Sandberg Development
Sandberg Development is a family-owned Swedish investment company that backs technology-driven water companies for the long term. Founded in 1959 and based in Malmö, it invests across three sectors: water, safety, and quality of life. As of 2026 it has backed three water companies, including Orbital Systems, Drupps, and Spec-Imaging.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
Sandberg Development is one of the oldest names I track in water investing, and it does not look like a fund at all. It started in 1959 as Elektro-Sandberg, the electronics business Gunnar Sandberg built in southern Sweden, and only took the Sandberg Development name in 2015 when it renamed from GS Development. Today his son Per Sandberg chairs it and the family still owns the whole thing, which is why it can think in decades rather than in the seven-year clock most venture funds run on.
Sandberg Development splits its attention across three themes, water, safety, and quality of life, and the water side is where (don't) Waste Water pays attention. Its model is active ownership, taking a full or partial stake and then staying for the long haul rather than flipping the company, and across the whole group that adds up to 19 portfolio companies and about SEK 5.9 billion (north of half a billion US dollars) in 2025 revenue. In water specifically, the three companies I track in my Leviathan database are Orbital Systems, the Malmö startup behind a closed-loop shower that recycles its own water, Drupps, which pulls drinking water straight out of humid air, and Spec-Imaging, whose optical sensors read the chemistry of cloudy liquids in real time for water treatment.
Sandberg Development has also started building water companies from scratch rather than only buying into them. In 2023 it launched its own incubator, and in 2026 it backed PluvioFlow, a spin-out from Lund University that models how water moves through a city during the kind of torrential rain that is becoming the norm, and it put its incubator head Igor Miskovic on the board of Spec-Imaging the same year. There is a charitable streak too: the family pledged 100 million Swedish kronor over ten years to Malmö University for water research. For a holding company that most water investors have never heard of, Sandberg Development keeps quietly turning up wherever Swedish water tech gets built.
Water Commitment Score
Compiled from official filings, third-party records, and direct intelligence from investors and founders, in Leviathan · recomputed monthly · as of Jun 2026.
How they invest
Portfolio · 3 water companies
Frequently asked
- What does Sandberg Development invest in?
- Sandberg Development invests long-term in technology-driven companies across three sectors: water, safety, and quality of life. On the water side it backs circular and resource-efficient water technology, taking active ownership stakes and holding them for decades rather than chasing quick exits.
- Who owns Sandberg Development?
- Sandberg Development is owned by the Sandberg family. It was founded in 1959 by Gunnar Sandberg, grew out of his Elektro-Sandberg electronics business, was renamed from GS Development in 2015, and is chaired today by his son Per Sandberg, with Stefan K Persson as President and CEO since 2022.
- Where is Sandberg Development based?
- Sandberg Development is based in Malmö, in the Skåne region of southern Sweden, where it has invested since 1959. It builds local relationships around the Malmö and Lund university cluster while backing companies that sell into global water and technology markets.
- Which water companies has Sandberg Development backed?
- Sandberg Development has backed three water companies tracked by (don't) Waste Water: Orbital Systems, maker of a water-recycling shower; Drupps, which harvests drinking water from air; and Spec-Imaging, an optical water-measurement startup. Its 2023 incubator added the water-modelling spin-out PluvioFlow in 2026.
- Is Sandberg Development the same as GS Development?
- Sandberg Development is the current name of the Swedish family investment company formerly called GS Development, a name it dropped in 2015. The GS came from founder Gunnar Sandberg. Today it operates as a family-owned industrial holding company in Malmö, investing in water, safety, and quality of life.