Alversjö Natur AB
Alversjö Natur AB is the community-held Swedish land company that owns the 100-hectare Alversjö farm outside Eksjö, in Småland — the permanent, year-round home of The Borderland, the Nordics' largest co-created "burn." Martin Källström was one of four co-founders, holding a parallel board seat in the wider Borderland network at the same time Research ↗, Wikipedia ↗; he withdrew from the company's leadership in 2025 Allabolag ↗. By any conventional business measure the company that resulted is an anomaly — zero employees, an 83%+ profit margin, zero dividends, and a declared long-term plan to dissolve itself into a non-profit foundation Research ↗, Allabolag ↗.
Registration and structure
- Alversjö Natur AB, organisation number 559357-0145, was formed on 2021-12-27, with its legal seat in Kinda municipality, Östergötland — despite its land and day-to-day activity sitting in Eksjö kommun, Jönköping county, and its postal address routed through a Kivra digital mailbox in Stockholm Allabolag ↗, Research ↗. Share capital is 25,000 SEK Allabolag ↗, vimmerbytidning-se ↗.
- Its filed purpose clause is deliberately broad: "Bolaget skall bedriva verksamhet inom jordbruk, markuthyrning, naturupplevelser och därmed förenlig verksamhet" — agriculture, land rental, nature experiences, and related activity Allabolag ↗, vimmerbytidning-se ↗. Underneath that plain-language purpose sit three SNI industry codes chosen to cover a wide operating palette: 68203 (rental and management of own or leased non-residential premises), 55300 (campsite operation), and 93290 (other recreational activities) — a combination a research compilation reads as deliberate legal armor letting the company act as landlord, campsite operator, and event host all at once Research ↗.
- The company registered for F-skatt (business tax status) on May 19, 2023, coinciding with its move into a more operational phase around the land acquisition Research ↗.
Founding: Martin, Veronica, and the board
Martin was one of four co-founders of Alversjö Natur AB, described in one research compilation as having served informally as the venture's PR-responsible while simultaneously holding a board seat within the wider Borderland network Research ↗, Research ↗. Sweden's Wikipedia article on the Borderland festival independently confirms the same structure: "mark som köptes av det nybildade företaget Alversjö Natur AB som grundades av styrelsemedlem Martin Källström i Borderland. Kallström var dock bara en av fyra medgrundare och drog sig tillbaka från ledningen av företaget 2025" — land bought by the newly formed company Alversjö Natur AB, founded by Borderland board member Martin Källström; Källström was, however, only one of four co-founders, and withdrew from the company's leadership in 2025 Wikipedia ↗.
The company's first officers, recorded with Bolagsverket by March 18, 2022, were just two people: Martin Källström as styrelseledamot (board member) and Veronica Gullbrandson, 45, as styrelsesuppleant (deputy board member) vimmerbytidning-se ↗. That March 2022 board filing followed the company's formal incorporation by about three months — Alversjö Natur AB itself was formed on 2021-12-27 Allabolag ↗, so the earliest board on record is the one Vimmerby Tidning reported in March 2022, not necessarily the company's founding board at incorporation; the sources don't specify who, if anyone, held those roles in the intervening months. Veronica Gullbrandson is Martin's partner since 2020, a master goldsmith and owner of Ädelsmedjan in Kisa — her standing on Alversjö Natur's earliest board is a direct extension of how personal and Borderland-network relationships overlapped in the company's founding structure. Also instrumental in the company's foundation and the acquisition of the Alversjö farm was Mathias Gullbrandson — one of The Borderland's original initiators poddtoppen-se ↗, later artistic director of Elysium. Full profiles on People & Partners.
The 2023 land purchase
Borderland first tested the Alversjö site in 2022, drawing roughly 1,000–2,000 participants, and the community recognized — in the words of one research compilation — that the place held "the right magic" Research ↗. Within Borderland's own account, the idea of owning land traces back further, to the pandemic: when the sold-out 2020 event was cancelled, the community asked whether members would forgo their ticket refund to seed a land fund instead. A quarter of the community agreed, raising an initial €100,000 — what organizer Hampus Lindblad calls an "Aikido move" of turning COVID's negative energy into forward motion ▶ 4:52. The fund then grew iteratively — "what if we add just €50,000, then we can get another hectare of land" — snowballing over several years from an initial ambition as modest as a summer cottage into the purchase of the full 100-hectare property ▶ 5:42.
- Smålands-Tidningen broke the purchase under the headline "Nakenfestivalen köper Alversjö – för rekordbelopp" (the nudist festival buys Alversjö — for a record amount), reporting that bidding on roughly 100 hectares of land put up for sale by Allmänna arvsfonden (the Swedish Inheritance Fund) closed early in 2022, and that Alversjö natur AB stood as sole buyer of the 85 hectares of agricultural land, with the purchase documents signed two weeks after the bidding deadline expired Smålands-Tidningen ↗.
- A research compilation adds detail unavailable in SmT's paywalled article: the bid was won on March 4, 2022; because the parcel had not yet been formally split off from the newly created nature reserve, the community rented the land for roughly a year before the purchase was legally completed on March 31, 2023, for 11.8 million SEK Research ↗.
- Purchased "with member donations and loans," per Borderland's own public introduction talk.theborderland.se ↗.
- The land is 100 hectares (~250 acres), of which about 85 hectares is cultivable farmland, bordering what are now six lakes — the name Alversjö is said to mean "the land of the 11 lakes," a count from an earlier era talk.theborderland.se ↗, ▶ 9:11. Roughly half the total area has been a formally protected state nature reserve, Alversjöskogen (295.3 hectares under Länsstyrelsen Jönköping), since 2021 — placing hard legal limits on where infrastructure, art, and camping can go Research ↗, talk.theborderland.se ↗.
- The farm had sat abandoned for decades and includes a burnt-down mansion whose ruins, per Hampus Lindblad, still held "a made bed, an old Steinway piano" when the community moved in — burnt down by local teenagers at an illegal party roughly five years before Borderland arrived ▶ 8:46.
The anomalous economics
Alversjö Natur AB's filed accounts show a company whose fundamentals look nothing like a conventional real-estate or leisure business:
| (KSEK) | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Net revenue | 960 | 1,680 | 1,870 | 3,727 |
| Operating result (EBIT) | 595 | 1,329 | 1,665 | 3,078 |
| Result after financial items | 595 | 1,068 | 1,359 | 2,751 |
| Tax paid | 92 | 165 | 213 | 428 |
| Year's result | 354 | 635 | 801 | 1,630 |
| Equity | 379 | 4,810 | 5,111 | 6,241 |
| Total assets | 2,210 | 14,798 | 15,297 | 15,969 |
| Employees | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
- Zero employees, every year on record. The company manages 100 hectares of land, infrastructural upgrades, bookkeeping, and facilities for thousands of visitors without a single payroll line — a research compilation frames this as empirical proof that a strongly ideologically motivated, decentralized "do-ocracy" network can outcompete wage labor at building large-scale, if temporary, infrastructure Research ↗. Do-ocracy, in the community's own definition: "Leadership through action. See a need? Don't complain — do it!" talk.theborderland.se ↗.
- An 83.4% profit margin in 2025, on 76.5% revenue growth that year — figures a research compilation calls "near-theoretically impossible" for an ordinary startup real-estate company, and which placed Alversjö Natur AB at rank 34,045 of 796,777 reviewed Swedish limited companies nationally Research ↗.
- Zero dividends to shareholders across all years on record — the company retains everything it earns Research ↗.
- Taxes paid regardless: 428 KSEK in 2025 alone, and 898 KSEK cumulatively across 2022–2025 (92 + 165 + 213 + 428) — the do-ocracy venture still pays into the Swedish state even as it pays out nothing to owners Allabolag ↗, Research ↗.
Open Collective: radical financial transparency
Rather than routing money through the company's own books, day-to-day contributions and expenses run through a public Open Collective page, fiscally hosted by Open Source Europe Open Collective ↗. As of capture (September 2026):
- €70,054.45 total raised, €50,420.12 total disbursed, an estimated annual operating budget of €12,173.90, and a live balance of €19,634.33 Open Collective ↗.
- 445 contributors, under the collective's own framing: "Alversjö is all of us" Open Collective ↗.
- Named admins running the finances include Heinz Robert, Christian Ubbesen, Anton Dalsmo, Caroline Bergmann, Hugi Aegisberg, and Gustav Open Collective ↗.
- Funded infrastructure projects include The Square (a central plaza with fresh-water taps, art, and seating) and The Secret Garden Open Collective ↗.
- A research compilation frames this as total transparency by design — "varje inkommen krona och varje utbetald utgift är synlig för alla medlemmar i realtid", every krona in and every expense out visible to all members in real time — the digital infrastructure that lets the company run without traditional corporate hierarchy Research ↗.
The Kulturbryggan "Kreativ Infrastruktur" grant
Alversjö Natur AB received a 1,620,000 SEK project grant from Konstnärsnämnden (the Swedish Arts Grants Committee), through its Kulturbryggan funding programme, under case number KN 2023-3218, for a project named simply "Alversjö" in the 2023:1 "Kreativ infrastruktur" (Creative Infrastructure) call Konstnärsnämnden ↗. The grant ran 2023–2025 and funded renovations aimed explicitly at letting the site's buildings be used for artistic activity year-round rather than only in summer alversjo.land ↗, Research ↗. In practice, per Hampus Lindblad on the Burning Man LIVE podcast, the money insulated two large rooms in the farm's old barn and installed a kitchen, running water, showers, and dishwashers — the basic infrastructure needed for a prolonged winter stay ▶ 38:56. Lindblad names the granting body in English as "Kulturrådet, the cultural bridge" and gives the amount as "160,000 euros" ▶ 38:56 — a looser translation of Konstnärsnämnden/Kulturbryggan and a currency conversion (roughly consistent with 1,620,000 SEK at period exchange rates near 10:1), not a separate grant; the two accounts describe the same funding. By October 2025, an Alversjö community update reported the renovation was "close to being finished," with the kitchen, bathrooms, and dining room close to ready Open Collective ↗. A research compilation reads the grant as proof the do-ocracy model has successfully mastered bureaucratic rhetoric to win institutional legitimacy and state funding Research ↗.
Year-round activity
Beyond the single week in July when Borderland itself takes place, Alversjö runs as a living, funded community year-round Research ↗:
- Work is Play weekends — monthly work weekends (scheduled recurring events, e.g. August, September, October, November, February) where members travel to Alversjö to clear brush, cut grass, renovate the barn, and build infrastructure as unpaid, playful co-creation Open Collective ↗, alversjo.land ↗. Alversjö's own site calls these arbetshelger, held every month, bringing together members and newcomers interested in the project alversjo.land ↗.
- The Village — a smaller, family-friendly, co-created gathering (2024 and 2026 editions on record), held roughly two weeks before Borderland itself, with its own principle that "the kids rule the street" Open Collective ↗, Burning Man LIVE ↗.
- Unconference — "Burning Questions," a co-created change-making unconference (2023 edition on record, with a third planned for 2025) with no pre-set speaker list, where the agenda is built by attendees to work through questions about inclusion, large-scale art, and the community's future Open Collective ↗, Research ↗.
- Additional recurring events include Midsummer, Monastic Spring Retreats, and the Full Moon Fall Flock ("a cozy low-key autumn burn") Open Collective ↗, plus the formal Alversjö Conference & AGM Open Collective ↗.
- Major renovation work under the Kulturbryggan grant has now made it possible to use the buildings year-round, with the site's own account noting that work will continue alversjo.land ↗. Attendance at the monthly work weekend itself varies sharply with the season — a handful of people in November, 30–50 by May or June, as the group builds momentum toward Borderland itself Burning Man LIVE ↗.
The CLT / foundation ambition
The company's long-term strategic plan is to dissolve its current limited-company form and convert full legal ownership of the farm to a non-profit stiftelse (foundation) — a structure a research compilation identifies with the American Community Land Trust (CLT) model: land acquired specifically to remove it permanently from the speculative real-estate market and hold it in perpetual, non-profit collective ownership Research ↗. The same compilation cites an outside research report (from the cooperative advisory body Coompanion) naming the Alversjö acquisition as one of Sweden's most prominent grassroots examples of an attempted CLT Research ↗ — a claim this archive has not independently verified against Coompanion's report directly. On the Burning Man LIVE podcast, Hampus Lindblad frames the same plan more plainly: "It's run as a limited liability company, a standard Swedish company, so far, where The Borderland Association has a large stake in the ownership of it, and over time, we're going to create a foundation so it'll be fully owned by the community" ▶ 9:40.
The research compilation frames the AB (limited company) structure itself as a pragmatic, temporary choice rather than an ideological one: Swedish company law offers a frictionless, well-understood interface to banks for borrowing, to Skatteverket for tax administration, and to state grant bodies like Kulturbryggan — even though the AB form's fundamental orientation toward profit generation sits in tension with the burner movement's own principles of decommodification and shared capital Research ↗.
Current board and Martin's 2025 withdrawal
As of the September 2026 registry snapshot, Alversjö Natur AB's board is Christian Ubbesen (chairman), Marcus Sandberg, Viktor Zaunders, Hampus Lindblad, and Caroline Bergmann Allabolag ↗. Martin Källström does not appear among the registered officers — a registry note states plainly: "Martin Källström, medgrundare av bolaget, förekommer inte bland de registrerade befattningshavarna vid arkiveringstillfället — han drog sig tillbaka från bolagets ledning 2025" — Martin Källström, co-founder of the company, does not appear among the registered officers at the time of archiving; he withdrew from the company's leadership in 2025 Allabolag ↗. A research compilation frames the same event as a deliberate step back once the structure was established: "En central nyckelfigur i bolagets tidiga fas var Martin Källström... Under år 2025 valde Källström dock att dra sig tillbaka från ledningen av aktiebolaget och lämna sina formella uppdrag inom strukturen" — a central figure in the company's early phase, Martin Källström chose in 2025 to step back from the company's leadership and leave his formal posts within the structure Research ↗. None of the sources in this archive explain the specific reasons behind the 2025 withdrawal.
Board member Hampus Lindblad, who is quoted extensively above from the Burning Man LIVE podcast, is a longtime Borderland co-founder and organizer (part of the "proto-Borderland" group of 10 people on a Swedish beach in 2010) who also founded Blivande, a makerspace, co-working space, and event venue in Stockholm's harbour district explicitly inspired by Borderland — one research compilation reads his board seats across Blivande, Ön AB, and Sensestack AB as evidence that Alversjö functions as a rural extension of established urban co-creation networks rather than an isolated rural project Research ↗. Full detail on Hampus Lindblad's Borderland role and the trust-based governance he describes lives on The Borderland.