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Stockholm-based Strawberry released version 1.0 of its AI browser on October 26, 2026, taking on ChatGPT and Claude with $6M from General Catalyst and EQT.
Key Takeaways
- Strawberry left beta on October 26, 2026, a year after opening to 10,000 users.
- The 12-person company raised $6M in October 2025, co-led by General Catalyst and EQT Ventures.
- Valuation and user numbers remain undisclosed; paid plans start at $20 a month.
Lead
Strawberry, a Swedish startup building an AI-native browser, moved out of beta on October 26, 2026, releasing version 1.0 for macOS and Windows. The Stockholm company, founded in 2023, positions the product as an alternative to US assistants such as ChatGPT and Claude for workers who do not write code. A free plan is available, and paid subscriptions begin at $20 a month and climb to $85 and $250 depending on credit usage.
What Does Strawberry Actually Do?
Strawberry embeds AI into the browser itself, so users build task-specific agents, which the company calls "companions," without programming. Target uses include sales, recruiting, customer support and marketing, where staff already spend the day moving between tabs.
Companions learn a team's workflows and can be shared across colleagues. Version 1.0 adds scheduled and event-triggered automation, plus sub-agents that split large jobs and run them in parallel. It also records video meetings from Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet locally, then turns them into notes and tasks.
The product pauses for human approval before sending emails, publishing posts or changing records. Passwords stay in the user's browser, and companies can keep customer data inside the EU. The platform is model-agnostic, meaning it does not tie customers to one AI provider.
CEO Charles Maddock argues that the browser is the natural home for this kind of work. In his telling, the person who is best with Claude keeps that knowledge on a personal laptop, and a shared browser layer spreads it across a team.
Who Backed Strawberry and at What Valuation?
Strawberry raised $6M in October 2025, in a round co-led by General Catalyst and EQT Ventures. Founders of Lovable, Hugging Face and Supabase also invested. Databases and press accounts label the round variously as pre-seed or seed, and the company has not published a valuation.
That ambiguity matters. A $6M round gives a 12-person team perhaps two years of runway in Stockholm, but it is small against the capital behind the US assistants Strawberry says it will compete with. The company has said it plans a Series A to expand across Europe and the US, and no such round has been confirmed.
Can a Small Startup Compete With US AI Platforms?
It can compete in a narrow slice, though not across the board. Strawberry does not build foundation models, so it avoids the compute costs that define the US labs. Its argument rests on workflow and distribution: a browser that already sits where office work happens.
The weak point is that the same giants are building browsers and agent features of their own. Meta's Muse, Gemini and ChatGPT all sell some version of automation, and each can bundle it with existing subscriptions. Strawberry's counter is European data residency and a no-code pitch aimed at teams rather than developers.
How Much Traction Does It Have?
The beta opened in October 2025 with 10,000 users, and public downloads followed in mid-February 2026. Strawberry has not disclosed current active users, paying customers or revenue. For a company asking enterprises to trust it with browser sessions, those figures will be the first thing a Series A investor requests.
What Comes Next for Strawberry?
Two things will decide the next stage: a priced follow-on round and evidence that companions stick inside teams after the first month. Pricing that scales with credit usage means margins depend on underlying model costs, which Strawberry does not control. If model prices keep falling, that favors the company; if the US labs bundle comparable features free, it squeezes the $20 entry tier.
Outlook
Strawberry has converted a 10,000-user beta into a 1.0 product with a clear no-code, EU-friendly pitch and backing from two established funds. The numbers that would show whether it is working, including paid users, revenue and valuation, remain unpublished. The next 12 months will show whether Strawberry's workflow focus can hold against better-funded rivals.
