To date, there has been a limited number of SIB projects in Sweden, but several are in the planning stages. The Swedish SIB model differs from its European counterparts in the sense that the roles of the national government and municipalities are more significant than in the raditional SIB model. However, the current situation of heavy public sector involvement has made updating the social finance system more arduous and time consuming. Since the SIB model is still relatively new, there are some suspicions and even prejudices towards it as a foreign model in Swedish municipalities. Municipalities have also voiced concerns over the fact that savings from successful social investments would benefit the regions and the state but not the local level (Balkfors et al. 2020; Good and Juhlin 2020). Actors interested in investing in SIBs are municipalities and non-profit organisations, such as the Leksell Social Ventures; they do not include private investors. In Sweden, few incentives exist for private investments in SIBs compared to other European countries, so legal and tax reforms may be needed to increase the share of impact investors (Good, Jonathan and Juhlin, Mattias 2020)

Sweden’s first SIB project was a model developed in Norrköping that focused on the well-being of children in foster care with partners such as Norrköping Municipality, Leksell Social Ventures, the Committee on Mental Health of the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions, and the company Health Navigator. Leksell Social Ventures acted as the financier with an investment of SEK 10 million. Norrköping committed to paying at least 40% of this sum back (or 100% payback if there was a definitive reduction in social service costs). If even greater success was achieved, the payback would be up to SEK 2 million. The activities were carried out by an intervention team which was specifically recruited for this reason. Success was measured by observing costs of social services and children’s school performance before and after the intervention. The project was in active operation from 2016 until 2019 (Norrköpings kommun et al. 2020). The final report concluded that, during a 24-month evaluation period, the costs of social services for municipalities rose (by SEK 7.5 million), but the well-being and school performance of the children increased. Prolonging the evaluation period to 36 months showed a decrease of SEK 4 million in social service costs. Overall, the final report concluded that the project was successful since it is likely that there were additional positive outcomes that were not included in the evaluation model (Sveriges Kommuner och Regioner & RISE Social Impact Center 2021).

In 2020, Region Stockholm launched a Health Impact Bond in cooperation with SEB bank (as intermediary) and Skandia (as investor) aiming to prevent type 2 diabetes by targeting people with a prediabetic condition. The project planned to run for 5 years with a budget of SEK 30 million. Another aim of the project was to develop a model that, in the future, may be applied to similar diseases that require substantial prevention efforts (Region Stockholm 2020). 

Similar to the Tyhy-SIB in Finland, a SIB project focusing on reducing sick-leave days at workplaces was also launched in Botkyrka and Örnsköldsvik. Here, the project was mainly public with governmental investors in municipalities acting as the bond-issuing actors. The programme ran from 2018-2021 with a budget of SEK 22 million for Botkyrka and SEK 18 million for Örnsköldsvik (Good and Juhlin 2020; Social & Health Impact Center 2022).

The two examples above showcase the type of social issues that SIBs in Sweden are concerned with at the present time (mainly those responding to health issues).