Partner-led growth
How Nordic fintech companies can build a partner-led go-to-market strategy
In the Nordics, the buyer you want has usually decided whether to trust you before you ever meet. Here is how to borrow that trust from partners who already have it, step by step, with what we've learned running these rooms in Stockholm.
The short answer
A partner-led go-to-market reaches buyers through companies that already sell to them without competing with you: banks, other fintechs, infrastructure providers, adjacent software. In the Nordics it works because buyers, especially at banks, expect a warm introduction and rarely take cold vendor meetings.
The method: name the accounts you need, map who those buyers already trust, give partners a real reason to join you, build a shared room around one sharp question, agree roles and credit in writing, turn the room into content the partners distribute, and measure on named accounts. Then do it again, because the second room is easier than the first.
Why partner-led works in the Nordics
Nordic fintech runs on a small, tight network of decision-makers. The person you want at a bank has probably shared a panel, a dinner or a former employer with someone you could name. That makes the market unusually hard to enter cold, and unusually rewarding to enter warm.
We hear the same sentence from fintechs trying to sell into the region: "In the Nordics, you need warm introductions." Cold pitches to banks go unanswered. What gets answered is an invitation from someone the buyer already knows, to something the buyer actually wants to attend.
Three things make partners the natural route in:
- Buying committees are large. A fintech purchase at a bank typically needs six to ten people to agree, across leadership, finance, product, engineering, compliance and procurement. Most of them can't be reached with advertising. A partner who already works with that bank knows several of them.
- Trust transfers. When a company your buyer trusts puts its name next to yours, some of that credibility comes with it. That is the whole point of a co-host.
- Credibility compounds. Show up again and again next to companies your buyers already trust, and your name stops being new. Win at home first, then expand through the trust you've built, instead of starting over in every market.
Three kinds of partner worth having
Ecosystem partners
Companies that sell to the same buyer without competing with you: a bank, a payments provider, an ERP or accounting platform, a compliance tool. They bring the relationship.
Technology partners
Companies whose APIs, sandboxes or engineers make your product more useful, and who want developers building on them. They bring a reason to show up.
Stage partners
Conference organisers, ecosystem groups and newsletters that can give you or your guests a platform. They bring visibility, and a stage is one of the strongest invitations there is.
One distinction matters more than any other: a partner is not a sponsor. A sponsor pays for visibility in someone else's event. A partner co-creates something both of you need. If a partner feels like they're funding your event, the collaboration won't survive the second ask.
The method, in eight steps
1. Name the accounts and the people
Start with 30–50 target accounts and, for each, the roles on the buying committee. Be specific: "Nordic tier-1 banks" is a wish; "heads of digital and open banking at these eight banks" is a plan. The best opening question we know is: which three accounts would change your next year if they sat at your table?
2. Map who those buyers already trust
For each target account, list the companies that already sell to it, work with it or share a stage with it. That's your partner map. Look for overlap: one partner who knows five of your target accounts is worth more than five partners who know one each.
3. Choose partners for credibility, not size
The right co-host is the one your buyers already respect locally. When the Norwegian company Cardboard wanted to build relationships in Stockholm without an established Swedish network, the room we designed put it next to Gilion and Fairlo, two names with established local networks. Their CFO and Head of Finance led the discussion. The trust barrier dropped before anyone sat down.
4. Give before you ask
Partners say yes when the collaboration gives them something they want: a speaking slot, a newsletter or podcast feature, product feedback from developers, access to an audience they can't reach. Offer the stage first. In our experience, people who have been offered a platform take the next meeting.
5. Build one shared room around one sharp question
Pick the format your buyers will clear a calendar for. Executives come to a breakfast or a dinner with peers. Technical buyers come to build: a builder night or a build day on real APIs. Whatever the format, give it one question the room genuinely wants answered. "Is growth a judgement call?" fills a CFO breakfast. "Meet our product" doesn't. How to design a roundtable that creates pipeline.
6. Agree roles and credit in writing
Most partnerships that go wrong go wrong on unspoken assumptions. Before any invitation goes out, write down the brand order on the invitation, who invites whom, who pays for what, the hospitality level and what success means for each side. It takes an hour and prevents the most common failure we've seen: a partner who feels invisible on the day.
7. Turn the room into content your partners distribute
The people in the room are a fraction of the people you can reach with it. Partners, speakers, jurors and attendees all have a reason to post about something they were part of. That is how one build day reached 142 organisations with no ad spend: five partners, the jury and every team that built something shared it with their own networks.
8. Measure on named accounts, then repeat
Count what you can verify: who actually checked in, which of your target accounts were represented, which accounts had two or more people engaged, and which conversations turned into meetings within 30 days. Keep pipeline estimates separate and labelled. Then run the next room from a higher starting point: each one makes the next co-host easier to recruit and the next invitation easier to accept.
What it looked like in practice
The Embedded Finance Build Day on 25 August 2026 in Stockholm was a partner-led room from start to finish. Open Payments and Zwapgrid provided the banking APIs every team built on. Danske Bank, Worldline and Froda sent mentors, and their leaders sat on the jury. The day was vendor-neutral: not owned or branded by any one company.
Fifteen target accounts, including SEB Embedded, Fortnox, Klarna and Insurely, engaged with the event without registering. We count those as reach, not leads. The full counts, and the estimates kept separate from them, are in our track record.
The less visible result mattered as much: the partners got something they couldn't have bought. Seven of fifteen teams independently chose the same fraud problem, and three built the same missing building block. That's product feedback, and it's a big part of why partners say yes to the next one.
Mistakes that break a partner-led go-to-market
- Calling the partner a sponsor. We learned this one the hard way. The moment a company hears "sponsor", a collaboration starts to feel like a cost, and the next question is why they are paying for your event. Use host, co-host and partner, and mean it.
- Leaving roles unclear. "Who's responsible for the audience? Who orders the food?" If those questions are being asked a week before the event, the room agreement is missing.
- Choosing partners who compete with you. They won't introduce you to their best relationships, and they shouldn't.
- Running one event and stopping. A single room is a spike. The compounding comes from a series: the same accounts, deeper relationships.
- Inviting too broadly. A room that is "for everyone in fintech" is for no one in particular. Twelve of the right people beat sixty of the wrong ones.
- Measuring impressions. Reach is the least interesting number. Named people at named accounts, and the meetings that follow, are the ones that move a deal.
Partner-led growth isn't the same as co-marketing, though the two work well together. Here's how to tell them apart and when to use each.
A checklist before you start
- We can name 30–50 target accounts and the roles we need at each.
- We know which companies already sell to those accounts, and which of them don't compete with us.
- We have something to give a partner: a stage, an audience, product feedback, a feature.
- We've picked one question our buyers would clear a morning for.
- We've written down brand order, invitations, costs and what success means.
- We know what we'll count, and we'll keep estimates separate.
- We've pencilled in the second room before the first one happens.
Questions people ask
What is a partner-led go-to-market strategy?
A go-to-market where the main route to buyers runs through partners: companies that already sell to the same buyers without competing with you. Instead of buying attention, you borrow trust, through co-hosted rooms, introductions, shared stages and integrations, and you measure progress on the named accounts you set out to reach.
Why does partner-led growth work well in the Nordics?
Nordic fintech runs on a small, tight network of decision-makers. Buyers at banks and licensed institutions rarely take cold meetings from vendors they haven't heard of; they expect a warm introduction. A partner they already trust provides that introduction, and showing up repeatedly next to trusted names lets credibility compound.
What makes a good fintech partner for go-to-market?
A good partner sells to the same buyers as you without competing with you, already has credibility with those buyers, is willing to invite people under its own name, and gets something real out of the collaboration, such as product feedback, visibility or access to your audience.
How do you measure a partner-led go-to-market?
On named accounts, not impressions: verified attendance, the share of your target accounts represented, how many accounts have two or more engaged people, qualified conversations, and meetings booked within 30 days. Pipeline and revenue are tracked separately in your CRM, and estimates are labelled as estimates.
How long does it take to see results from partner-led growth?
A single co-hosted room can produce named conversations within weeks; the Embedded Finance Build Day produced 14 warm leads on the day. The compounding effect takes longer: each room makes the next co-host easier to recruit and the next invitation easier to accept, which is why a series of rooms works better than a one-off.