Voi founders’ new AI startup Pit has become the latest rising star out of Stockholm

Pit, founded by former Voi CEO Fredrik Hjelm and led by ex-Voi CEO Adam Jafer, has emerged as a Stockholm AI startup to watch after raising a $16 million seed round led by a16z. The company targets enterprise automation by creating custom software that learns a client's business processes and then automates them—primarily back-office, service, and support functions rather than customer-facing or conversational AI. Pit differentiates itself with two pillars: Pit Studio, which lets employees guide the AI through workflows, and Pit Cloud, which delivers the resulting automations with enterprise-grade governance, certifications, and auditability. Pilot customers in telecom, healthcare, and logistics began testing in mid-January, and the startup is now scaling commercially with forward-deployed solution engineers.

Pit's leadership has courted both attention and controversy. CEO Adam Jafer initially claimed the company employs no junior engineers because AI agents handle their work—a statement he later softened, acknowledging a need for a balanced team as the company scales. Co-founder Fredrik Hjelm also preempted diversity concerns by noting on X that the team includes women, though Pit's public profile at the time didn't reflect that. Jafer emphasizes that Pit's goal is not job cuts but moving employees to more valuable work. With a16z's backing, Pit joins Stockholm's growing AI ecosystem—home to Lovable and other unicorn-hopefuls—and positions itself as an "AI product team as a service," distinct from competitors offering agent-building or vibe-coding tools.