyers — massive, respected establishments that commit important capital early within the IPO course of. This usually offers a badge of high quality for corporations seeking to go public. It additionally “gives the [company] certainty quite early on and gives the market comfort that some quality funds have bought into this and analyzed it,” stated DNB Carnegie’s Plenov. “So, you de-risk the deal early.” Nasdaq , which runs the Stockholm trade, has likewise made it simpler for corporations to function a secondary itemizing in one among its different exchanges in Copenhagen, Helsinki, Iceland, Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius. This allows corporations to diversify their investor base. In addition, a gentle provide of corporations backed by personal fairness and enterprise capital companies is filling up the pipeline to go public. “A lot of the quality IPO cases are born out of private equity heritage,” stated Goran Svensson, head of fairness capital markets in Sweden for Nordea. These buyers have discovered {that a} profitable itemizing requires leaving worth on the desk for brand spanking new public-market buyers. “The private equity world has also learned that taking a company to the stock market requires there to be some upside going forward,” added Nordea’s Dichow. “They cannot squeeze every dollar out of it.” For Per Franzen, CEO of personal fairness agency EQT, an IPO is an “attractive exit alternative,” and his agency ensures its portfolio corporations are all the time “IPO-ready” to maximise their choices. EQT has bought 5.3 billion Swiss francs ($6.65 billion) value of inventory from its portfolio firm Galderma this 12 months, because the skincare large’s shares have risen greater than 125% since its IPO in March 2024. Despite the flurry of exercise, the Sweden’s present IPO growth is simply relative to a quiet Europe and stays far from the market’s all-time peak. The practically $2 billion raised in 2025 thus far is dwarfed by the over $11.5 billion achieved in Sweden throughout the international IPO frenzy of 2021. The market’s well being can be contingent on the efficiency of its latest members. Investors, damage by the downturn that adopted the 2021 peak, are continuing with warning. “At this early stage in the IPO cycle, we see that investors generally are being rather selective and focusing on track-record and prospects for profitable growth,” famous SEB’s Fharm. For now, the outlook stays optimistic. “We’re quite confident and positive about the pipeline and what it’s going to look like for the next 12 months,” stated Nordea’s Dichow. “I think the 2026 is expected to be a big IPO year, not just in Sweden, but across the Nordics, with a lot of large cap IPOs.”