Luis von Ahn, co-founder of Duolingo, which has over 500 million users worldwide, has made his first investment in Sweden, backing Desquare AB, the company behind the Designage digital signage platform.
The investment is being made through a Swedish consortium led by IT entrepreneur Martin Norström, CEO of Norteam. Financial terms were not disclosed.
“We invested because their platform not only matches the best in the industry – it outperforms them in both simplicity and innovation,” Norström said.
For Desquare, the backing represents both capital and international validation. Peter Brauner, CEO and founder of Desquare AB, said the fast-growing company has built a cloud-based SaaS platform for digital signage from the ground up and received positive responses from customers. The new investment will support scaling operations and accelerating international expansion.
Desquare is strengthening its advisory board with representatives from the investor consortium as part of the transaction.
The company’s Designage platform is already deployed by Nordic customers in retail, real estate, and food and beverage, including Starbucks Norway, Nationalmuseum and Fabege. With the new capital, Desquare plans to expand beyond Sweden into additional international markets.
Comment by Antonia Hamberger
Desquare, the company behind the Designage platform, appears to exclusively operate in the Nordic markets. There’s not much to be found about the company, except it was founded in 2018 by a gentleman called Peter Brauner and lists companies like Starbucks Norway and JC Decaux as customers on its website. One of its distribution partners is the Swedish integrator Norteam whose CEO also acts as an investor in Desquare. With additional financial backing, the company now aims to expand outside the Nordic region, probably seeking to form partnerships with integrators from other European regions.