Mikael Samuelsson

Professor Mikael Samuelsson has been involved in award winning research, consultancy work and training of entrepreneurs since 1998. His research is used in both education and in governmental programmes for entrepreneurs. He is involved in development programmes in the US, Europe, Sweden, Uganda, Kenya, Zambia, Mozambique Namibia and Botswana.

Samuelsson is the founder of three business incubators/accelerators and has extensive experience from technology transfer and tech start-ups, as a founder, CEO and investor. Between 1997 and 2014 he served as the CEO for SSE business labs, with prominent start-ups such as Klarna a so-called Unicorn, valued at over USD 1 billion. His start-up experience ranges from life science companies such as Spatial Transcriptomics to fast moving consumer goods. In addition, Samuelsson has been part of the development processes for the Swedish governmental programmes in entrepreneurship since 2004.

He has studied over 1000 new venture projects from birth and over a period of fifteen years. His current research interests include start-up funding, with an emphasis on the long-term effects of different types of funding; business incubation/acceleration in developed and developing countries; effectuation and systematic search and its long-term consequences on firm performance; paradox theory and its application in entrepreneurship research. He is a two time winner of the National Federation of Independent Business annual award for best general paper at Babson Entrepreneurship Research Conference.