Nordic Startup Awards: The Grand Final winners and a look behind the curtains
On the 26th of May the Nordic Startup Awards grand final took place in Helsinki, Finland. See the winners and get a more thorough impression of the entire initiative here.
Before the final Kim Balle, CEO of Nordic Startup Awards said the following about the event:
“We have received hundreds of nominations and more than 10,000 votes have been submitted. The Grand Finale will be an exclusive event for about 500 spectators, and the afterparty will be opened to +1000 – and I am really proud of that!”
…And the winners are:
Fonder of the year: Kristo Ovaske of Finnish startup Smartly.io
Developer Hero: Martina Elm of Swedish Confetti, where you can create beautiful websites for events
Best Social Entrepreneurial Startup: Danish Be My Eyes, who lets you “lend your eyes to the blind”
Best Accelerator Program: The Icelandic mentorship-driven seed stage investment program Startup Reykjavik. On Facebook Startup Reykjavik summed up the meaning of winning their category very well – and with it the purpose of the entire initiative:
Startup Journalist of the Year: Niel Murray of The Nordic Web
Best Office Space: Norwegian MESH (read more about MESH here)
Best Bootstrapped: Norwegian Dirtybit – the first company to succeed with a real-time multiplayer mobile game: Fun Run (50 million downloads, March 2015), and again with Fun Run 2 (15 million downloads, February 2015).
Peoples Choice Award: Danish Unipegma. The upcoming game changer in the study book industry who recently received a pay-it-forward grant from We Love Startups also expressed their great gratitude for receiving the award:
Best professional Investor: Swedish Creandum who has invested in e.g. Swedish Spotify and Danish autobutler.dk
Best Newcomer: Norwegian Unacast, who powers the world’s largest network of proximity data, enabling brands and retailers to retarget customers online based on offline behavior.
Startup of the Year: Danish Falcon Social who offer tools for social media management for enterprise.
Taking a step back
During the last weeks we, at Nordic Startup Bits, have been telling quite a few stories about the nominations, the national finals and various winners. Now, it is time to take a step back and get a thorough impression of the organisations and people behind this fantastic initiative.
The Nordic Startup Awards is a series of awards committed to celebrating Nordic ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit across the startup ecosystem. Its overall aim is to bring together and celebrate the best entrepreneurs and organisations within the Nordic startup ecosystem.
“And there is good reason to be proud!” says Kim Balle, CEO of Nordic Startup Awards
The Nordic success paradox
Browsing through the past winners of Nordic Startup Awards, names like Endomondo, Arctic Startup, Plain Vanilla and Shape pop up. All startups that have made it big both at home and internationally.
“Not many regions have the pride of producing so many successful and interesting startups, but we are too modest about it. Nordic Startup Awards is an event that highlights success and takes on this Nordic success paradox. We [Nordic Innovation] acknowledges this, and believes that the region can spun even more successes if we simply dare to speak up about it,” says communication adviser Frederik Waitz in Nordic Innovation.
Nordic Innovation and Nordic Startup Award initiated a partnership in the beginning of 2015. The goals of Nordic Startup Awards aligns well with the current work of Nordic Innovation.
“Nordic Startup Awards have branches into all five Nordic countries and can bring a lot of attention to the Nordic startup ecosystem and the region’s potential”, adds Frederik Waitz.
Congratulation – you are nominated
A lot of hard work is put into the Nordic startup ecosystem and continuous recognition of some of the most remarkable players is a huge motivational factor.
“People are genuinely very happy when they find themselves on the list of nominees. It is a proof of recognition – which I think we all thrive for in some way or the other,” says Kim Balle.
